Continental

Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison 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. [MASCHERANA, Girolamo.]

    Concordia tra la società e la religione ossia Difesa del culto cattolico contro chi lo calunnia in contrasto...

    Milan, Cesare Orena nella stamperia Malatesta, 1798.

    Rare second edition, printed in the same year as the equally rare first, of this curious defence of religion in the light of the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic, in which the author seeks to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism with the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution and...

    £375

  2. [MASS.]

    Cerimonie piu’ notabili della messa privata; Cavate dalle rubriche del Missale, ed altri autori da un Sacerdote D.C.D.M....

    Turin, Gianfranco Mairesse, 1739.

    An apparently unrecorded edition of this uncommon treatise on the celebration of the mass and its associated rituals.

    £300

  3. MAURIZI, Maria Luisa.

    Morali e divote riflessioni a tutti utilissime e specialmente alle persone claustrali scritte dalla serva...

    Rome, Tipografia della Pia Unione alle Terme, 1833.

    Uncommon first edition of this collection of meditations on the religious life, by the Roman nun Maria Luisa Maurizi (born Giacinta Gertrude Maurizi, 1770–1831), and published posthumously at the behest of her spiritual director, Agostino Romagnoli.

    £150

  4. MELECRINIS, Maria Teresa. 

    Le voci del cuore a Maria Teresa Melecrinis dei baroni di Ioppolo e Coccorino che a di 6 luglio 1846...

    Naples, stamperia dell' Iride, 1846. 

    Very rare collection of odes and sonnets composed to mark the entry of Maria Teresa Melecrinis into the Benedictine monastery of San Paolo at Sorrento. 

    £175

  5. MENDELSSOHN, Moses.

    Jerusalem oder über religiöse Macht und Judenthum.

    Frankfurt and Leipzig, n. p., 1787.

    First posthumous edition, originally published in 1783 by Friedrich Maurer in Berlin, of this later work by Mendelssohn (1729–1786), in which he supports religious and political toleration, and advocates separation of church and state and civil equality for Jews. The work was reprinted as recently as 2001.

    £200

  6. [MILAN, province of.]

    Ordo admittendi virgines ad monasterii ingressum habitumque regularem suscipiendi ritus item servandus...

    Milan, Tamburini and Valdoni, 1843.

    Scarce edition of this set of rites for the admission of women to convents in the province of Milan, covering their investiture, tonsure, and vows, with instructions printed in red, texts to be spoken and sung in black, and with printed music for hymns and blessings. The first edition appears...

    £200

  7. MILNER, Joseph.

    Practical Sermons, by the late Rev. Joseph Milner, M. A. Master of the Grammar School, and Vicar of the Holy Trinity...

    York: Printed by G. Peacock; and sold by Mathews … London; Deighton, Cambridge [and others in York, Hull, Leeds and Halifax]. 1800.

    First edition, rare, collecting 21 sermons with a biography of Milner (1745-1797), headmaster of Hull Grammar School and church historian. Milner was largely responsible for a revival in fortune of the Grammar School, where he took charge in 1767. As a clergyman he leaned towards a moderate Calvinism...

    £175

  8. [MISSAL.]

    Missal, in Latin, with readings for the first Sunday in Advent.

    Southern Netherlands or northern France (Arras?), c. 1425.

    A remnant of what must have been an exceptionally grand missal, with illumination of considerable finesse. We have been unable to trace any other leaves from the same manuscript.

    £3250

  9. NADAL, [Augustin,] Abbé

    Herode: Tragedie nouvelle. 

    Paris, Pierre Ribou, 1709. 

    First edition of Nadal’s tragedy on King Herod, the second in the series of Biblical plays over which he quarrelled with Voltaire. 

    £275

  10. [NAUDÉ, Philippe, attr. author].

    Histoire abrégée de la naissance & du progrez du Kouakerisme avec celle de ses dogmes.

    Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1692.

    First edition of the earliest work on the Quakers to be published in French. In his survey of English Quakerism the author gives voice to widespread contemporary English criticisms of the movement, radicalizing the charge of Socinianism into one of ‘pure deism’ and ultimately atheism.

    £750

  11. NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández. 

    Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China.  Descripcion...

    Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676. 

    Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689). 

    £4750

  12. NEWTON, Isaac.

    Opuscula Mathematica, philosophica et philologica. Collegit partimque Latine vertit ac recensuit Joh. Castillioneus...

    Lausanne and Geneva, Bousquet & soc., 1744.

    First edition of Newton’s collected works, a major tool in the dissemination of Newton’s science and a major publication in the history of science.  The edition, edited and introduced by the Pisa alumnus Giovanni Salvemini da Castiglione, contains twenty-six works (which, while having appeared...

    £3500

  13. [OFFICE OF THE DEAD.] 

    Uffizio de’ morti, ad uso delle confraternite e congregazioni. 

    Turin, Bernardino Barberis, 1805. 

    An apparently unrecorded Turin-printed Office of the Dead, with striking woodcut memento mori ornaments, printed for the use of religious congregations and confraternities.  The Uffizio de’ morti, outlining the liturgy used in commemoration of the dead, is accompanied by a notice...

    £225

  14. PAFFI, Girolamo. 

    Hier.mi Paphii Saxolensis, de resurrectione libellus … 

    Bologna, Giovanni Rossi, 1587. 

    Rare first edition of this work on resurrection by Paffi (d. 1597), dedicated to the Italian cardinal and inquisitor Giulio Antonio Santorio.  Here Paffi considers the resurrection of Christ and of the dead through a detailed analysis of Psalms 15, 23, and 8. 

    £400

  15. PALEY, William.

    Caution recommended in the use and application of scripture language. A sermon preached July 15, 1777, in the Cathedral...

    Cambridge, printed by J. Archdeacon for T. & J. Merrill (and others), 1777.

    First edition. A sermon (on 2 Peter iii, vv. 15–16) preached by Paley, author of the celebrated Evidences of Christianity (1785), at the invitation of Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle. ‘Paley’s connection with the Law family greatly advanced his clerical career. He regularly spent vacations with...

    £150

  16. [PALLAVICINO, Ferrante.]

    La rettorica delle puttane. Composta conforme li precetti di Cipriano. Dedicata alla università delle...

    ‘Cambrai’ (but Venice), [no printer], 1642.

    Extremely rare first edition, fourth variant (variant ‘V’), of a classic of seventeenth-century erotic literature, the masterpiece of the celebrated satirist Ferrante Pallavicino (1615–1644). Published anonymously in Venice with a fictitious Cambrai imprint, The rhetoric of whores...

    £5500

  17. PEPE, Stefano. 

    [Half-title: ‘Il Cappuccino d’Este del Padre Pepe’] ‘Historia Della Vita, e della Morte, et Attioni...

    [Italy, second half of the seventeenth century.] 

    A seemingly unpublished life of Alfonso III d’Este, Duke of Modena, who renounced his title to become a Capuchin friar. 

    £1250

  18. PIERTZ, Leonhard (Praes.) and Johann Ernst SCHLERETH (Resp.).

    De sacramentis in specie, Eucharistia et Poenitentia quaestiones...

    Würzburg, Johann Michael Kleyer, 1703.

    A good copy of this rare Würzburg dissertation on the sacraments of the Euchasist and Penance, under the Jesuit professor Leonhard Piertz (1662–1741). The dissertation discusses when the Eucharist was instituted, what verbal formulae are necessary for consecration, whether the Eucharistic sacrifice...

    £175

  19. PIUS II (Nicolaus von WYLE, editor). 

    Epistolae familiares. 

    Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 17 July 1486. 

    Second Koberger edition of the Epistolae familiares of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405–1464), the great Renaissance humanist who became Pope Pius II in 1458, a handsome copy enhanced with manuscript additions comprising epistolary models, a German-Latin wordlist, and medical recipes. 

    £7500

  20. [PONTIFICAL.]

    Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII. primum, nunc denuo Urbani Papae Octavi auctoritate recognitum.

    Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1663.

    An attractive Plantin-Moretus Pontifical, splendidly preserved in a richly baroque binding.

    £4500