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Continental

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Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.

We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia.  Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.

 
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  1. LACTANTIUS.

    Opera.

    [Venice,] Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.

    Magnificent incunable edition of the works of Lactantius, a fine product of the first Venetian press, established in 1469 by Johannes de Spira and continued by his brother Vindelinus from 1470 until 1473. This was the fifth impression of the works of Lactantius, the hugely successful North African...

    £25000

  2. [LEXICON.] [ALENIUS, Arnoldus, i.e. Arnout van EYNDHOUTS.]

    Lexicon Graecolatinum post omnes hactenus editiones maxima iam...

    Venice, Alessandro Brucioli and brothers [i.e. Antonio and Francesco Brucioli], 1546.

    First edition of the Lexicon edited by the Dutch humanist and poet Arnout van Eyndhouts, or Arnoud de Lens, known as Arnoldus Alenius. Alenius’s formation took place in Paris, then Ferrara and Bologna. His proficiency as a Greek scholar earned him the post of librarian to the Spanish ambassador...

    £2000

  3. LIVY; [Pedro DE LA VEGA, translator].

    Todas las decadas de Tito Livio paduano, que hasta al presente se hallaron y fueron...

    [(Colophon:) Cologne [i.e. Antwerp?], Arnold Birckmann], 1553.

    A handsome copy of Livy’s History in Spanish, containing the surviving books as well as Florus’s Epitome, in a contemporary Augsburg binding produced by a bindery in the service of the Fugger family.

    £3500

  4. LIVY, Titus. 

    T. Livii Patauini […] ex XIIII Decadibus Historiae Romanae ab Urbe condita, Decades, prima, tertia, quarta,...

    Paris, [Michel Vascosan for] Oudin Petit, 1543 [– Michel Vascosan for himself and Oudin Petit, 1542]. 

    A much-praised edition of Livy’s History, reprinting Vascosan’s 1535 edition and including the philological corpus on Livy by the most established humanists of the time: Rhenanus, Gelenius, Grynaeus, Glareanus, Badius Ascensius, Valla, and Sabellico. 

    £3800

  5. MABLY, Gabriel Bonnot, Abbé de.

    Observations on the Romans. Written originally in French …

    London: Printed for R. Griffiths … 1751.

    First English edition of this Roman history (first published in the same year in Geneva as Observations sur les Romains). Mably studies episodes from the pre-imperial era (the seven kings, Gracchi and Punic wars), before skimming the vast majority of imperial dynastic rule to finish with a chapter...

    £875

  6. 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

  7. MARLIANI, Bartolomeo. 

    Urbis Romae topographia. 

    Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, September 1544. 

    First illustrated edition (third overall), showing the archaeology and antiquities of Rome as known in the sixteenth century.  First published in octavo by Antonio Blado in 1534 and reprinted at Lyons by Sébastien Gryphe later the same year, Marliani’s topography of Rome remained the foremost...

    £5500

  8. MELCHIOR, Christian. 

    ‘Synechia sive summa lectionum Plutarchicarum a domino conrectore huius scholae Salderianae praelectarum. ...

    [Brandenburg an der Havel, 1620.] 

    An unpublished early seventeenth-century manuscript recording lectures on Plutarch’s pedagogical work On the Education of Children, bound with a scarce printed edition of the same text, and a rare edition of the poems of Theognis and other Greek lyric poets, each with numerous marginal and...

    £6500

  9. MERCURIALE, Girolamo. 

    De arte gymnastica libri sex, in quibus exercitationum omnium vetustarum genera, loca, modi, facultates,...

    Venice, [Lucantonio II] Giunta, 1587. 

    Third edition of ‘the first illustrated book on gymnastics’ (Morton).  A physician occupying senior posts in the medical faculties of Padua, Bologna, Rome, and Pisa, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) draws heavily on accounts of ancient exercise to argue for its medical benefits, being the...

    £2750

  10. MILBANK, Augustus Sussex.

    A Treatise upon the political & social Condition of Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire, down to...

    [Richmond, M. Bell for] London, Messrs Hatchard & Son, and Richmond, M. Bell, 1847.

    First and only edition of a rare Yorkshire-printed treatise of social history by an amateur historian and educational enthusiast, inscribed by the author to the Countess of Sandwich.

    £125

  11. MIRANDULA (or MIRANDOLA), Ottaviano. 

    Illustrium poetarum flores. 

    Antwerp, Joannes Bellerus, 1563. 

    A remarkable copy, with numerous and eloquent contemporary annotations and additions in a French hand, of a scarce edition of an extremely popular collection of quotes and passages from classics of poetry, published by the renowned Flemish printer and composer Joannes Bellerus (Jean Bellère,...

    £1950

  12. NEPOS, Cornelius; Andreas SCHOTT, editor.

    Opera quae quidem extant … Nunc denuo doctorum hominum accessionibus locupletata.

    Frankfurt, Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, [1608–] 1609.

    First edition thus, edited by Andreas Schott (1552–1629), with his extensive commentary alongside that of previous editors including Denys Lambin, from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.

    £850

  13. NICOLAUS of Damascus, and Niels KRAG (editor). 

    Ex Nicolai Damasceni universali historia seu de moribus gentium...

    [Geneva or Heidelberg,] Pierre de Saint-André, 1593. 

    First edition of Krag’s translation of Nicolaus of Damascus’s observations on the customs of the peoples of the ancient world.  The observations on forty ancient peoples (among them the Iberians, Celts, Phrygians, Assyrians, and Ethiopians) are extracted from the Universal History...

    £300

  14. ORIBASIUS. 

    Commentaria in Aphorismos Hippocratis … Ioannis Guinterij Andernaciis medici industria velut e profundissimis tenebris...

    Paris, Simon de Colines, 1533. 

    First edition of this commentary on Hippocrates, bound with a richly annotated copy of Galen’s works in the translation by Thomas Linacre. 

    £1750

  15. OVID.

    In hoc volumine h[a]ec co[n]tinentur. P. Ovidii Nasonis vita. Heroidum epistol[a]e. Amorum libri III. De arte amandi lib....

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Bernardino Stagnino, 19 October 1530.]

    Very rare pocket-sized edition of selected works by Ovid published at Venice by Bernardino Stagnino (1483–1538).

    £1250

  16. OVIDIUS Naso, Publius, and Pedro Sánchez de VIANA, translator and commentator. 

    Las transformaciones. 

    Valladolid, Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1589.

    First edition, a copy of notable provenance, of perhaps the most successful early Spanish translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, by Pedro Sánchez de Viana (c. 1545–1619), a physician by training, published along with his substantial commentary. 

    £6000

  17. PEACOCK, Thomas Love.

    Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian Spell. A Poem.

    London, T. Hookham, Jun., and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1818.

    First edition of Peacock’s last and most ambitious poem, inspired by his enthusiasm for Greek poetry in the company of Shelley. A mythological narrative set in ancient Thessaly, Rhododaphne tells the story of the shepherd boy Anthemion, in love with the mortal girl Calliroë, and of the...

    £750

  18. PEROTTI, Niccolò.

    In hoc volumine habentur haec. Cornucopiae, sive linguae latinae co[m]mentarii diligentissime recogniti, atq[ue]...

    Toscolano, Alessandro Paganini, April 1522.

    Handsome edition of the masterful Cornucopiae of the Italian humanist and grammarian Niccolò Perotti (1429–1480), printed in Alessandro Paganini’s distinctive small italic type.

    £950

  19. PEROTTO, Niccolò, and Benedetto BRUGNOLO, editor.

    Cornucopi[a]e nuper emendatum a domino Benedicto Brugnolo: ac...

    [Milan], Giovanni Giacomo and brothers da Legnano [for Giovanni Angelo Scinzenzeler, 28 October 1510 (colophon)].

    Scarce Milanese edition of Perotto’s Cornucopiae, an encyclopaedic commentary to the first book of Martial’s epigrams, here with a curious combination of woodcut initials and capital spaces with guide letters.

    £1750

  20. PERSIUS.

    Auli Persii Flacci satyrae sex. Cnm [sic] annotatiu[n]culis in margine adiectis, quae brevis commentarii vice esse possint.

    Paris, Simon de Colines, 1541.

    Uncommon Colines edition of the Satires of Persius, the first four of which are heavily annotated by a contemporary student, no doubt studying at the University of Paris. Written in a rapid cursive, likely direct from the lecturer’s mouth, his notes provide a snapshot of the teaching provided...

    £2750