[Jacobus de CESSOLIS]. Le Ieu des eschez moralise nouvellement imprime a Paris. In-folio, green morocco, triple fillet with supra-libris from the de Mello library, 5-rib spine decorated with gilt fillets and fleurons, bright red morocco lining decorated with large Renaissance-style gilt fillet decoration, double endpapers, gilt edges (Chambolle-Duru / Marius Michel). Bechtel, 397/J-137 // Brunet, III-480 // Fairfax Murray, 629 // Macfarlane, 72 // Rothschild, II-1506 // Tchemerzine-Scheler, V-206 // USTC, 26056. (4f.)-CII / a4, b-s6 / 34 lines on 2 columns, gothic car / 185 x 267 mm. Very rare first French edition of a text attributed to Jacques de Cessoles and published in Latin in Utrecht in 1473. The author, a French religious born in Cessoles in Picardy, from which he took his name, lived in the 13th century. In his Jeu des échecs moralisé (Moralised Chess Game), he seeks to derive rules of conduct for all states from the way the pieces move (Larousse). The translator is unknown, but the translation is generally attributed to Jean de Vignay or Vigny. Le Jeu des échecs moralisé ends on folio l5. It is followed by a book which is very similar to the previous one: a book on the order of chivalry, and then, on page p5, the novel Mélibée et Prudence, a moral novel by Christine de Pisan which first appeared around 1480 and of which this is the second publication. The illustration consists of a large grotesque for the title and 4 woodcuts, including a very fine one on the verso of the title depicting a king and queen playing chess in a frame with twelve compartments depicting various characters, the ploughman, the marshal, the spendthrift, the knight, the judge... A large woodcut (b4v) depicts Christ crucified surrounded by God and the evangelists, a woodcut taken from Vérard's Bible and repeated on folio p4v, and a smaller woodcut at the end of the Jeu des échecs moralisé depicting a female soldier and a man armed with a club, a woodcut that had been used for another of Vérard's publications: le Chevalier Délibéré. Macfarlane describes another wood on folio p4v but Fairfax Murray, in his lengthy description of our copy, states that he consulted the copy in the British Museum on which Macfarlane wrote his description and that folio p4v is probably a facsimile. Macfarlane's error in describing the illustration on folio p4v is supported by Picot's entry in the Rothschild catalogue, which describes a copy identical to ours. A very rare edition. The USTC lists six copies in public libraries. Faint discoloration of the spine and the edges of the boards. Reversal of the 3rd and 4th leaves and very skilful angular restorations to the first 20 leaves not affecting the text, only the engraving on the verso of the title having been slightly retouched in ink. A very fine copy bound in the arms of Baron Seillière with his supra-libris from the Mello library. Provenance: Baron Achille Seillière (supra-libris, I, 5-14 May 1890, no. 135) and Fairfax Murray (label, no. 629).