1657 THOMAS TANNER. The Entrance of Mazzarini. Rare French History after Death of Cardinal Richelieu.

Published in 1657 during the Interregnum, Thomas Tanner’s The Entrance of Mazzarini was one of the earliest efforts at digesting and popularizing contemporary European political history for an English audience. By translating and synthesizing continental accounts, the text details the critical power transition in France following Cardinal Richelieu’s death in 1642 and Cardinal Mazarin’s subsequent rise alongside the regency of Anne of Austria. Beyond chronicling French statecraft, the work reflects a strong appetite among 17th-century English scholars for foreign news and political models during England's own era of transformation under Oliver Cromwell.

Its author, Thomas Tanner (1630–1682), was an English scholar and clergyman educated at St Paul's School and Cambridge who became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, following Parliamentary visitations. Written when Tanner was in his mid-twenties as his very first publication, the work, though criticized by some contemporaries for relying too heavily on foreign sources (how very English of them), was a point of personal pride for Tanner, who presented custom-bound copies to Oxford's Bodleian Library before later studying law at Gray's Inn and eventually taking holy orders.

Genuinely rare on the market, the only example offered at auction in the last 100 years being at Christie's in 1969, where it fetched $115.00. 

Presented to the Pennsylvania College for Women by long-time Professor, Dr. Mary Wilson Brownson [1874-1973]. Prior to that, given to Ellen Fowke by her father [1849]. 

[Tanner, Thomas] The Entrance of Mazzarini. Or; Some Memorials of the State of France, between the Death of the Cardinall of Richelieu and the beginning of hte late Regency. Collected and Digested out of Forraign Writers. By an indifferent hand. Oxford. Printed by H. H. Printer to the University. for Thom. Robinson. 1657. 12mo. 114pp.

Textually good + in early 20th century buckram library binding. Title trimmed tightly at head, also similarly at a few points throughout. Generally very crisp and clean. A small sepia stain at extreme upper right corner on the last few leaves. Worthy of a better binding at some point.