INTRODUCTION.
Ill
designs ; and I am willing to believe that the originalBlocks themselves, like those for the triumphs of theEmperor Maximilian, are yet in existence. 5 Why theWork was first published at Lyons instead of Basle, seemsto be a sort of puzzle for which no very satisfactory solutioncan be offered : unless it be from the presumed superiorityof art in the former city. And why the publication of theWork itself was delayed so long, does not appear tobe sufficiently evident. The original Publishers of it wereMelchior and Gaspar Trechsel; and Frellon seems to havebeen, latterly, both Editor and Publisher. Giles Corrozetwas, in all probability, the author of the French metricalversion.
The intention of Frellon, in this beautiful publication,was to gratify the taste for art which was then generallyprevailing ; but to gratify it with objects more worthy ofchaste eyes to gaze upon. That Editor tells us, in hisaddress "to the Christian Reader," (subjoined below, 6 )that "instead of figures of Venus and Diana, andlibidinous forms of other Goddesses, which only injurethe mind by error, or poison it by depravity," he hasexhibited "subjects connected with holy writ, which point,finger-like, to the penetralia of Hagiography." The attempt
5 Bibliographical Decameron; vol. i. p. 178: and Bibliographica*Tour, vol. iii. p. 529, &c. Edit 1821.
6 Franciscus Frellonius Christiano lectori S.
En tibi, Christiane lector, sacrorum canonum tabulas, cum earundemet Latina et Gallica interpretatione officiose exhibemus : Illud in primisadmonentes, ut reiectis Veneris et Dianse cseteranimque dearum libidi-nosis imaginibus, quse animum vel errore impediunt, vel turpitudinelabefactant, ad has sacrosanctas Iconas, quse Hagiographorum penetraliadigito commonstrant, omnes tui conatus referantur. Quid enim pulchrius,aut Christiano homine dignius, quam ad has res animum adiicere, qua?solas fidei mysteria sapiunt, et Deum creatorem nostrum vnice amare, acveram religionem profited praecipunt ? Tuum igitur erit hunc nostrumlaborem aequo animo suscipere,. ac cseteros commonefacere, ut eiusmodiomnia ad Dei largitoris benencentissimi gloriam, et honorem dirigerememinerint. Vale, Lector, et fiuere.