Continental

Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan

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.

 
  1. CHRYSOSTOM, John. 

    [Opera: Homeliae.]  Que in secundo Ioannis Chrisostomi volumine continentur: Super Mattheum homelie 89 …...

    Venice, Stagnino & de Gregoriis, 1503. 

    First edition of Chrysostom’s Opera omnia, the second volume (of two), annotated throughout by two critical readers. 

    £2800

  2. CHRYSOSTOM, John.

    [Opera] Que in secondo volumine continentur super Mattheum homiliae … super Joannem homiliae … de laudibus...

    [Venice, Bernardino Stagnino and Gregorio de’ Gregori, February 1503.]

    The second volume of the first collected edition of John Chrysostom’s sermons on the New Testament and the monastic life, a wide-margined copy with extensive annotations.

    £2500

  3. [CHURCH OF ENGLAND.]

    The New Weeks Preparation for a worthy Receiving of the Lord’s Supper, as recommended and appointed by the...

    London, printed from the edition of the late Edwd. Wickstead, for T. Wilson and R. Spence, York, [c. 1780–1800?].

    An attractive copy of two later editions of these collections of prayers, hymns, meditations, and self-examinations, with a focus on Holy Communion.

    £250

  4. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (Titus Flavius CLEMENS); Gentian HERVET, translator.

    Omnia opera.

    Paris, Sebastien Nivelle, 1572.

    A thoroughly annotated copy of this early edition of the complete works of Clement of Alexandria, in the Latin translation of the theologian and humanist Gentian Hervet (or Hervetus, 1499–1584).

    £4750

  5. [COMMON PRAYER.] 

    The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

    London, Millar Ritchie for J. Good and E. Harding, 1794. 

    A splendid copy of the Good and Harding Book of Common Prayer, in a striking masonic binding by John Lovejoy. 

    £1850

  6. [COMMON PRAYER.]

    The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

    London & Glasgow, Collins’ Clear-Type Press, [c. 1910].

    A George V Common Prayer and hymnal, uniformly bound and unusually housed in a ‘handbag’ slipcase for the convenience of the fashion-conscious churchgoer.

    £275

  7. CORTÈS, Gioacchino. 

    Dissertazione anti-Bolgeniana sopra la carità difesa dal suo autore l’abate Gioacchino Cortes contro...

    Rome, Salomoni, 1793. 

    First edition of this response to and attempted refutation of Bolgeni’s Della carità o amor di Dio by the Spanish Jesuit Joachim Cortès.  Della carità was the best-known work of the Jesuit theologian and controversialist Gianvincenzo Bolgeni, in which he had argued, against...

    £450

  8. COSTER, François. 

    Piarum et Christ. institutionum libri tres, in usum sodalitatis B. Mariae Virginis primum conscripti, nunc...

    Douai, Jean Bogard, 1582. 

    Very rare Douai edition of this devotional work by the Belgian Jesuit François Coster (1532–1619), first published at Cologne in 1578, illustrated with woodcuts of the Crucifixion and Our Lady of Sorrows. 

    £675

  9. CYPRIAN, Saint; Desiderius ERASMUS, editor.

    Opera [– Alter tomus operum].

    Lyons, Sébastien Gryphe, 1550.

    A richly annotated copy of the works of the third-century martyr and bishop of Carthage, St Cyprian, with later Portuguese provenance.

    £1800

  10. DARRÉ, G.G.

    ‘Conferences diaconales données par Mr l’abbé Darré, Vicaire Général au GrandSéminaire d’Auch. Année...

    Auch, 1864.

    An attractively written manuscript of Abbé Darré’s practical manual for the use of young priests entering pastoral ministry, the text remaining unprinted, according to OCLC, until 1872.

    £200

  11. DELL’UVA, Benedetto.

    Le vergini prudenti.

    Florence, Bartolomeo Sermartelli, 1582.

    First editions of three religious poems in ottava rima by the Capuan monk Benedetto dell’Uva, representative of Counter-Reformation poetry in southern Italy.

    £650

  12. DE LUCA, Giovanni Battista. 

    Il Cardinale della S.R. Chiesa pratico di Gio. Battista de Luca nell’ozio Tusculano della Primavera...

    Rome, nella stamperia della Reverenda Camera Apostolica, 1680. 

    Scarce first edition of this thorough work on the cardinalate by the Italian jurist and cardinal De Luca (1614–1683).  De Luca studied and practiced law at Naples before moving to Rome in 1645, where he established his reputation as one of Italy’s pre-eminent jurists and worked closely with...

    £300

  13. [DEVOTION.]

    Meditation et preire du jeusne, seigneur ouvre me levres, & ma bouche announcer ta loüange. Ps. 51.v.17.

    Se vend à Charenton, par Pierre Auvray, demeurant à Paris … [1670s?]

    First edition, extremely rare, of a prayer in preparation for a fast, published for sale in Charenton, the first Protestant centre in the Paris region. 

    £850

  14. [DOMINICAN NUNS.]

    Regola e costituzioni delle suore di S. Domenico riviste e ristampate d’ordine del rmo p. vicario generale...

    Rome, Bernardo Morini, 1853.

    Very rare first edition thus of the regulations governing Dominican nuns, published by order of Alexandre Vincent Jandel (1810–1872), who served as Master of the Order of Preachers from 1850 until his death.

    £250

  15. DOMINICUS DE FLANDRIA.

    Dominici de Flandria ordinis predicator[um] artium et theologie doctoris in divi Thome de Aq[ui]no co[m]mentaria...

    Venice, Giorgio Arrivabene for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 25 January 1514.

    Scarce early editions of two Aristotelian commentaries. The first, by the Dominican philosopher Dominic of Flanders (c. 1425–1479), analyses two works by Thomas Aquinas: his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (on the nature of scientific axioms), and his De fallaciis...

    £3000

  16. DRYDEN, John.

    Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …

    London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.

    First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...

    £400

  17. [DUQUESNE, Arnaud-Bernard d’Icard.]

    Vie de la vénérable mère Catherine de Bar, dite en religion Mecthilde du S. Sacrement,...

    Nancy, Claude-Sigisbert Lamort; Paris, Le Berton and Herissant, 1775.

    Uncommon biography of the French nun Mechtilde of the Blessed Sacrament (née Catherine de Bar, 1614-1698), founder of the order of Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, by the French theologian Arnaud-Bernard d’Icard Duquesne (1732-1791). Most copies lack the frontispiece...

    £650

  18. ECHARD, Laurence.

    A general Ecclesiastical History from the Nativity of our Blessed Saviour to the first Establishment of Christianity...

    London, W. Bowyer for Jacob Tonson, 1702.

    First edition of Echard’s compendious history of the early Church, dedicated to Queen Anne. The work offers a concise and authoritative account compiled from a broad selection of authors, the preface noting: ‘that my Book might want nothing that cou’d be procur’d from others … I have...

    £250

  19. ECKARTSHAUSEN, Karl von. 

    Dieu est l’amour le plus pur, ma prière et ma contemplation.  Par Eckartshausen.  Paris, chez L. 

    Duprat-Duverger, rue des Grands-Augustins, no. 21, [1805-1813]. 

    Scarce edition of a French translation of Gott ist die reinste Liebe by the German Catholic mystic Karl von Eckartshausen (1752–1803), this copy formerly in the possession of the long-term lover of Queen Victoria’s father. 

    £475

  20. ECK, Johann.

    Enchiridion locorum communium adversus Lutherum, & alios hostes Ecclesiae …

    Lyons, Guillaume Rouillé, 1572.

    A rare pocket edition of Johann Eck’s handbook of anti-Lutheran material, with a section on the burning of heretics and the twelve articles of the Anabaptists of Münster, for use in the fight against Lutheranism.

    £375