Recent Acquisitions
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[RICCI, Pellegrino].
Dissertazione sul costume di suonar le campane in occasione di temporali …
Faenza, Lodovico Genestri, 1787.
An attractive copy of this rare dissertation in which the author, a Minorite friar, attempts to demonstrate scientifically that the popular practice of ringing church bells during storms in the attempt to dissipate storm clouds and minimise the danger from lightning in fact had no effect. Ricci explains...
£475
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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
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MOORE, George.
Manuscript commonplace book of poems, songs, prayers, and letters.
1805-1855.
An appealing commonplace book of verses and songs, with occasional prayers and letters, mostly written by George Moore (1794–1854), a London soda water manufacturer and amateur poet who was murdered by the notorious French revolutionary Emmanuel Barthélemy (1823–1855).
£550
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[PASCOLI, Livio.] ‘Vilio LOCASPI’.
Del modo di mantenere abolita la mendicità, discorso familiare.
Verona, Mainardi, 1817.
Only edition, very rare, of this proposal for the abolition of begging, and of poverty more broadly, by the poet and essayist Livio Pascoli.
£285
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MEGUSCHER, Francesco.
Memoria … in risposta al quesito additare la migliore e più facile maniera per rimittere i boschi nelle...
Milan, presso l’I.R. Istituto, 1847.
First edition of this comprehensive report on the best means to reverse the deforestation of the mountains of Lombardy, in a way that could be both environmentally sustainable and economically profitable.
£950
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WITTKOWER, Jochanan.
Agudath Perachim. ‘Blüthenstrauß’. Anthologie deutscher und hebräischer Gedichte für Geist und Herz …
Altona, the Bonn Brothers for the author, 1880.
First and only edition of this anthology of moral poems and satirical and edifying epigrams translated from German into Hebrew, as well as transcriptions and translations of epitaphs from the Jewish community of Altona, now a district of Hamburg.
£350
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[GRIMOD DE LA REYNIÈRE, Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent.]
Manuel des amphitryons; contenant un traité de la dissection des viandes...
Paris, Capelle and Renand, 1808.
First edition of Grimod de la Reynière’s famed manual on the arts of the table and the entertainment of guests.
£1250
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[CORFU.]
Notificazione. Uffizio della segreteria del governo. Corfu, 7 Maggio 1816 …
Corfu, ‘en te typographia tes dioikeseos’, [1816].
A seemingly unrecorded bilingual broadside, in parallel Italian and Greek, reporting on cases of plague in the district of Leftimo on the island of Corfu, issued during the British protectorate in May 1816 and printed in the capital at the government press.
£375
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ENDERS, Elizabeth Crump.
Swinging Lanterns.
New York and London, D. Appleton and Co., 1923.
First edition of this celebrated Chinese travel memoir by Elizabeth Crump Enders, a vivid depiction of China in the 1920s formerly in the possession of Josephine del Drago, American heiress and Chinese art collector.
£100
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[DA PORTO, Luigi.]
‘Lettere di Alvigi da Porto vicentino al Savorgnano, al Ghilini, e ad altri intorno ai successi della Guerra...
[Milan, c. 1800].
A manuscript of an influential and then-unpublished historical work by the author of the original Romeo and Juliet, copied from a sixteenth-century codex at the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana.
£950
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[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
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[LAFONT, Joseph de.]
Hypermnestre, tragedie, mise au theatre de l’Academie Royale de Musique de Lyon, pour la prémière fois...
Lyon, de l’imprimerie d’Aymé Delaroche ... aux dépens de l’Académie Royale de Musique, 1742.
Very scarce Lyon edition of the libretto for the tragedy Hypermnestre by the French playwright Joseph de Lafont (1686-1725). First performed in 1716, with music by Charles-Hubert Gervais, the play was initially criticised for its fifth act, but after rewriting by abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin enjoyed...
£175
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LA SERRE, Jean-Puget de.
Grab-Statt der weltlichen Ergötzlichkeiten, einstens in Französischer Sprache zubereitet … anjetzt...
Regensburg, Johann Conrad Peetz und Bader, 1738.
First edition in German of Tombeau des délices du monde, by the French dramatist and historian Jean-Puget de la Serre (1594–1665).
£375
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KOCH, Mansuetus.
Philosophia transnaturalis, sive metaphysica, centum assertionibus comprehensa, et publicae disputationi in celeberrimo...
Augsburg, Maria Magdalena Utzschneiderin, 1697.
Only edition (complete despite the pagination) of this dissertation defended at the Augustinian college in Rottenbuch, attempting to provide a survey of metaphysics in one hundred paragraphs. The work explains, among other matters, the scope and purpose of metaphysics, the basis of Aristotelian metaphysics,...
£225
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KOCH, Manfred (pr.), Primo SCHLECHTEN and Feliciano SCHARRER (resp.).
Philosophia rationalis sive logica centum assertionibus comprehensa...
Augsburg, Afra Sturmin, 1695.
A good copy of this rare dissertation from the Augustinian college at Rottenbuch in Bavaria, attempting to reduce logic (the science of reasoning) to one hundred numbered paragraphs. Describing the function and limits of logic, the authors, both Austin canons at Rottenbuch, explain the use of syllogisms,...
£275
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CHEVRET, Jean.
Épitre a l’humanité et a la patrie en particulier, sur le bon ordre & l’idée de la véritable liberté. Suivie...
[Paris?], au temple de la vérité, 1789.
A good copy of this rare essay on the workings of society and the conditions required for human flourishing, by the controversialist and librarian Jean Chevret (1747-1820). After a brief letter addressed to humanity in general and France (even, perhaps, Chevret’s own home town of Meulan) in particular,...
£275
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[CHARTONNET, Antoine-François.]
Considerations sur les devoirs des personnes qui sont engagées par leur état à servir les...
Paris, chez Edme Couterot, 1695.
Rare first edition of this religious manual of instruction aimed at those caring for the sick in hospitals, exhorting carers to look after the bodily and spiritual needs of their charges ‘with charity, gentleness, compassion, patience, diligence, zeal, respect and humility’.
£275
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CARAVADOSSI, Enrico.
La moderna filosofia convinta d’inganno nelle sue promesse di felicità libertà ed uguaglianza ragionamenti...
Turin, Giammichele Brioio, 1793.
First and seemingly only edition of this attack on the false promises of the philosophes, by the Torinese Dominican friar Enrico Caravadossi.
£395
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[VALLI, Francesco di Andrea.]
Manuscript receipt book.
Villa di Vaglie, Cortona, 1735-1767.
An interesting manuscript receipt book recording the affairs and transactions of Francesco di Andrea Valli (or Vagli) and his sons Pietro and Egidio, landowners and farmers from Villa di Vaglie near Cortona, over the course of four decades.
£375
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MOLAJONI, Bartolomeo.
Alla neogama donzella Marianna Molajoni negli Sforza, Bartolomeo Molajoni germano dirigge il seguente sonetto...
Viterbo, brothers Poggiarelli, 1811.
Seemingly unrecorded sonnet addressed to the newlywed Marianna Molajoni by her brother Bartolomeo and dedicated to the sottoprefetto of Viterbo, Giulio Zelli Pazzaglia.
£275