APULÉE. L'Amour de Cupido et de Psiché, mère de volupté, taken from the fifth and sixth books of the Metamorphosis of the philosopher Lucius Apuleius. Nouvellement historiée, & exposée tant en vers italiens que françoys. - Followed by]: MAUGIN (Jean). Le Plaint du vaincu d'amour, avec aucuns epigrammes de divers propoz amoureux. Paris, Jeanne de Marnef, widow of Denis Janot, 1546. In-16, fawn calf, double frame of cold fillets with gilt fleurons at the corners and in the centre, spine decorated with small gilt fleurons, smooth edges (Binding of the period). First edition of one of the most beautiful French vignette books of the Renaissance. The illustration consists of 4 handsome cartouches and 32 wood-engraved figures in various frames, accompanied by Italian eights and their corresponding French translations, which a manuscript in the Chantilly library attributes to Claude Chappuys, Antoine Héroët and Mellin de Saint-Gelais. The Italian text, in italics, is inserted in the lower part of the frame, with the facing French text on the other page. Le Plaint du vaincu d'amour, the second part of the volume, was written by Jean Maugin, known as le Petit Angevin. This poem, followed by a few epigrams, is not illustrated. Bibliographers are unanimous in recognising the extraordinary finesse of this illustration as one of the masterpieces of sixteenth-century wood engraving. Didot, in particular, saw it as "the most perfect masterpiece to come out of the printing works of Saint Jean-Baptiste". These woodcuts, notes Mortimer, are "based on Italian engravings prepared by Agostino Veneziano and the Maestro del Dado, of the school of Marc Antonio Raimondi, who worked from a suite formerly attributed to Raphael but now given to Michiel Coxie." The engraving was probably done by Jean Cousin or Bernard Salomon. Mortimer mentions two editions, in no order of priority: our copy belongs to state B, as does the Hoefer copy. A precious and rare copy in an attractive contemporary binding. Sixteenth-century handwritten bookplate on one endpaper: Claude Dupalaix, de Villefranche. Binding skilfully restored, a few stains and minor spotting, small scratch in margin of f. F4. Mortimer, I, n°33 - Didot, Essai sur l'histoire de la gravure sur bois, p. 161 - Brun, p. 113.