Folio, 2, 132 ff et 232 ff avec 32 et 44 bois dans le texte. La plupart des coins en haut sont habillement restaurés au premier volume, une page de titre en copie. Quelq. légères mouillures au deuxième volume. Plein veau du 18/19e siècle. Remarquable et importante impression en caractères gothiques, ornée de magnifiques bois, dont 9 belles et précieuses pl. à pleine page, rappellent l'illustration de Venard, et 67 bois plus petites. Seconde édition aussi rarissime que la première de 1516 (cf Brunet)
"This work, composed between 1468 and 1473 and first printed by Regnault in 1516, with a later edition by Petit in 1530, set out to discuss the historical, spiritual and ceremonial significance of six fleeces from Biblical and Classical literature. Although only three books were completed (two are here published together), this is far more than an Argonautical there-and-back-again. Fillastre was a bishop and ducal counsellor as well as Chancellor of the Order of the Golden Fleece, continental Europe's answer to the Order of the Garter, and his Toison d'or is partly an establishment of a moral foundation for the Order which had been founded by Philip III of Burgundy in 1430 and during its own aetas aurea in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries included emperors, kings, princes, dukes and the great nobility of Europe amongst its members. Fillastre's work is also a more general celebration of contemporary Burgundian culture with its links to the time of Charlemagne as well as implying connections martial with Ancient Rome and philosophical with Classical Athens. The numerous cuts range from charmingly simplistic ""stock"" images that can be, and are, called upon to represent scenes both ancient (Classical and Biblical) and more modern, to a grandiose scene depicting the presentation of the work by Fillastre, in bishop's mitre, to the famous image of Charles the Bold of Burgundy and, perhaps most impressively, a sophisticated illustration of the martial exploits of Charles, count of Valois, a delicately interwoven battle scene graphically depicting the violent clash of opposing forces."
