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.

 
  1. GOODMAN, Tobias, Rabbi.

    אמונת ישראל [Emunat Yisrael]. The Faith of Israel, selected from the Writings of...

    London, [John Wertheimer for] the author, 1834.

    First and only edition in book form of an 1819 sermon given by Rabbi Tobias Goodman, thought to have been the first to have delivered a sermon in English in a British synagogue, our copy from the Rothschild Library at Exbury House, Hampshire.

    £850

  2. GOODWIN, Thomas.

    Romanae Historiae Anthologia … An English exposition of the Roman Antiquities wherein many Roman and English...

    London, R.W. for Peter Parker, 1661.

    A wholly unsophisticated Restoration sammelband of three popular seventeenth-century schoolbooks.

    £850

  3. GOODWIN, Thomas.

    Romanae Historiae Anthologia … An English exposition of the Roman Antiquities, wherein many Roman & English...

    Oxford, Leonard Lichfield for Henry Cripps, 1638.

    Early editions of these two popular schoolbooks on antiquities, often found bound together – a compendium of Roman antiquities and a study of the customs and religious rites of the ancient Jews, originally published in 1614 and 1625 respectively – by the headmaster and scholar Thomas Goodwin...

    £1600

  4. [GRADUAL.]

    Vast historiated initial ‘A’ cut from a Gradual.

    Italy (Umbria), end of thirteenth century.

    A spectacular initial on the scale of a small panel painting. The verso includes the text ‘[neque] irrideant me inimici mei […] [un]iversi qui te expectant’ and the versicle ‘Vias tuas domine de[monstras]’, indicating that the initial would have introduced the introit ‘Ad te levavi...

    £20000

  5. GRAILE, John.

    Three Sermons preached at the Cathedral in Norwich. And a fourth at a parochial Church in Norfolk. Humbly recommending,...

    London, Printed for W. Kettilby … 1685.

    First and only edition, rare. The third of these four sermons was delivered on the anniversary of Charles I’s execution, 30 January 1684, drawing on the Proverb: ‘For the transgression of a land, many are the princes there’, in which the plurality of leaders is shown to be the ‘constant mischief’...

    £850

  6. GUILLON, Pierre.

    Danti voci suae vocem virtutis. Quaestio theologica … Has theses … ac praeside, S.M.N.D.D. Ludovico Bellayer,...

    Poitiers, Jean-Felix Faulcon, [1770].

    An apparently unrecorded broadside giving the text of theological theses defended by Pierre Guillon of Poitiers for entry into minor orders. A bachelor of theology from the city’s university, Guillon’s gruelling five-hour examination took place on 22 November 1770 between one and six o’clock,...

    £275

  7. HAEFTEN, Benedictus van.

    Regia via crucis.

    Antwerp, Ex officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1635.

    First edition of an important counter-reformation devotional emblem book, with a title-page designed by Peter Paul Rubens. Haeften (1588-1648) was provost of the Benedictine abbey of Affligem, Belgium, and played an important role in the reform of the Benedictine order. The Regia via crucis was his most...

    £1100

  8. HEBER, Reginald, and Nicolas BARKER (editor).

    A Letter from India.

    The Roxburghe Club, 2020.

    'I do not expect that with fair prospects of eminence at home, you should go to the Ganges for a mitre,’ wrote Sir Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Commissioners for Indian Affairs, in 1819 to Reginald Heber at Hodnet in Shropshire, but in vain. Despite a growing reputation...

    £100

  9. [HOMILETIC.] 

    Meditations de la seconde annee. 

    [France, c. 1700.] 

    Apparently unpublished set of meditations for the Sundays in the liturgical year running from the seventh to the twenty-fourth week after Pentecost, shedding light on tools and practices in the homiletic art.  Themes range from reflections on the Eucharist, to considerations on mortality, on...

    £750

  10. HOOKER, Richard.

    Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, eight Bookes [Bound with:] Certayne Divine Tractates … London, Printed...

    … London: Printed by Will. Stansby, and are to be sold by Mat. Lownes … 1617.

    Fourth edition, first issue, of the Preface and Books 1-4 (first published in 1593), third edition of Book 5 (first published in 1597), bound here with the third edition of ‘Certayne Divine Tractates’ (1631), issued with a 1622 general title-page (rather than the usual 1632).

    £650

  11. HOSPINIAN, Rudolf. 

    Historia Jesuitica.  Hoc est, de origine, regulis, constitutionibus, privilegiis, incrementis, progressu...

    Zurich, Johannes Rudolph Wolf, 1670. 

    Second edition of Hospinian’s vast and vitriolic attack on the Jesuits, first published in 1619 (also in Zurich by Wolf); both editions are scarce. 

    £800

  12. [INDULGENCE.] 

    Letter of Indulgence (in Catalan), incipit ‘A Honor …’, granted by Cardinal Luis de Milá,...

    [Lerida, Heinrich Botel, c. 1498.] 

    Extremely rare incunable indulgence in Catalan granted by Luis de Milá, Bishop of Lérida, in favour of the living (as opposed to the dead, see below) to gather funds for the repair of the old cathedral of Lérida, printed at Lérida, the second city of Catalonia, about one hundred miles...

    £34000

  13. [INDULGENCES.] 

    Indulgencias concedidas a los congregantes de la inmaculada concepcion de Maria SS baxo el titulo de la corona...

    [Barcelona, 1793.] 

    Very rare broadside detailing the indulgences granted to members, of both sexes, of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception, established under the title of the Crown of the Seven Joys of the Virgin at the Franciscan convent in Barcelona.  In 1792, Pope Pius VI had formerly linked the Congregation...

    £175

  14. ISIDORUS A CRUCE. 

    Devoti admodum et consolatione pleni confessionales Psalmi septem in quibus peccator divinam pro criminibus...

    Dillingen, Johann Caspar Bencard, 1675. 

    Rare illustrated edition of this work devoted to confession and seeking forgiveness for sins by Isidorus a Cruce (d. 1681), abbot of St Charles the Great in Prague. 

    £450

  15. JACOBUS MEDIOLANENSIS. 

    Stimulus divini amoris Sancti Bonaventurae. 

    Venice, Stefano Nicolini da Sabbio, April 1535. 

    Rare edition of the Stimulus divini amoris, a popular medieval devotional treatise long attributed to St Bonaventure but in fact composed by the thirteenth-century Franciscan Giacomo da Milano. 

    £550

  16. [KAMES, Henry HOME, Lord].

    Grundsaetze der Kritik, aus dem Englischen übersetzt, von Joh. Nikolaus Meinhard.

    Vienna, Johann Thomas Edlen von Trattnern, 1785-6.

    A Viennese reprint of the first German translation of the Elements of criticism, by Meinhard with the approval of Lessing, first issued in 1763-66, instrumental in the dissemination and reception of Kames’s aesthetic theories in Germany and a seminal publication in the formation of pre-Romantic aesthetics.

    £250

  17. KARG, Stanislaus, Celso EISENMAN, and Eccard HOCHENBAUM.

    Fur theologicè examinatus, & in judicio sacramentali ad restitutionem...

    Munich, Johann Lucas Straub, [1712].

    Only edition, rare, of this dissertation on the theological and legal aspects of theft and restitution, presented to the distinguished canon lawyer, and author of the monumental Manuale theologico-canonico-legale practicum, Stanislaus Karg.

    £275

  18. KELLER, Martialis.

    Neueröffnete Himmels-Schule, in welcher aus zwölf, als so vielen Theilen vorgesetzten Lehrpunkten verschiedene...

    Augsburg, Matthäus Riegers, 1793.

    Rare later edition of this educational and devotional work by the Bavarian Benedictine Martialis Keller, containing prayers, exercises, and points of doctrine, and illustrated with attractive engravings, this copy in a contemporary local binding.

    £500

  19. KERKHERDERE, Jan Gerard.

    De situ Paradisi Terrestris ... Praecedit... conatus novus de Cepha reprehenso ex Galatarum secundo capite.

    Leuven, Martin van Overbeke, 1729.

    First edition. Kerkherdere addresses the question of the location of the Garden of Eden, the earthly Paradise, accompanying his conjecture with a map engraved by P.E. Boultats of Antwerp; the perusal of various sources, geographical studies and toponymic considerations lead the author, an Imperial...

    £550

  20. 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