Recent Acquisitions
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[MONTANUS, Arnoldus.]
Ambassades mémorables de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales des Provinces Unies, vers les empereurs du Japon....
Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1680.
First edition in French of an important and influential study of Japan by the Dutch theologian and historian Arnoldus Montanus, based on eyewitness accounts from two Dutch East India Company (VOC) missions to Japan in 1649 and 1661.
£4500
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[LE NOBLE, Pierre, and Eustache LE NOBLE (attributed).]
Les Amours d’Anne d’Austriche, Epouse de Louis 13. ...
‘A Cologne, Chez Pierre Marteau, 1696’ [France, early eighteenth century].
An early manuscript copy of a salacious – and treasonous – history arguing that Louis XIV was the illegitimate child of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Richelieu, bound with four engravings.
£850
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CHALMERS [CHAMBERS], David, Lord Ormond.
Histoire abbregée de toutes les Roys de France, Angletaire, et Escosse … [with:]...
Paris, Robert Coulombel ‘at the sign of Aldus’, 1579.
First edition of the three principal works of David Chalmers (c. 1530–1592), a faithful follower of Mary, Queen of Scots, who appointed him Lord of Session and Privy Counsellor.
£2500
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[BRISTOL.]
The Bristol Contest, being a Collection of all the Papers published by both Parties, on the Election, 1754.
Bristol, ‘sold by the Printing-Office … and by J. Palmer’, [1754].
Extremely rare first edition of this Bristol-printed political pamphlet, bound with the first edition of a French work on pyrotechnics used both for spectacle and for war.
£650
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ANGELI, Alessandro degli.
In astrologos coniectores libri quinque … Nunc primum prodit [sic] in lucem. Cum indicibus pernecessariis,...
Lyons, Horace Cardon, 1615.
First edition of this thorough attack on astrology by degli Angeli (1542–1620), head of the Jesuit college at Rome, this copy with a presentation inscription by the Lyons publisher and printer Horace Cardon (1566–1641).
£1600
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FLORENT DE SALES (pseud.).
Vrai systême du monde physique et moral.
[Switzerland,] 1797.
Only edition, rare, of this utopia, the identity of whose author, and even of whose printer, remains unknown.
£2500
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GELLIUS, Aulus.
Noctium Atticarum commentaria per Bonfinem Asculanum summa nuper diligentia et studio recognita.
Venice, Giovanni Tacuino, 1517.
Second edition of Gellius’s opus with the commentary of philologist Matteo Bonfini (1441–1517), annotated throughout by a contemporary reader whose corrections and comments include references to the lectures of Paolo Bombasi as cited by Erasmus in the 1508 edition of the Adagia.
£5500
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[WEDDING POETRY.]
Applausi alli felicissimi sponsali dell’illustrissimo Sig. Cavaliere Deifebo Perini Brancadori, con l’illustrissima...
Siena, Stamperia del Pubblico, 1699.
Seemingly unrecorded collection of sonnets written to mark the marriage of two Sienese nobles, Deifebo Perini Brancadori and Ottavia Orlandini. The fourteen sonnets, whose authorship remains unknown, take inspiration from the family name of the groom and aspects of the arms of both families, with...
£350
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[ABC.]
Petite géographie amusante abécédaire nouveau offrant pour chaque lettre de l’alphabet une carte coloriée avec l’explication...
Paris, P.-C. Lehuby, [1851].
A charming and very rare ABC intended to teach children European geography, from A for Allemagne to Z for Zara in Dalmatia, published just a few years after the upheavals of the revolutions of 1848.
£3750
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PONS, Blaise Morin de.
Dissertatio medica inauguralis de inflammatione. Quam, favente summo numine, ex auctoritate rectoris magnifici,...
Utrecht, Joannes Broedelet, ‘Academiae Typographi’, 1760.
First and only edition, rare, of this inaugural medical dissertation on the causes and manifestations of inflammation by Blaise Morin de Pons at the University of Utrecht, illustrated with a magnificent medical frontispiece.
£475
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GAZZERA, Enrico.
Les veilles de Saint-Augustin, évêque d’Hippone; ouvrage traduit de l’Italien. Première édition Françoise …
Avignon, Veuve Seguin, an. XI 1803.
Uncommon first edition of a spiritual novel by the Piedmontese abbot Enrico Gazzera (1772–1838), Commander of the Order of Malta and a member of the Academy of Vaucluse, presented as a series of fourteen ‘vigils’ supposedly composed by St Augustine on his journey from Italy to Carthage....
£375
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GAMON, Christophe de.
La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.
[Geneva], Gédéon Petit, 1609.
Unauthorised second edition, scarcer than the first, of this poem on the creation of the world by Christophe de Gamon, this copy containing an early example of the use of the formula ‘collated and perfect’ by the librarian to the eighth Earl of Kinnoull.
£950
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CAPRA, Alessandro.
Geometria famigliare, et instruttione pratica d’Alessandro Capra architetto cremonese. Per gl’edificii nuovi,...
Cremona, Gio[vanni] Pietro Zanni, 1671.
An exceedingly rare extract from the first edition of the treatise of practical geometry by the architect and inventor Alessandro Capra (c. 1605–c. 1685), seemingly prepared and sold as a manual for surveyors and early estate agents.
£575
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[BIBLE – NEW TESTAMENT.]
Της Καινης Διαθηκης απαντα. Novi Testamenti libri omnes, recens nunc editi, cum...
[Leiden, Bonaventura and Abraham I Elzevir for] London, Richard Whittaker, 1633.
First London issue of the Elzevir Greek New Testament with commentary by Robert Estienne, Joseph Scaliger, and Isaac Casaubon, printed in part at the press at Leiden in the same year as the second edition, bound with the Book of Common Prayer and the Psalms.
£1250
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AURIGNAC, Sara Thérèse d’.
Cahier de dessins.
[Villiers-en-Bière], c. 1896.
An album of fin-de-siècle sketches by fifteen-year-old Sara Thérèse d’Aurignac, comprising humorous vignettes, imaginative anthropomorphism, dancing devils, and scenes of leisure.
£875
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SIMMONS, Owen.
The Book of Bread [Deluxe issue].
London, Maclaren & Sons, [1903].
Extremely rare ‘edition de luxe’ of The Book of Bread, with ten silver bromide prints and in the original morocco binding, along with the standard first editions of The Book of Bread and The Book of Cakes, in their original green cloth bindings; combining both issues of the...
£4500
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BRULL, Mariano.
Solo de Rosa. Poemas. Con dos rosas de Mariano y Portocarrero.
[Havana, Cuba], ‘La Veronica’, 1941.
First edition, no. 186 of 300 copies, inscribed to Brull’s French translator Mathilde Pomès in Ottawa, 1946.
£650
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PASSI, Marco Celio.
Memorie sulla vita di Donna Giuseppina Passi nata Marchesa Lomellini di Genova.
Bergamo, Stamperia Mazzoleni, 1832.
Scarce first edition of a touching memorial to Giuseppina Passi (1809–1831), born Marchioness Lomellini of Genoa, who died after complications in childbirth at the age of twenty-one.
£300
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ARISTOPHANES.
Aristophanis comicorum principis Comoediae undecim, e graeco in latinum ad verbu[m] translatae Andreae Divo Iustinopolitano...
Venice, 1542 [colophon: apud D. Jacob a Burgofrancho papiensem, 1538].
First collected Latin edition of Aristophanes, translated from the Greek by Andrea Divo.
£1200
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BERNIER DE MALIGNY, Aristippe-Félix.
Art du comédien. Principes généraux. Recueillis et mis en ordre par Aristippe, 1819.
Paris, Louis Raymond, [1819].
Very rare broadside encapsulating the ‘art of the actor’, by the thespian and theoretician Aristippe-Félix Bernier de Maligny, who would later develop his ideas further in his 1826 book Théorie de l’art du comédien.
£875