The History of the Civil Wars of France.: Translated from the original Italian of Henrico Caterino D’Avila

IMPRESSIVE PRODUCT OF A DUBLIN FEMALE PRINTER
first Irish edition folio (35.6 x 22 cms.) [4 (title & preface)], [2 (list of subscribers)], 734, [16 (index)]pp., title page handsomely printed in red and black, attractive woodcut initial letter borders at section heads, early nineteenth (or possibly late eighteenth) century polished calf, triple gilt fillet border on sides, spine panelled by broad raised bands, panels richly gilt tooled, black morocco title label, marbled edges, marbled endpapers, minor cracking at ends of joints with trivial chip at head of rear joint, else a very nice tall, wide-margined and fresh copy.
Armorial engraved bookplate of the Earl of Clancarty.
ESTC t145513 Printed by Elizabeth Jones, printer and bookseller. This is one of the largest format and impressive publications of mid-eighteenth century Dublin. There are 163 named subscribers, three of whom took multiple copies giving a total of 178 copies. It is probable that about 200 copies were printed.
Davila (1576 – 1631), Italian historian and diplomat, in 1583 became a page in the service of Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II of France and later, having entered military service, fought through the French civil wars until the peace in 1598. In 1599 he returned to Padua and later Venice where he held several official positions. His history of the civil wars in France, Istoria delle guerre civilé di Francia, was completed in 1630 and is important as that of a participant who had witnessed the leading personages and events. Although he had initial difficulties finding a printer for his manuscript it became an immediate success on publication and over two hundred editions followed. This English translation was made for Charles I of England by William Aylesbury and Charles Cottrell and first published in 1647. It was again printed in London in 1758.

The bookplate is probably that of the politician and prominent diplomat Richard Le Poer Trench (1767–1837), second earl of Clancarty, of Garbally Court, near Ballinasloe in Co. Galway. His mother was a granddaughter of Luke Gardiner, a subscriber.