French songbook titled “Recueil des plus beaux... Lot 839

French songbook titled “Recueil des plus beaux airs de ce temps. 1620”, illuminated on vellum and silk. [Hainaut (Mons ?)] 1620 Manuscript on paper, silk and vellum, 4to oblong, c. 17,5 x 21,5 cm, [274] ff. (incl. a number of blanks), written in expert calligraphy (1st marbl. protection leaf f. 7 wrinkled and strengthened with sellotape; tear in f. 15). Cont. boards covered with pink silk, silk doublures, flat spine, gilt gauffered edges, covered with decorative mod. cloth, interleaved with marbl. paper protecting the illustrations on vellum. In good condition. A rare and beautiful example of luxurious manuscript illustration in 17th-c. Hainaut, only available to a limited clientele of well-to-do and demanding book-lovers. The manuscript was ordered by “Melchior Dassonleville Montensis” (ownership entry dated 1620, written in “lettres cadelées” (calligraphic letters). The Dasson(le)ville family was well-known in Hainaut during the 17th c. According to E. Poncelet (in a letter accompanying the manuscript) Melchior is the son of Baudry Dassonleville, a Mons lawyer (d. 1619). In november 1628 Melchior married Marie Quintin. The Dassonleville arms occur in 3 of the manuscript’s miniatures, with the device "Tum demum satiabor". There are many similarities between this manuscript and Ms. III 858 of the Royal Library of Belgium, dating from the years 1619-1621, and at one time in the imperial library at Tsarskoye Selo (Russia). The Brussels ms. is in the same format, has 14 coloured illustrations and almost certainly comes from the same workshop. It contains 35 Dutch and 144 French songs - 26 of which also occur in the present ms. Their origin and originality are still to be researched in depth. Contents: 74 French songs, with an alphabetic index at the end, including 22 "airs nouveaux", 14 "chansons nouvelles", 8 "chansons amoureuses", 7 "airs de cours", 2 "ballets nouveaux’, 2 "chansons en gaillarde". Some have a specific title: La Dauphine, La Picarde, La Vallette, La P