Pierre de RONSARD. The first four books of the Odes... Together his Bocage... - Pierre de RONSARD. L'Hymne de France. Paris, Michel Vascosan, 1549. 2 works in one volume in-8, brown basane, gilt arms in the centre of the boards, spine with 5 ornate nerves (Binding of the late seventeenth century). Barbier, MBP, II-2, 3, 4, 5 // De Backer, 389 bis // Olivier, 2350 // Rothschild, 669-671 // Tchemerzine-Scheler, V-415/416. I. (10 f.)-170 f.-(2 f.) / A8, *2, a-x8, y4 (with y3 signed z3) // II. (8 f.) / A8 / 98 x 159 mm. First editions of these two very rare works, which are among Ronsard's first published works. There is a debate between several bibliographers about different editions of the first four books of the Odes. The summary is very skilfully commented on by Barbier-Mueller in Ma bibliothèque poétique (II-n° 5). Without going into the details of this polemic, we shall follow his opinion that there are several states of this edition and indicate the composition of our copy. This one: - contains the Suravertissement followed by the Privilève ; - contains the misprint on the reverse of sheet 136, Boucage for Bocage ; - contains the error on sheet 155, which was mistakenly numbered 557; - contains the two errata leaves at the end of the volume. The Hymne de France is sometimes regarded as Ronsard's first publication (cf. Picot in the Rothschild catalogue), sometimes as his second after L'Épithalame d'Antoine de Bourbon (cf. Tchemerzine). Sometimes, as here, we find the Quatre premiers livres... and L'Hymne bound together; here is the reason: the Quatres premiers livres contain in fine, as we have said, two errata leaves which are often missing and which are present here. Curiously, these two errata pages concern both books, even though they were published by two different publishers. This singularity has led some bibliographers, such as Seymour de Ricci, to think that the first collection and the booklet must have been sold together and that a copy of the Quatre premiers livres... not containing L'Hymne would be incomplete. Here we agree with Barbier-Mueller who, because of a typographical correction to the word Hymne in Hinne and an error in the name Ronsard spelt with a T, considered these two publications to be two separate editions. A copy bearing the coat of arms of François Chartraire de Montigny, a member of the Burgundy Parliament in 1692, who died in 1728 and left behind an important library. The copy contains a few old handwritten annotations and a few underlined passages. Binding a little rubbed, title-piece rebacked. Title of the Odes stained and restored, a few brown stains, probably due to faded ink. Provenance: J.B. Clergéon (? manuscript bookplate dated 1633), François Chartraire de Montigny (arms) and Mme Gueneau de Mussy (bookplate).