Folio (32,6 x 21 cm), [6] cciii ff, + [1 bl.] f. Bâtarde type, double column. Title printed in red and black within Du Pré's four-block architectural woodcut border, 6 FULL-PAGE WOODCUTS, the first repeated once. Beautiful criblé initials. Some damp staining in the beginning of the volume. Lacking ff. 27, 28, 31. Modern brown calf binding, with gilt filets, red edges, gilt title on spine.
Ref. Brunet III, 571; Fairfax Murray French 294 ; Fact and fantasy (Vershbow collection, 1976), n°24. Not in Adams, not in Machiels. VERY RARE second edition of the first French translation (originally published by Antoine Vérard c. 1492) of the Jewish Wars, one of the great monuments of early Jewish literature. The illustration blocks were first used in various French vernacular incunables, mostly from Vérard's shop. The presentation cut (a6v and repeated on o6r) is a block from Vérard's Orosius; the battle cut (s4v) is an altered block from the Vérard Josephus; the particularly fine woodcut of Jerusalem (A5v) comes from the 1486 Abbeville St. Augustine's City of God
