LUDOLPHE LE CHARTREUX. Le Premier [- Second] volume du grant vita Christi translaté de latin en françoys. Paris, Guillaume de Bossozel, s.d. [ca. 1534]. 4 parts in one in-folio volume, midnight blue morocco, triple framing of cold fillets around a scroll of foliage, cold fleurons in the corners, spine decorated with cold motifs and gilt title, triple inner cold fillet, gilt edges (Late 19th century binding). Very rare illustrated Gothic. Second edition printed by Guillaume de Bossozel, the successor of Gilles de Gourmont and Didier Maheu, whose typographic equipment he used. The work consists of two volumes, each containing two parts. The text is printed on two columns in Gothic type. The title of the first volume is printed in red and black with a large historiated lettrine in an engraved frame, where Didier Maheu's initials can still be seen; the title of the second volume is decorated with an old frame by Gilles de Gourmont, whose name has been masked. A large six-compartment full-page woodcut depicting the Six Days of Creation is repeated on the verso of each of the two titles. The text is illustrated with some fifty rather curious archaic woodcuts. The Great Life of Christ - or Grant Vita Christi - is a major spiritual work by Ludolphe le Chartreux, a 14th-century Dominican from Saxony. The two-part work consists of 181 chapters devoted to the life of Christ, which Ludolphe compiled on the basis of the four Gospels and Acts, as well as Origen, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great, Raban Maur and Bernard of Clairvaux. Each chapter includes a presentation of a specific section of Sacred History, its interpretation by an ecclesiastical author and a final prayer. The work was first printed in 1472. A superb copy, luxuriously produced. From the library of Édouard Rahir (1931, II, n°585), with bookplate. Minor tape repair at foot of first leaf. Moreau, IV, n°1066 - Bechtel, V-228.