JUVENAL, Decimus Junius.

Argumenta Satyrarum Iuvenalis per Antonimu [sic] Mancinellum. Cu[m] quattuor co[m]me[n]tariis … Sebastianus...

[(Colophon:) Milan, Giovanni Angelo Scinzenzeler for Giovanni da Legnano, 17 August 1501.]

Rare edition of Juvenal’s Satires with commentary by the Italian humanists Antonio Mancinelli, Domizio Calderini, Giorgio Merula, and Giorgio Valla, edited by the Greek scholar Sebastianus Ducius, with extensive early annotations and corrections to both the text and commentary.

£5000

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

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

LUCRETIUS. 

Titi Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libri VI.  Ad optimorum exemplarium veritatem exacti.  Quae praeterea in hac...

Padua, Giuseppe Comino [for Volpi], 2 January 1721. 

First Volpi–Comino edition of Lucretius’s famous materialist and Epicurean poem, the most notable Italian edition of the eighteenth century.  The present work is the product of the long-running and fruitful collaboration between the printer Giuseppe Comino and the scholars Giovanni Antonio...

£450

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

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

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

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

MEURSIUS, Johannes. 

Ioannis Meursi Regnum Atticum, sive de regibus Atheniensium, eorumque rebus gestis, libri III. 

Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1633. 

First edition, a study of ancient Attic mythology and history by the Dutch classicist Meursius (Jan van Meurs, 1579–1639). 

£300

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

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

NEPOS, Cornelius. 

De vita excellentium imperatorum.  Interpretatione et notis illustravit Nicolaus Courtin … in usum serenissimi...

Paris, Frères Barbou, 1726. 

An attractive later Delphin edition (first 1675) of Cornelius Nepos’s Lives.  The only surviving work by the first-century BC biographer Cornelius Nepos, the Vitae excellentium imperatorum once formed part of a broader De viris illustribus.  The Lives include Themistocles,...

£275

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

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

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

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