An Unidentified French Incunable: Sir John Mandeville, Le lapidaire en francoys, [Lyon, c. 1495-1496]

Abstract

• The British Library's copy of the Lapidaire en francoys attributed to Sir John Mandeville, previously dated [c. 1530], can be shown on typographical grounds to be an incunable edition printed in Lyon c. 1495 or 1496. The book is printed with a very peculiar Lyon bastarda type whose printer is tentatively identified as Martin Havard. A census of other early editions of the Lapidaire shows that the newly identified incunable edition is the earliest to survive.