This collection of portraits of rulers, pontiffs, and celebrated men spans biblical and classical antiquity through to the 17th century. It obviously took a fair bit of assembling after printing. Not only is the title page hand-coloured, but the entire work makes use of a collection of portraits and descriptions published as the Chronologie collée, a series of large sheets containing several hundred portraits which could then be cut up and sold in a variety of ways, either separately, or mounted on pasteboard for wall hanging. Here they have been cut out and stuck to blank leaves to form an album, rather like a sticker book. Although small and ephemeral, some considerable effort was put into making the portraits as authentic as possible, and each appears to be individualized, as can be seen here in those of Henry III and IV of France, and their queens.