La France Metallique Contenant les actions celebres tant publiques que privées des Rois et des Reynes: Remarquées en leurs Mmédailles d'Or Argent etBbronze. Tirees des plus Curieux Cabinetz

A Paris, Chez Jean Camusat..., 1636. Folio, 317 x 211 mms., 3 parts in one volume, blank], [vi, including engraved title-page with engraved portrait of Louis XIIon verse, one leaf of text, further engraved title, verso, 131 engraved (on recto only) plates of medals. BOUND WITH: Explication ou Description Sommaire des Medailles Contenues en l'Oevre de La France Metallique. Avec Trois Tables. La Premiere des Rois et Reines de France pour lesquelless ces Medailles ont este frappees, et les deus autres, des devises et legendees des Revers d'icells. Par Jacques de Bie, Chalcographe. A Paris, Chez Jean Camusat..., 1636, pp. pp. 396 [397 - 399 notes to reader, 400 colophon]. BOUND WITH: Les Familles de France Illustrees par Les Monumens de Medailles Anciennes et Modernes, Tirees des plus rares & curieux Cabinets du Royaum, sur les Metaux d'Or, d'Argent & de Bonze. A Monseigneur l'Eminentissime Cardinal Duc de Richelieu. Par Jacques de Bie, Chalcographe. A Paris, Chez Jean Camusat.., 1736, pp. [vi, including engraved title-page and printed title-page in red and black], 245 [246 blank, 247 - 254 index, 255 colophon, 256 blank]. 3 parts in one volume, contemporary calf, neatly rebacked with old spine and morocco label laid, down, notes in ink on front paste-down end-paper, in pencil on recto of front free end-paper, other notes in pencil as marginalia throughout texts; margins of first title-page with portrait on verso a little frayed, first title-page creased, some minor worming in last few leaves slightly affecting text, but otherwise a very good copy. The engraver Jacques de Bie (1581 - 1640) published a number of dictionaries, checklists, or anthologies of various of medals, coins, portraits etc.; and he possibly engraved of a portrait of Mary Tudor. Epharim Chambers, in his Cyclopaedia: Or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, questioned how authentic many of these engravings are, asserting that most of them were imaginary. In an online paper entitled "Collection, conviction, and contemplation; or, Picturing coins in early modern books, ca. 1550-1700," Professor Brian W. Ogilvie comments, "De Bie wanted to do for the French monarchy what sixteenth century antiquarians had done for the Roman emperors: produce a series of metallic portraits and reverses that would illustrate the kings of France, from Charlemagne to the present, and their noble deeds. Faced with a distinct lack of such medals, especially for the Carolingians and early Capetians, De Bie made them up, covering up his inventions (not entirely successfully) by emphasizing the research he had conducted to find them. De Bie's text told one story, but his engravings sometimes told another: he was honest enough to include the real source of a picture (for instance, a tomb completed centuries after its occupant's inhumation) while portraying it in the form of a medal." See Mark Jones, "'Proof stones of history': The status of medals as historical evidence in seventeenth-century France," in Medals and coins from Budé to Mommsen, ed. M. H. Crawford, C. R. Ligota, and J. B. Trapp (London: The Warburg Institute, University of London, 1990), 53-72.