MAIMBOURG, Louis (1610-1686). Histoire du pontificat de S. Gregoire le Grand.Paris: Claude Barbin, 1686.

First edition of Maimbourg’s history of the pontificate of Gregory the Great, in a contemporary binding bearing the arms of Baron Colbert and his family.Large paper copy. Louis Maimbourg, a French Jesuit and historian, authored several other works, including histories of Arianism, the iconoclast controversy, the Great Schism of 1054, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Calvinism, and the pontificate of Leo I. Cioranescu 44429.

Quarto (287 x 211mm). Engraved frontispiece of St. Gregory (occasional spotting and soiling). Contemporary French red morocco gilt, all edges gilt, with arms of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, eldest son of Baron Colbert (1619-1683), who inherited his father’s library and adopted his arms (spine and covers rubbed). Provenance: Jean-Baptiste Colbert fils(1651-1690; binding and ink inscription, “Bibliotheca Colbertina,” on title) – Edgard Stern (1854-1937, Parisian banker and collector; bookplate, confiscated from him by the Nazi authorities following their occupation of Paris after May 1940 and eventually restituted to Mme Edgard Stern; family sale, Drouot, 27 June 1988, lot 106).