DE SALES, François de. Traicté de l’Amour de Dieu. ONE OF THE GREAT CLASSICS OF CATHOLIC MYSTICISM

Rouen: Chez Daniel Louvet, ruë aux Juifs, près le Palais, 1646. Small octavo. Title with Jesuit device. Contemporary French red morocco, covers richly tooled in gilt with a splendid sunburst design radiating from a central rosette, surrounded by leafy sprays, volutes and corner ornaments, within gilt borders of scrolling foliage; rebacked spine gilt in compartments with floral tools, raised bands; gilt edges; marbled endpapers. Early engraved armorial bookplate: Ex Libris C. Animé Semin. Sti. Sulpitii Presbyteri. Light age toning and occasional spotting to text, binding a little rubbed at extremities, lacking clasps, but overall a handsome and very well-preserved copy.

First Rouen edition of this celebrated devotional classic by St François de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop of Geneva, Doctor of the Church, and one of the most influential spiritual writers of the Counter-Reformation. The Traité de l’Amour de Dieu (Treatise on the Love of God), first published in 1616, is regarded as his magnum opus, articulating with great eloquence the theology of divine love, grace, and mystical union with God. This 1646 Rouen edition is printed by Daniel Louvet, active in the mid-seventeenth century as a noted Norman publisher of religious works.

Provenance: From the library of the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, with the fine engraved armorial bookplate of C. Animé, Sulpician priest. The gilt morocco binding, with its radiant sunburst motif, is a superb example of mid-17th century French devotional luxury binding, very much in the style of bindings executed for important ecclesiastical libraries.

A beautiful copy of one of the great classics of Catholic mysticism, preserved in a contemporary French morocco binding of great elegance and provenance.

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