*268. (temporary importation) Manuscript circa... Lot 268

*268. (temporary importation) Manuscript circa 1500. manuscript collectionof miscellanies in Latin called "Recueil Lefèvre" from the manuscript collection of Louis-Bénigne Baudot. Small in-4 of 118 ff. in late fifteenth or early sixteenth century writing, by different hands. Half vellum over wood covered with reused vellum, traces of clasp (period binding). Handwritten title on front cover "Auctoritates auree ex diversis auctoribus exacte / J Le fevre", later handwritten title on spine "Recueil m.s. de Lefevre", old handwritten (partly faded) library label on tail "Lotharius [...] Innocent. [...] M 134 [or 154]". The handwritten mention "J Le fevre" on the binding and the various handwritten or stamped ex-libris "X Lefevre", the other provenance of the Carmelite Convent of Dijon (other manuscripts with this double provenance are preserved in the Dijon Library) and the subject of the manuscript allow to attribute with more certainty the provenance of this manuscript to Jean Le Fevre of Dijon. "Originally from Dijon, where he was born around 1492, Jean Le Fèvre was in 1537 the secretary of Cardinal de Givry who, among other things, was bishop of Langres (1529-1561). Jean Le Fèvre was therefore canon of Langres and Bar-sur-Aube from 1548 to 1558. After the death of Cardinal de Givry, he taught in Paris and was a prosecutor at the University. He was renowned for his learning, especially in theology and mathematics. He is considered a somewhat universal mind because he was interested in the mechanical arts and in particular in instruments for measuring time. He left a manuscript dating from 1527 which deals with the construction of sundials and his nephew, Etienne Tabourot, reported that he had dealt with "the mechanics of clock-making" and called him the "discourager of hours". For recreation, he also cultivated poetry and composed a manuscript under the title "Inventaire ou répertoire de mots français" which Tabourot reworked under the title "de l'amitié et de la parenté" (of friendship and kinship) and made into the Dictionnaire des Rimes françaises (Dictionary of French Rhymes) which appeared in 1572 in Paris at Galiot du Pré and which had an expanded edition in 1587. Marin Mersenne in L'Harmonie universelle also spoke of a work (probably from 1563 and now lost) by Jean Le Fèvre entitled Triple Musicque pour les instruments linéaires, superficiaires et cubiques; these terms are found in Tabourot's preface to the Dictionnaire des Rimes. Jean Le Fèvre also gave in 1536 "the version of the Emblem of Alciat, by him translated from the time of the first Latin printing" under the title "Livret des Emblèmes de maistre André Alciat mis en rime françoyse et présenté à monseigneur Ladmiral de France" [...]" Académie des sciences, arts et belles lettres de Dijon. Various successive marks of provenance: "Ex Bibliotheca PP. Carmelitarum Divionensium" at the top of the 5th leaf confirmed by a later handwritten note at the top of the 1st leaf "aux carmes de Dijon", handwritten bookplate of Louis Bénigne Baudot ("Museo L. B. Baudot"), monogrammed engraved bookplate of Paul Court (great-grandson of Louis-Bénigne Baudot). The first flyleaf contains an extract from an incunabulum (or post incunabulum): text of Cato relating to prostitution, cut (in 3 parts) and pasted down. The first 3 leaves contain notes and extracts from various authors and thinkers including Seneca, Horace, Sallustus, psalms, etc. The verso of the third leaf is illustrated with 3 ink drawings: vanities representing a monarch, a religious and a woman to whom death dressed as a monarch, a religious or a woman is addressed. The following 36 leaves are written in brown ink with initials and underlined in red ink: copy of the "De Miseria Condicionis Humane" of Pope Innocent III (Lotario dei conti di Segni c. 1160-1216) complete with the 3 parts and the different chapters dealing with subjects as diverse as generation, nudity, death, wisdom, anxiety, poverty, flesh, pain, compassion, anthropophagy, culpability, greed, wealth ambition, avarice, gluttony, drunkenness, lust, unnatural coitus, pride through the case of Lucifer, arrogance, dress, evil, the coming of Christ, corpses, the condemned, hell, eternal punishment, divine judgment, etc. etc. After two blank pages, folio 43 (in a different hand from the previous ones) contains an excerpt from chapter 13 of book 21 of St. Augustine's City of God, with a large and beautiful initial letter C drawn in ink on the reverse. Leaf 44 bears on the verso a verse text of 25 lines and on the recto under a text of 6 lines a curious drawing in ink representing a madman or a demon surmounted by a kind of phylactery bearing the