AMBROSE, Saint). Ant[oine] LENOIR, translator.

Traduction de deux Livres de St. Ambrose escrits ? Marceline sa soeur sur le sujet de la virginité.

      [Low Countries or Northern France,] 1642. - Manuscript, 12mo (168 × 112 mm), ff. [94], including 3 blanks at front and rear, plus 10 fine engraved plates by Hieronymus and Anton Wierix. Title within penwork and green wash cartouche (later highlighting in ochre crayon). Old waterstain affecting upper forecorner of title, occasional thumbing and other minor staining. Contemporary limp vellum, sides and flat spine with double ruled in blind. Slightly soiled. Later ownership inscription (dated 1738) of Monsieur Dartin, canon of the cathedral of Notre Dame, Amiens (Picardy). A French translation (probably unpublished) of the first two books of Saint Ambrose?s De Virginibus, one of the central texts of European female devotion. We have been unable to identify Antoine Lenoir from any other related works and this may be the only example of his translation. Added to the manuscript is a set of engraved plates selected from the many fine devotional engravings made by Hieronymus and Anton Wierix, active in Brussels and Antwerp around the year 1600. The plates are tailored to the subject and include portraits of the early Christian female martyrs Petronilla, Cecilia, Demetrias, Pulcheria, plus the Five Wise Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13) and Saints Teresa and the Dutch saint Saint Lidwina of Schiedam (whose relics lay in Brussels). Mauquoy-Hendrickx, Les estampes des Wierix conservées au Cabinet des estampes de la Biblioth?que royale Albert Ier: catalogue raisonné, enrichi de notes prises dans diverses autres collections, 1983.