PERISSIN, Jean (before 1546-1617) and Jacques TORTOREL (fl: 1568-1575).
Le Tournoy ou le Roy Henri 2 sur blessé à mort le dernier le Juin 1559".
Fine woodcut engraving signed "Perrissim. Fecit. 1570" within the platemark, woodcut title above and legend beneath.
Geneva: Nicholas Castellin, 1569-1570.
14 1/2" x 19 1/4" sheet, 20 1/2" x 25" framed.

Provenance: The Paul and Marianne Gourary Collection of Illustrated Fete Books "Splendid Ceremonies".

The third plate in the celebrated series "Premier volume contenant quarante tableaux ou histoires diverses qui sont memorables touchant les guerres, massacres et troubles advenus en France en ces dernieres annees. Le tout recueilli selon le tesmoignage de ceux qui y ont este en personne" first published in Geneva in 1569 - 1570. The publisher's preferred etched issue found in the earliest editions of 30 plates. This fine and dramatic scene depicts the tragic moment at the tournament of June 1559 when Henri II (1519-1559), King of France was ousted from his horse by Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery (1530-1574) when a lance splintered, went into his eye and shot upwards into his brain, causing a subdural hemorrhage. In spite of this horrific injury,."the king managed to get to his chambers, where all of his physicians gathered in the hope of curing him. Initially, his surgeons cleaned the splinters out his eye, purged him with rhubarb and other purgatives, and bled him - as was the practice of the day - of 12 ounces (34 centilitres) of blood. The king's injuries were so serious that many famous physicians were sent for, including Andreas Vesalius. While the courtiers waited for Vesalius to arrive, the physicians who were at the king's bedside made several experiments, including thrusting the lance through the eye sockets of four decapitated criminals in the hope of discovering the extent of the king's injuries. When Vesalius arrived five days later, he used the brain of a cadaver to view the same type of injury. Ambroise Paré, the famous French surgeon, was also consulted on the king's condition. Despite the presence of the most famous surgeons in Europe, and their best efforts to save him, the king died nine days after receiving his injury" (Wellcome Library online).

The publishing history of the "Quarante Tableaux" is extremely complex, and explained in great detail by Philip Benedict in his excellent "The Graphic History: the Wars, Massacres and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin" 2007. However the events depicted begin with the "special meeting of the Parlement of Paris in June 1559 at which Anne Du Bourg spoke out before king Henry II against the harsh repression of Protestantism through [to] a minor skirmish between Hugenot and Catholic forces along the Rhone in March 1570. The first dozen or so plates show the events that led up to the outbreak of open civil war in spring 1562. The remainder of the series is comped of events from the first three French Wars of Religion (1562-1563, 1567-1568, and 1568-1570). Above all it is a compendium of battles (15 pictures), sieges (5 pictures), raids (4 pictures) and massacres (3 pictures - 5 if the massacres from prior to the outbreak of the First civil war are included)" (Benedict, page 6).