La redécouverte des livres d’Alexandre Amédée de Lauzières de Thémines, un bibliophile méconnu du xviiie siècle

Résumé 0

The finding of an inventory made in 1780, now in the Archives nationales in Paris, allowed to undertake a research in the the Bibliothèque Abbé-Grégoire in Blois on the books that belonged to Monseigneur de Lauzières de Thémines, bishop of Blois from 1776 to 1791. Comprising over 13,000 volumes, his library was seized in 1792 as an emigrant’s property and was integrated into the initial core of the Blois public library, which opened in 1805. The prelate’s books can be identify by their endpapers and bindings, attributable to the great Parisian bookbinder Nicolas Derome. Covering all the fields of the knowledge of his time and reflecting the encyclopaedic ambitions of its owner, this library is the collection of a well-informed bibliophile, who based his purchases on Guillaume Debure’s Bibliographie instructive, and who multiplied the number of rare editions, fine paper copies and illustrated works. This collection is also remarkable by the presence of a large number of Italian and, more over, English Books, which are rarely found in such large numbers in 18th century French libraries. A comparison with several prestigious contemporary collections, still preserved or known from sale catalogues, shows that Mgr de Thémines can be placed among the great collectors (La Vallière, Méjanes, Rochegude) of the Age of Enlightenment.