BUTTET (Marc-Claude de).

L'Amalthée. Nouvellement par lui reveue, mise en ordre, et de la meilleure part augmentee. Lyon, Benoît Rigaud, 1575. In-8, fawn morocco, Du Seuil decor, ornate spine, interior lace, gilt edges (Quinet). First separate edition of Amalthée, a collection of Petrarchan sonnets by Savoyard poet Marc-Claude de Buttet. It contains 320 sonnets and a dizain, 193 of them unpublished; the remaining 127 sonnets were first published following the two Livres des verses in 1560. The few elements given - allusions to Paris, but also to a château on the banks of the Rhône, to Savoy landscapes, to another mistress named Anne - have led to numerous hypotheses as to the identity of Amalthée (Nicolas Ducimetière). Born in Chambéry around 1530, Marc-Claude de Buttet was one of the most active players in the literary cenacle that gravitated around Marguerite de France, Duchess of Savoy, in the Savoy town. His verses were praised by Ronsard, who did him the honor of inviting him on a voyage to the Îles Fortunées. Buttet was the cousin of Ronsard's admirer Jean de Piochet, whose library contained numerous texts by the Vendôme-born poet. He died in Geneva in 1586. Pleasant, fresh binding. J. P. Barbier-Mueller, IV-1, n°58. - Baudrier, III, p. 319. - N. Ducimetière, Mignonne..., p. 203. - Diane Barbier-Mueller, Inventaire..., n°109.