Poètes, princes et collectionneurs: mélanges offerts à Jean-Paul Barbier-Mueller (review)

Jean-Paul Barbier-Mueller has become ‘un nom, un mythe’ (p. 7) thanks to his art and book collections, his creation of museums, his foundation for the study of Italian Renaissance poetry, his gift of rare books to the International Museum of the Reformation, and his numerous publications on ethnographic and literary issues. This octogenarian bibliophile will perhaps be best known to French Studies readers as the scholarly author of Ma bibliothèque poétique (Droz, 1973–2005), and it is no surprise that his wide sphere of interests is reflected in the twenty-four contributions and two preliminary texts assembled here — one of the latter being Marc Fumaroli’s preface, a perceptively lyrical analysis of collectors, Ronsard, Calvinism, and the sixteenth-century ethos. The studies vary in length from six to fifty-two pages and constitute a delight for the bibliophile and the literary historian. The five sections are devoted to Ronsard, little-known poets, poetry in Geneva and Switzerland, Italy, and libraries and bibliophiles. As Francis Higman wittily reminds us in his essay, bibliographies at first sight can appear arid and illegible, but they can also, as Barbier-Mueller illustrates, ‘apporter un approfondissement, un éclairage, un sens de la découverte’ (p. 109). The reader is able to follow researchers seeking to provide explanations from the laconic facts available. For example, Rosanna Gorris Camos offers a valuable description of the library of Renée de France, which disappeared for the most part in flames, and of that of her niece, Marguerite de France, which was dispersed far and wide; Isabelle de Conihout reconstitutes the parcours of the Franciade manuscripts; Mireille Huchon casts doubts on the accuracy of bio /bibliographical descriptions of Louise Labé, and even if some claims cannot yet be made with absolute certainty, the skilful presentation of their probability gives a new reading to the texts. The textual analyses also open up new perspectives, whether on the influence of Ronsard on two poets in Reims (Jean Balsamo); the nature of biography and its relationship with the portrayal of the individual either in words or in images (Michel Jeanneret); the revealing connection between rhyme scheme, musicality, and the structure of Louise Labé’s sonnet sequence (Jean Vignes); the contextual ‘censorship’ exercised, in later life, by de Bèze to silva IV in his Poemata (Max Engammare); or the exploration of the use of place names in Montaigne’s Journal de voyage and their importance in our understanding of his possible thought process (Jean-Marc Chatelain). A number of illustres inconnus emerge from the obscurity of the Réserve and will stimulate further research, including Jean Willemin (Gilles Banderier), the ex-monk Protestant pastor Antoine Chanorrier (Nicolas Ducimetière), Pierre de Javercy (Catherine Magnien-Simonin), and Hans Wilhem Stucki (Alain Dufour). Such studies, and others I have not mentioned, enrich not only our knowledge of literary practice but also our understanding of the role of the written word in sixteenth-century society in France, Italy, and Switzerland, and of its importance in the realms of commerce, communication, and aesthetics — a knowledge made accessible largely owing to the generous efforts of collectors and bibliophiles.