Recent Acquisitions
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CLÜVER, Philipp.
Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem, quam novam …
Wolfenbüttel, Caspar Johann Bismarck for Conrad Buno, 1686.
The 1686 edition of perhaps the most important geographical textbook of the early modern period, an introduction to global geography by the German antiquarian and geographical pioneer Philipp Clüver, enlarged and supplemented by the German geographer Johann Buno.
£2500
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COMIDAS DE CARBOGNANO, Cosimo.
Primi principi della gramatica Turca ad uso dei missionari apostolici di Costantinopoli ...
Rome, stamperia della Sac. Congr. di Prop. Fide, 1794.
The first complete Ottoman Turkish grammar published in Italian, compiled by the Catholic Armenian dragoman Cosimo Comidas de Carbognano (translator to Count de Ludolf, minister of the Two Sicilies to the Ottoman Porte in the late eighteenth century) and published by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda...
£1500
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[BICKERSTAFF, Isaac (attributed).]
The Life, strange Voyages, and uncommon Adventures, of Ambrose Gwinett, formerly known...
London, printed for J. Barker, [c. 1785-94].
Very rare edition of this enormously popular novella, a kind of ‘Campden Wonder’ narrative involving an illusory murder, survival after hanging, flight to Jamaica, reappearance of the abducted ‘victim’, and reabduction by pirates. The attractive frontispiece depicts Gwinett surrounded...
£850
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TYRE, William, Archbishop of, and Giuseppe OROLOGGI (translator).
Historia della guerra sacra di Gierusalemme,...
Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562.
First Italian edition of William of Tyre’s (1130–1186) important account of the first two crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with the addition of a seventeenth-century manuscript detailing a uniquely Italian rendition of the tale of the Wandering Jew.
£2800
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[LA ROCHE, Sophie von.]
Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim. Von einer Freundin derselben aus Original-Papieren und andern...
Leipzig, bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1771.
First edition of Sophie von La Roche’s first novel, a best seller which brought her fame and recognition throughout Germany, and was translated into French, English, Russian and Dutch. It became a pattern for the genre of the epistolary novel in Germany, and has even been cited as a forerunner...
£950
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[DAGUERRE.] MAYER & PIERSON [after Charles Richard MEADE.]
Carte-de-visite albumen print portrait of Louis Daguerre.
Paris, late 1860s.
In 1848 the pioneering American photographer Charles Richard Meade secured the commission for which he is now best known, a series of daguerrotypes of the medium’s founding father Louis Jaques Mandé Daguerre. The five images, known as the white-tie series to distinguish them from other portraits,...
£1200
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PORTA, Giambattista della.
De humana physiognomonia … libri IIII; qui ab extimis, quae in hominum corporibus conspiciuntur signis,...
Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius for [Frankfurt,] Peter Fischer, 1593.
The second Latin edition and the first to be published in Germany of this richly illustrated work on physiognomy by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), a beautiful copy in strictly contemporary German white calf.
£2500
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[BIBLE, Ecclesiasticus.]
Σοφια Σειραχ sive Ecclesiasticus, Graece ad exemplar Romanum, et Latine ex interpretatione...
Franeker, Gilles van den Rade, 1596.
First editions of two scholarly works by the distinguished Flemish theologian and orientalist Joannes Drusius (1550–1616), who served as professor of oriental languages at Oxford and Leiden, and then of Hebrew at Franeker.
£1250
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MILL, John Stuart, and Nikolai Gavrilovich CHERNYSHEVSKY, translator.
Osnovaniia politicheskoi ekonomii s nekotorymi...
St. Petersburg, [n.p.], 1865.
First complete edition of Mill’s Principles in Russian, translated by the economist, nihilist and social critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), ‘corrected and expanded from the most recent (fifth) edition of Mill’s book, published in 1864 in New York’ (‘From the publisher’, our...
£3750
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[PRIMER.]
Nouvel alphabet en français, divisé par syllabes.
Orléans, ‘Chez Berthevin, libraire’, [c. 1820].
An unrecorded Orléans-printed devotional primer, including litanies to the Christ Child (with vertically-printed refrains) and the duties of children toward their parents.
£450
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[CATECHISM.]
A B C D … Orazione Dominicale … Salutazione Angelica …
Bologna, [Ferdinando Pisarri] ‘all’insegna di S. Antonio’, [early 1700s].
An apparently unrecorded ABC and catechism for children, illustrated with small woodcuts, printed at Bologna in the early eighteenth century, most likely by Ferdinando Pisarri (1659–1737).
£3500
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[ROUSSEAU, Pierre.]
Considérations sur le théatre de l’opéra. Novembre 1822.
[Paris,] de l’imprimerie de Rignoux, [1822].
Very rare proposal for a new opera house in Paris by the architect Pierre Rousseau (1751–1829), annotated by the author and accompanied by an autograph letter.
£475
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[THOMAS À KEMPIS.]
Messer Giovanni Gerson. Utile & divota operetta della imitatione di Giesu Xpo …
Florence, Piero Pacini da Pescia, 16 April 1505.
Scarce edition of an anonymous Italian translation of the Imitatio Christi, with a striking woodcut of Christ to the title.
£4000
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PONTANO, Giovanni.
De rebus coelestibus.
Naples, ‘ex officina Sigismundi Mayr Germani : summo ingenio artificis Ioannetto Salodio : Antonio Vuerengrundt : Evangelista Papiensi :...
First editions of three works on cosmology, ethics, and astrology by the Neapolitan humanist, poet, and polymath Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), an important sammelband from the celebrated library of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), professor of natural philosophy and natural history at the University...
£11000
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MACROBIUS, Ambrosius Theodosius.
Somnium Scipionis ex Ciceronis libro De republica excerptum; Macrobii … primi diei Saturnaliorum...
Venice, Filippo Pinzi, 29 October 1500.
Sixth and last incunable edition of Macrobius, illustrated with a world map, with extensive early marginalia.
£9500
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DIODORUS Siculus.
Bibliothecae historicae libri XV. Hoc est, quotquot Graece extant de quadraginta quorum quinque nunc primum Latine...
Basel, Heinrich Petri, August 1559.
Important edition, the first to be overseen by Sébastien Castellion, of Diodorus’s influential ‘Historical library’.
£2500
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CASAL, Gaspar do.
Axiomata christiana ex divinis scripturis & sanctis patribus.
Coimbra, João da Barreira and João Alvares, 1550.
First edition of Gaspar do Casal’s major work of theology, which informed his participation in the Council of Trent, from the library of another participant in the Council.
£2500
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ANGELI, Alessandro degli.
In astrologos coniectores libri quinque … Nunc primum prodit [sic] in lucem. Cum indicibus pernecessariis,...
Lyons, Horace Cardon, 1615.
First edition of this thorough attack on astrology by degli Angeli (1542–1620), head of the Jesuit college at Rome, this copy with a presentation inscription by the Lyons publisher and printer Horace Cardon (1566–1641).
£1600
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SENECA, Lucius Annaeus.
L. Annei Senecae opera, et ad dicendi facultatem, et ad bene vivendu[m] utilissima, per Des. Erasmum Roterod....
Basel, ‘in officina Frobeniana’, 1529 [(colophon:) Basel, Johann Herwagen, March 1537].
Second Erasmus edition of the moral essays and letters of Seneca, owned and annotated by Ludovicus Carinus (d. 1569), friend and later foe of Erasmus himself.
£5000
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VALERIUS MAXIMUS, Gaius.
Factorum dictorumque memorabilium libri novem. Praeterea Caii Titii Probi, in decimum lib. huius operis,...
Mainz, Ivo Schoeffer, 1544.
An attractive copy, with an interesting provenance, of a scarce Mainz edition of Valerius Maximus accompanied by Probus’ Epitome.
£1500