DEDICATED TO CHARLES II Le Savory du Ciel ou Meditation sur le pseaume Cent un par Jean Rivet

Small quarto (horizontal chainlines & foolscap watermark) bound in contemporary calf with raised bands to the spine and gilt decoration. Three blank endpapers precede a manuscript title page, followed by the dedication to Charles II ‘A Tres puissant et Serenissime Roy Charles deuxiesme Roy de la Grande Bretagne’ [pp] 11 which is signed at the end ‘J Rivet De Caussade en guerci le 23 Apuril 1664’ followed by the text of ‘Le savory du Ciel ou Meditation sur le pseaume cent un’ [pp] 22.

A major figure in European Calvinism, Andre Rivet (1572-1651) published his Meditation on Psalm 101 in 1638, having spent a period in Oxford in the 1620s and late settling in Breda. His nephew Jean Rivet was born in 1610, marrying Marthe Chadeau in 1632, and here taking his uncle’s text at a time of plague and reusing it for presentation to Charles II. To his uncle’s anti-plague meditation Jean Rivet has added a fulsome 11 page dedication to the new King of England, only recently departed from exile in France. A fascinating piece of Anglo-French cooperation.