{"title":"Incunabula","description":"\u003cp\u003eBooks printed before 1501 during the earliest years of moveable-type printing in Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"epistolae-graecae","title":"EPISTOLAE GRAECAE","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lovely copy of this rare Aldine incunable, the editio princeps of the majority of the letters it contains, including the editio princeps of the letters of Plato and the first printing of any of his writings in the original Greek, edited by Marcus Musursus, perhaps the most influential figure in the progress of the Aldine Greek Press, and beautifully printed by the incomparable Aldus Manutius. Musurus brought together 35 authors in his extensive collection, ranging from Plato, Isocrates and Aeschines from antiquity to 4th-century authors such as Gregory of Nazianzus and later to Procopius of Gaza. Also included are Synesius, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, St. Basil, Phalaridis Tyranni, Bruti Romani, Apollonius of Tyana, and Julian Apostate (Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus); other letters are spurious or of doubtful authorship, such as those by Hippocrates and Euripides. The book is printed in Aldus's second and better Greek type (2:114), designed by Francesco Griffo da Bologna. In his dedication to Antonio Urceo Codro (1446-1500) professor of Greek and Latin at Bologna, Aldus states that he has set up in type whatever letters he could procure of some thirty-five Greek writers. A total of twenty six authors were published in these vols. Those that do not appear in this edition he reserved for a later publication, which was never realised. Letter-writing was an art and study allied to rhetoric, which formed part of a humanistic education, and compendia of letters circulated as model precedents. The letters published in this volume however are of interest far beyond mere examples of letter-writing. An example is Plato s seventh letter, the longest and most important. It is addressed to the associates and companions of Dion, most likely after his assassination in 353 BCE, in the form of an open letter, and contains a defence of Plato s political activities in Syracuse as well as a long digression concerning the nature of philosophy, the theory of the forms, and the problems inherent to teaching. Toward the end of the letter he gives an explanation of the perfect circle as an existing, unchanging, and eternal form, and explains how any reproduction of a circle is impossible. He suggests that the form of a perfect circle cannot even be discussed, because language and definition are inadequate. This collection was of great influence; Copernicus taught himself Greek using this work with the help of a Greek-Latin dictionary; the manuscript of his De Revolutionibus contains a suppressed passage from Lysis s letter to Hipparchus found in this collection. Introducing the text of the letter Copernicus mentions  Philolaus believed in the earth s motion.. (and) Aristarchus of Samos too held the same view . From 1493, Musurus was associated with Aldus Manutius and belonged to the Neacademia (Aldine Academy of Hellenists), a society founded by Manutius and other learned men for the promotion of Greek studies. Many of the Aldine classics were published under Musurus' supervision, and he is credited with the first editions of the scholia of Aristophanes (1498), Athenaeus (1514), Hesychius of Alexandria (1514) and Pausanias (1516). Musuros' handwriting reportedly formed the model of Aldus' Greek type. Works printed by Aldus Manutius have become synonymous with all that is best with  late fifteenth century and early sixteenth-century book production, particularly with typographical elegance and editorial quality and this rare and beautifully produced incunable is no exception. The Aldine Epistolae Graecae 'was not replaced by an equally useful collection until 1873, the date of R. Hercher's Epistolographi graeci' (Wilson, Byzantium to Italy, p.150). \u003cbr\u003e\n A fine copy with tremendous provenance; Bound for the 1st Duke of Sutherland (1758-1833), described by Charles Greville as a \"leviathan of wealth\" and \"...the richest individual who ever died\". Then in the collection of the great bibliophile Martin Bodmer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EPISTOLAE GRAECAE","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816070422863,"sku":"L1344","price":35000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8227.jpg?v=1781795323"},{"product_id":"beughem-cornelius-von","title":"BEUGHEM, Cornelius von","description":"First edition of the first printed bibliography of incunabula compiled by the preeminent Dutch C17 bibliographer Cornelius (or Cornelis) van Beughem. This groundbreaking pocket sized volume (you could easily take it with you when visiting your favorite bookshop) lists more than 3000 incunables, helpfully in strict authorial alphabetical order, rather than first by subject matter, unlike most bibliographies of the period; the full title is usually given. In some cases, several editions are listed with date and place of printing, sometimes with names of editors and translators and sizes. In the case of editions of particular importance the printer may be also identified. At the end are appendices of anonymous editions and those of uncertain date or imprint. This was a remarkably comprehensive and useful volume, providing modern style bibliographical information on more than ten percent of now known incunabula, including many more obscure works.\r \r Beughem (c. 1637-1710) of Prussian origin, worked as a bookseller in Amsterdam for Jansson before setting up his own shop in Emmerich. He was  without doubt the foremost bibliographer of the seventeenth century  (Breslauer \u0026amp; Folter) who  provided for his contemporaries a series of bibliographies of outstanding usefullness, full, accurate, and intelligently compiled  (Besterman). Beughem can be justly considered the precursor to the great bookseller-bibliographers of the 19th century, although they were largely critical of his pioneering efforts.","brand":"BEUGHEM, Cornelius von","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816091197775,"sku":"L1570","price":3850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Beughem-2.jpg?v=1781795316"},{"product_id":"justinus-with-gellius-aulus","title":"JUSTINUS [with] GELLIUS, Aulus","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very clean and wide-margined copy of two Venetian incunables in a strictly contemporary and very attractive Renaissance binding. The second work notably features a fine instance of the kind of large Greek type used in the 1480s, illustrated by Proctor, who praised it for 'the regularity and size which make it the best type of its class' (p.127). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Justinus was a second century Roman historian. This, his most notable work, he describes as a collection of the most interesting and important passages from Pompeius Trogus' 'Historiae philippicae et totius mundi origina et terrae situs', written in the time of Augustus and now lost. This was a general history of those parts of the world that had come under the auspices of Alexander the Great, and takes as its main theme the Macedonian Empire founded by his father Philip. The last event it records (in Justinius' version) is in 20 B.C. Through his frequent digressions, Justinus here produces not an epitome but rather a useful and sometimes elegant anthology based on the work. It was very popular in the Middle Ages, when the author was frequently confused with Justin Martyr. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Noctes Atticae consists of a miscellaneous anthology on various topics, including philosophy, law, literature, grammar, and history. Gellius (c. 125 - c. 180) wrote the book for the education of his children during his winter nights in Attica, and the work proved very popular into and throughout the Middle Ages. It grew out of a commonplace book that Gellius kept, in which he recorded items of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read about. The book deliberately has no specific structure, and of the twenty books only 19 have come down to us - the 8th is known only through its index. In it, Gellius quotes extensively from Greek and Latin authors, many of whose works have not survived - the book is therefore a valuable resource in preserving fragments of writings otherwise entirely lost. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding, although elements of its decoration are common to several printing centres in Italy at this time, bears a strong resemblance to a number of bindings known to have been produced at Venice (and in particular to de Marinis' no. 1532 in vol II of his 'Legatura Artistica in Italia'). In its decoration it shows elements of the assimilation of Eastern design in Italian bookbinding, especially by the Byzantine\/Ottoman nature of the central knotwork tools. It must previously have been very grand, and shows evidence of elegant and arabesque furniture at the corners and at the centre of the covers. The furniture would most likely have been bronze or silver; the remaining studs holding the stubs of the ties are in bronze. The binding is still an elegant example of Renaissance bookbinding craftsmanship and examples in this condition and are invariably rare.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JUSTINUS [with] GELLIUS, Aulus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120459599,"sku":"L446","price":14500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L446-8.jpg?v=1781795294"},{"product_id":"statutes-of-salzburg","title":"[STATUTES OF SALZBURG]","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst bilingual Latin-German edition of the Statutes for the Province of Salzburg, with new, expanded German text, the first having appeared in 1490. The Statuta were drawn up under Friedich V von Schaunberg (or von Schallenburg), Archbishop of Salzburg from 1489-1494, a position which traditionally enjoyed a great deal of autonomy from Rome, and considerable secular legislative powers. Friedrich was educated at the University of Vienna from 1459, becoming Domherr ('canon') in Salzburg in 1469, and proceeding steadily up the hierarchy until he was appointed Archbishop in 1489. He was renowned for being outspoken, but diplomatic. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Statuta provide rulings on various aspects of ecclestiastical administration and law, and the duties and behaviour of clergy and laypeople. They also lay down the wider legal framework of the region's relationship to papal authority. Among their provisions are sections specifying appropriate clerical behaviour ('De vita et honestate clericorum'; 'De continentia clericorum'): it is stressed in several places that clerics should be literate and guard against letting their congregations fall into ignorant ways, and that they should reside in and receive their incomes from one parish alone. Further sections provide rulings on penitence and absolution, admission to communion and the observation of the sabbath. A large number of other, wide-ranging issues are dealt with in the simple, concise style which characterises the Statuta as a whole: they include usury, the quarantine of lepers and baptism, inter alia. Sources cited include Eusebius, St. Benedict and Pope Innocent III. The work concludes with Pope Martin V's 'confirmatio' with the Holy Roman Empire, in Latin and in German, a document which laid the basis for subsequent papal relations with the German lands, and, on a more regional level, for Salzburg's own ecclesiastical autonomy and freedom to create its own local legislation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[STATUTES OF SALZBURG]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120885583,"sku":"L529","price":4750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0039.jpg?v=1781795292"},{"product_id":"bible-1","title":"BIBLE","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis charming and prettily decorated portable Bible is an untouched and unspoiled early example of the Parisian Bible of the 13th century. It was copied and decorated in the second quarter of the century, shortly after university theologians completed the standardization of the biblical texts. The new Vulgate had been created to facilitate university teachers and members of the preaching orders, who often travelled between universities, monasteries and church congregations in different parts of the country. It was therefore conceived as a text that could be copied in volumes of diminutive format, written on very fine parchment in the tiny formal Gothic script mostly used until then for marginal glosses. The new biblical vulgate started circulating in its final form about 1230. The present manuscript is therefore an early representative of the Parisian Vulgate. The text is complete and all the canonical prologues, each rubricated in full and decorated with an illuminated or a pen-flourished initial. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The initials are elegantly decorated with twirling rinceaux in colour and gold, and sometime include small dragons or other grotesque winged animals intertwined with the scrolling foliage. The puzzle initials, formed of interlocked scalloped segments in red and blue separated by a thin white line, are filled with curling pen-work decoration dotted in blue. A similarly curling and dotted decoration surrounds them and elongates into the margins in elegant pen strokes of red and blue. The style of the painted decoration resembles closely to works of the Parisian workshop known as the  Vie de saint Denis Atelier  (active 1230-1250) for the Benedictines of the Priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs in Paris and the Cistercians of Clairvaux Abbey (see Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de france, MS latin 233). It also closely recalls the style of manuscripts produced at the same time in Amiens, Northern France for the Benedictine Abbeys of Anchin, and Marchiennes (see Douai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MSS 18, 20 and 21). The small codicological feature of parchment tabs marking the beginning of books, now removed from the present manuscript, adds a further link to manuscript Bibles produced at Amiens for monastic use (see R. Branner, Manuscript Paintings in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis; a Study of Styles, Berkeley, 1977, cat. 210, pl. X). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In the 13th century the manuscript was used in a monastic or ecclesiastical institution as indicated by the index of liturgical readings added at the end of the volume by a 13th-century hand which was more used to writing monastic cartularies or ecclesiastical deeds than liturgical books. The prominence given to the feast of St Vincent of Saragossa (22 January) at the beginning of the readings for the Proper of the Saints, suggests a particular devotion to the saint. St Vincent is the patron saint of Macon and Viviers in France, Berne in Switzerland and Soignies in Belgium. A particular veneration for St Vincent and the probable Flemish origin of the fifteenth century binding combine to point to the collegiate church of St Vincent at Soignies as the probable 13th-century owner. St Vincent s was built as the church of the Benedictine Abbey founded by St Vincent Madelgarius (d. 677), a Flemish nobleman. Soignies Abbey was dissolved and transformed in secular Chapter in the 11th century. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In the 17th century the book was in Prussia, in the possession of Johann Friedrich Bessel, a philologist of Tilsit, respondent and praeses at the Universities of Wittenberg and Helmstedt between 1654 and 1667. Left after Bessel s death with others of his book to Christopher Horch Senior, possibly the father of the German physician Christopher Horch (1667-1754) of Berlin, it was given by Horch to an unidentifed individual on 13 February 1682 ( Hac Biblia manuscripta donata \/ mihi fuit √† Dn. Christophero \/ Horch Sen. ex libris relictis \/ B. Dn. M. Besselj \/ Anno 1682 .d. 13 Febr.  on upper pastedown). The unnamed recipient of the book was probably either Heinrich Bartsch (1627-1702), councillor, treasurer and vice-mayor of Könisberg, who gave his collection to Könisberg Stadtbibliothek, or his son Heinrich Bartsch Jr (1667-1728), a jurist at the University of Wittenberg. In 1718 the library was opened to the public by Bartsch Junior, who donated his collection of Bibles. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In the 19th century the book was stamped  Stadtbibliothek Koenigsberg  twice in the lower margin of fol. 1 recto. The Bible is mentioned in the library catalogue A. Seraphim, Handschriften-Katalog der Stadtbibliothek Königsberg i.Pr., Königsberg i.Pr., 1909, p. 300. The library was destroyed by a bomb in August 1944. Since 1946 Königsberg has been part of Russia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BIBLE","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127963471,"sku":"K36","price":150000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_7999.jpg?v=1781795270"},{"product_id":"segusio-da-susa-or-hostiensis-enrico","title":"SEGUSIO da Susa or HOSTIENSIS, Enrico","description":"\u003cp\u003eEarly uncommon edition of a very successful and extremely detailed legal commentary on the Decretals, updated for  modern  use and first printed in Rome in 1473. It is divided by subject matter into sections, which are identified both by sub-headings and running titles. Enrico Segusio (c. 1200-1271) was named after his hometown close to Turin, Susa. Also known as Hostiensis, he was the most prominent jurist of his time. He taught in Bologna and Paris, served Henry VIII of England as ambassador to the pope and was appointed archbishop of Embrun. At the end of his brilliant career, he was made Cardinal of Ostia and Velletri. He is mentioned by Dante in his Comedia (Paradise, XII, 82-85). This work on Roman and canon law was so successful that it was often referred to as Summa aurea, remaining for centuries an invaluable legal tool. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The splendid armorial binding of this copy suggests the property of a wealthy seventeenth-century marquis (from the crown) almost certainly a member of the Spanish nobility, which included at the time also Southern Italian families. The work would have been particularly important to a public figure with administrative and judicial responsibilities, such as a viceroy. The armorial bindings, neither halved nor quartered, suggest such an appointment. A fine copy of a handsome and very substantial book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SEGUSIO da Susa or HOSTIENSIS, Enrico","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816129864015,"sku":"L2040","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/segusio-L2040-5.jpg?v=1781795265"},{"product_id":"book-of-hours-2","title":"BOOK OF HOURS","description":" This charming Book of Hours was produced in Bruges. These books were the result of the work of a number of different artisans and artists working separately on the different phases of production - the copying of the text, the decoration of minor initials and line fillers, and the illumination of initials, borders and miniatures. \n  \n The devotional texts were usually copied on dedicated single or multiple quires according to their length, with the beginnings of the canonical hours copied on rectos; they were then assembled in volumes whose textual sequences corresponded to the requirements of the individual customers, with dedicated miniatures inserted to face the beginning of the canonical hours and other illumination and decoration added to the clients  taste and means. \n  \n All the illuminated miniatures of the present manuscript are on the verso of added singletons whose parchment is often heavier and thicker than the soft and beautiful parchment of the quires, which shows hardly any visible difference between the flesh and the hair side. \n  \n It is therefore unusual to find manuscripts made by the same scribe, rubricator, decorator and illuminator\/s, but each of their components may find matches in different manuscripts. This manuscript shows the same textual and illustrative sequence as London, British Library, MSS Harley 1853 and Stowe 26, but for the absence of the Mass of the Virgin and perhaps of the Psalter of St Jerome at the end. The three manuscripts are also similarly diminutive. Its beautiful Italianate Gothic hand matches that of Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum MS. W. 179. The rubrication and decoration of minor initials and line-fillers is close to that of Les Enlumineures Book of Hours 61, BL Stowe MS 26, Walters MSS 190 and 196 (made for Queen Eleanor of Portugal), and the Derval Hours, Sotheby s, 5 July 2005, lot 98 (made for Jean de Ch√¢teaugiron, seigneur de Derval and chamberlain of Brittany). The accomplished decoration of the borders finds correspondence in Les Enlumineures Book of Hours 61 and possibly Chicago, Newberry Library, Case MS. 35 (the Mildmay Hours). \n  \n The sequence of miniatures for the Hours of the Virgin corresponds to the cycle of the Infancy of Christ as was customary in Southern Flanders at the time (see B. Bousmanne, \"Item a Guillaume Wyelant aussi enlumineur,\" Bruxelles, 1997, p. 164). The manuscript was undoubtedly illuminated in the circle of Wilhelm Vrelant (d. 1481; active in Bruges from 1454), the most successful illuminator in Bruges at that time. His patrons included the Dukes of Burgundy and members of their family and court as well as French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian royalty, diplomats, aristocrats, bankers and wealthy merchants. \n  \n Judging from their surviving manuscripts, he and his collaborators produced devotional books in far greater numbers than any other text; it is therefore not surprising that at the time the so-called  Vrelant style  became very popular and had a strong impact on the production of Books of Hours. \n  \n The full-page miniatures are in the style of an anonymous illuminator singled out among Vrelant s collaborators by Nicholas Rogers and given the name of the Mildmay Master after a Book of Hours in the Newberry Library in Chicago (Case MS. 35) that in the 16th century belonged to Sir Thomas Mildmay (b. in or before 1515, d. 1566), Auditor of the Court of Augmentations for Henry VIII. The master collaborated with Vrelant in the decoration of a four-volume copy of the Golden Legend in French translation for Jean d Auxy, knight of the Golden Fleece (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MSS 672-675. \n  \n A direct comparison with the Book of Hours in the British Library (Harley MS 3000) suggests that the artist working on the present manuscript is not the Mildmay Master, even though he is seemingly the same artist of a Book of Hours attributed to him in S. Hindman and A. Bergeron-Foote, An intimate Art. 12 Books of Hours for 2012, London, 2012. He is also the same artist of another devotional manuscript (Walters MS. W. 177). \n  \n The anonymous artist of these three manuscripts managed to avoid the sharp linearity and rarefied stillness that characterise the works of the Mildmay Master and used a different and warmer palette of deeper blues and reds. The iconography of his decorative cycles follows the models employed by Vrelant and his followers, but his miniatures display distinctive delicate features for the Virgin (see here the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi on fols 24v, 64v and 78v), elongated male faces (in particular of Christ on the Cross and David in prayer on fols 1v and 124v), landscapes of rolling green hills and mountains turning to dark blue in the distance, and interiors characterised by gilt-embroidered tapestries and pink and grey walls with white-stucco decoration that includes a very distinctive element. \n  \n This element recalls the monograms in the trade-mark stamps imposed on the Bruges illuminators by the town administration to stop the import of illuminated single leaves by foreign artists who were not registered with the Guild. This decorative element is particularly similar to the stamp of Adriaen de Raedt, an apprentice of Vrelant in the years 1473-1475, who was occasionally named as Vrelant in the Guild s documents. \n  \n Almost all miniatures in the present book are a simplified version of the standardized Flemish iconography for the cycle of the Infancy of Christ disseminated by Vrelant and his followers, and found, for instance, in two Books of Hours attributed to Wilhelm Vrelant and\/or associates(Walters MSS W. 196 and 197), and in the Arenberg Hours attributed to the Mildmay Master (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS. Ludwig IX 8 (83.ML.104)). The fall of the idol from the column in the miniature of the Flight to Egypt (fol. 103v), in particular, is reminiscent of the Mildmay Master s representations of the Apostle Bartolomew and Felix of Ostia destroying Idols or Mamertinus of Auxerre praying to Idols in the New York Golden Legend (PML, MS. M 675, fols 22r, 51r and 56v respectively). \n  \n The representation of the Crucifixion is the only exception. In the figures of the fore-ground and the landscape in the background our artist paraphrases the Crucifixion in Vrelant s style as found in Walters MS. W. 197 (fol. 34v) and the Arenberg Hours (fol. 134r), but for the central scene of the Crucifixion with Christ flanked by the two thieves he seems to look elsewhere, possibly at the Crucifixion attributed to the so-called Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy (Vienna, √ñsterreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS. 1857, fol. 99v) and the Trivulzio Hours (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Ms. SMCi, fol. 94v), executed about 1470-1475, which echo the Crucifixion in Joos van Ghent s Calvary triptych of the late 1460s. A similar dating for the present manuscript is consistent with the style of the all its other features. \n  \n The volume provides no clue towards the identification of its original owner. Like many famous Bruges manuscripts such as the Spinola Hours (Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, MS. Ludwig IX 18) and the Grimani Breviary (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS. Lat. I, 99) copied by scribes imitating Italian bookhands, or indeed by Italian scribes working in a Bruges, and decorated by Flemish artists, the present book was beautifully produced on smooth white parchment of the highest quality and copied in an elegant round Italianate Gothic hand. \n  \n The litany is of Augustinian Use, with Paul the First Hermit and Nicholas of Tolentino (canonized in 1446) among the doctors and confessors and Monica among the Virgins; other saints added to an otherwise standard text for the Use of Rome are Alexis at the end of monks and hermits, and Saints Margaret, Barbara and Elisabeth among the Virgins. \n  \n The masculine forms used in most prayers, including  Obsecro te  and  Intemerata , with the only exception of the last, suggest that the book belonged to a man; the inclusion of the prayer  Deus propicius esto mihi peccatori et custos mei sis omnibus diebus vite mee,  traditionally attributed to St. Augustine, may indicate that he was a man of some importance, possibly a member of the large Italian community of merchants and bankers in Bruges, or a major local patron.","brand":"BOOK OF HOURS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816131764559,"sku":"K34","price":95000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_7956.jpg?v=1781795260"},{"product_id":"molitor-ulricus","title":"MOLITOR, Ulricus","description":"\u003cp\u003eA beautiful copy of this exceptionally rare and important text, the first and most important illustrated work on witches and a work that has defined the image of witches to this day. The  De Lamiis,  was first published in 1489 with the same series of iconic woodcuts. It is one of the earliest printed works on witchcraft, and contains the first ever illustrations of witches. This, probably the first Basel edition, is beautifully printed in a fine gothic letter in thirty-two lines and very finely illustrated with seven stunning woodcuts depicting witches and their activities. The first depicts two witches around a large pot, one throwing in a cockerel the other preparing to throw in a snake, the resulting brew creating a storm. The other blocks represent a lycanthropic scene of a wizard mounted on a wolf, the devil disguised as a bourgeois man corrupting a woman, the ensorcellment of a man by a witch firing a spell, witches transformed into animals flying on brooms, and a group of three witches around a table. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The book is written in the form of a dialogue between the author and the dedicatee, the Archduke Sigismund of Austria, who doubts the existence of witches. At a time when complete theories about witchcraft were yet to be established, the author defended belief in the powers of the Devil and his ability to trick the human mind. The woodcut depicting three witches together, eating and drinking beneath a tree, is typical of the format of the work. The title on the previous page to this woodcut reads  An super lupum vel baculum unctum ad convivia veniant et mutuo comedant et bibant et sibi mutuo loquantur ac se invicem agnoscant.   Can [witches] come to feasts on a wolf or an anointed stick, eat drink, speak together and recognize one another?  The women are not doing anything other than eating but the image has become deeply anchored in the popular imagination, as it was used and referred to again and again in imagery and literature throughout the centuries, not least in Shakespeare s  Macbeth.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The first tract on witches to be illustrated, 1489   94, was written by the lawyer Ulrich Molitor from Constance in 1484. He actually argues against the persecution of witches because he was sceptical of the value of confessions under torture. He did, however, believe that they were heretics and should be punished with death. In the illustrations, the witches are not characterised by any special dress or undress, implying that all women were capable of being witches. They look like ordinary housewives except in the  Flight to the witches  Sabbath, when they are changed into animal shapes. Although the text speaks of the witches  evil activities being a figment of their imagination, delusions inspired by the devil, the illustrations portray the effects of their malignant and harmful magical spells as real enough, e.g. a witch shooting at a man who tries to jump away, or witches making a brew, using a rooster and a serpent as ingredients, whilst hailstones come crashing down from the sky. Molitor certainly believed in the reality of their sexual intercourse with the devil.   Picturing women in late Medieval and Renaissance art  by Christa Grössinger. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  With the appearance of Ulrich Molitor s  On Witches  in 1488   89, the arguments of the Malleus were repeated in the literary format of a conversation among Molitor, Duke Sigismund of the Tyrol, and Sigismund s minister Conrad Schatz, with a suite of seven remarkable woodcuts that for the first time offered related pictorial images of witches  activities without any identifying physical or costume features attributed to witches   that is, some of the illustrations seem to depict ordinary women doing ordinary things.  Witchcraft in Europe, 400   1700. Alan Charles Kors, Edward Peters. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Several of the incunable editions of this book, including the first, have the date 10 January 1489 on the colophon. ISTC and GW date this edition to around 1495, though it is clearly earlier than Fairfax Murray (German, volume II, no. 289) also ascribed to Basel, Amerbach or Furter, which contains identical but broken versions of the same woodcuts, which Fairfax Murray dates to 1490. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Brunet cites this copy from the library of Reagh Mac-Carthy, the great Irish bibliophile (who found refuge in France, near Toulouse) in his sale of 1815 (I no. 1678). Justin  Reagh  Mac-Carthy himself bought some of the major collections of the C18th, such as the library of Giradot de Prefond, and founded one of the richest personal libraries ever assembled, which included over eight hundred volumes of works printed on vellum. He also seems to have profited from the na√Øvety of the Librarian of Albi, Jean-François Massol, who was proud to have  swapped  several precious medieval manuscripts with him for more  useful  works such as Buffons  8vo.  Histoire Naturelle.  The sale of his books at Paris in 1815 was one of the greatest of that century. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy then passed to the library of the Marquis of Germigny (sold 1939, no 13). In Mac-Carthy s sale the work is recorded as being bound with the  Tractatus Utilissimus artis memorative  by Matheoli Perusini (1498). This work was probably removed at some stage when the binding was restored. (As this work was only seven leaves, its removal did not affect the spine.) Its last owner was the great Scholar, author and bibliographer Guy Bechtel, author of the  Catalogue des Gothiques Francais 1476   1560.  We have found no record of the early sixteenth century owner,  Millot de Sombernon.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A lovely copy of a hugely important text with a very beautiful and most influential set of woodcuts, and most distinguished provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MOLITOR, Ulricus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816132813135,"sku":"K29","price":95000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8035.jpg?v=1781795255"},{"product_id":"bible-cistercian","title":"BIBLE, Cistercian","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis large splendid volume was produced in Northern Italy in the second half of the twelfth century for the use of a monastery of the Cistercian order, established in 1098 by Robert of Molesme at C√Æteaux. The unusual order of the biblical texts (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel; Epistles, Acts and Apocalypse; the Gospels), reflects a programme of reading in the Night Office carried out in Cistercian communities from Advent to Epiphany, Lent, and Easter to Pentecost (ordo librorum ad legendum; Reilly 2005, pp. 169-170). The Cistercians included the reading of the four Gospels into the refectory element of their annual cycle, but excluded the Passion narratives as highlighted in the manuscript by the marginal notes  Hic dimittatur legere in refectorio  (fols 201r, 215r, 239r) (Webber 2010, pp. 20 n. 47, 32). The large size of the volume, the two-column layout, well-spaced lettering and use of red minor initials throughout were designed to assure legibility for reading aloud. The principal hand is a very fine example of top quality 12th century calligraphy, elegant yet clearly legible. The additional punctuation supplied by the second hand in a darker ink in accordance with the Cistercian practice of indicating short, medium and long pauses in the reading, supplied further helpful guidance (Parkes 1992, pp. 195, 197). The textual corrections by this second hand testify to the attention paid to the correctness of biblical texts in accordance with St Bernard of Clairvaux s wishes. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The sober yet elegant decoration of the initials also follows the Cistercian practice of austerity, including restrained decoration in their manuscripts. The initials to Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel are similar in style to those found in a 12th-century manuscript Bible now in the Biblioteca Civica  Angelo Mai  at Bergamo, MA 600 (olim Alpha V 17; see Zizzo), with an almost certain Cistercian origin. The three initials in red with reserved and red and black penwork decoration on leaves 110r-111v are consistent with the decoration of Cistercian manuscripts produced in Italy, as in two 12th-century codices; an Office lectionary at Harvard, Houghton Library, Typ 223 online at http:\/\/hcl.harvard.edu\/libraries\/houghton\/collections\/early_manuscripts\/bibliographies\/Typ.cfm, from the Abbey of Morimondo (Ferrari 1993, p. 299) and from Acquafredda Abbey (see Ferrari 1993, p. 295) a 12th century Commentary on The Old Testament-Pentateuch by Isidore of Seville and Hugh of St Victor s Rex Salomon, now at Berkeley, Bancroft Library, MS UCB 16. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Both these manuscripts have covers almost identical to the present, and bear similar titles on the second spine compartment, also found on Jerome s Commentary on the Minor Prophets, now Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Gerli MS 12, identified by Ferrari (Ferrari 1999, pp. 36, 41-42, 44) as one of the manuscripts mentioned in the twelfth-century book list from the Abbey of Morimondo found on the last verso of the Abbey s Office lectionary mentioned above (Houghton Library, Typ 223). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The present manuscript shares the same 18th-century provenance, if not origin, as those three manuscripts now at Milan, Berkeley and Cambridge. From the beginning of the eighteenth century many manuscripts from Cistercian abbeys in Lombardy were collected at the monastery of S. Ambrogio in Milan to support the programme of cultural reform promoted by the Congregation of St Bernard in Italy and the Austrian government. On arrival at S. Ambrogio, they may have been supplied with new covers and a manuscript title on the spine. The present manuscript must have arrived about the same time, when the influx increased exponentially with the suppressions of the monasteries in the last quarter of the century; many of these codices were then dispersed onto the open market. A good number were acquired by the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, but many entered private collections, such as those of the marchesi Trivulzio of Milan, Count Francesco Giovio (1796 - 1873) of Como, and Matteo Luigi Canonici (1727 - 1805), Jesuit and antiquarian of Venice, further dispersed through later sales. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A twentieth-century note in English pencilled on the upper flyleaf suggests that this manuscript may have passed through the hands of the bookseller Giuseppe (Joseph) Martini of Lugano between 1913 and 1942, though it is not mentioned by Ferrari in her list of Cistercian manuscripts described in Martini s catalogues (Ferrari 1999, pp. 34-35). It was Martini who probably invented the myth of provenance from the library of the celebrated humanist Paolo Giovio (1483 - 1552) still recorded in the literature of some Italian Cistercian manuscripts (see Berkeley, University of California, Bancroft Library, MS UCB 16, in Digital Scriptorium).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BIBLE, Cistercian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816133206351,"sku":"K56","price":250000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K56-3-1.jpg?v=1781795253"},{"product_id":"justinian","title":"JUSTINIAN","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very early edition (probably the 5th) of the single most important law book of the western world. The first edition was published by Schoeffer in Mainz in 1468 and is conspicuously rare. This and the present edition share the Glossa Ordinaria of Accursius. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  No single authority has had greater influence in shaping the existing legal codes of all nations than the Roman Law; obvious in those which, like the Code Napoleon, sought to impose a theoretic standpoint, it may be felt even in fundamentally empiric bodies of law like the English Common Law. The credit for the survival of this authority can be ascribed in a very large degree to work undertaken by Justinian I, Roman Emperor of the East from 527 to 565.  PMM p.3 \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Soon after his accession, Justinian ordered the codification of the entire chaotic body of existing law, which was completed in 533. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n   the Emperor directed Tribonian to prepare an introduction to the main work, and the elementary treatise thus produced, the  Institutes of Justinian , has been for students ever since the introduction to the Roman law.   When people speak of the Roman law today, what they mean is Justinian.  PMM p.3 \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very distinguished provenance. The ms ex dono (second quarter of C16th) records the gift of the volume by Francisco Contareni to the Church of St Peter Martyr in Venice. Contareni is a variant of  Contarini , one of the greatest families of Venice, producer of senators, admirals, Patriarchs, and even Doges. Francisco describes himself as  of Santa Marina , where the family had a palace, and an inscription is recorded of him in the Church of Santa Marina, now destroyed ,(Delle Inscrizioni Venezione I. p.339) which also received half his estate under his will; Francisco died in 1545. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The great library of Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland (1674-1722) contained only a few manuscripts and some 20,000 printed books; it was particularly strong in incunabula (many being printed on vellum) . Seymour de Ricci p.38. Sunderland purchased extensively through an agent, James Gibson, who travelled all over Italy, buying speculatively, especially from monastic collections, but always giving Sunderland first choice. The Sunderland Library, described in 1703 as the finest in Europe, was sold by the Duke of Marlborough in 1882 for over ¬£56,500, a princely sum. This volume, lot 6619  A Rare and Finely Printed Edition  fetched ¬£6-10s.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JUSTINIAN","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816137728335,"sku":"K114","price":59500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8177.jpg?v=1781795196"},{"product_id":"holkot-robertus","title":"HOLKOT, Robertus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe handsome C15 binding, with floral diaper tools in blind, reprises a pattern found in Southern Germany from c.1500 (e.g., Goldschmidt II, 42). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Fine copy of the fifth edition on this extremely influential medieval commentary on the  Book of Wisdom . The English Dominican Robert Holkot (or Holcot, c.1290-1349) was a renowned philosopher and biblical exegete, professor of theology at Oxford and a follower of William of Ockham s scholasticism. Intended as a manual for preachers, his  Supra sapientiam Salomonis  features over 100  lectiones  which interpreted, illustrated, questioned, doubted and responded to specific theological  loci , according to the Scholastic method. These included the meaning of  wisdom , its acquisition, how it never  rottens away  and is linked to justice, and in keeping with Holkot s interest in moral wisdom why princes and magistrates should study to achieve it through piety and philosophy. Holkot made original use of his biblical, patristic and classical sources including Seneca and Lucan. He used anecdotes and fables on Greek gods and mythological figures drawn, for instance, from Ovid s  Metamorphoses , like the story of Echo, as well as vivid comparisons which preachers could use in their sermons: e.g., wisdom and falsity do not mix well in a person, like gold and tin in an alloy or syllables in a stammering mouth. Holkot s commentary was possibly a source of Geoffrey Chaucer s  Nun s Priest s Tale ; first printed in 1476, it went through five editions in less than twenty years. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The annotators were monks of the Order of Hermits of St Augustine in the Monastery of Seemannshausen in South Bavaria, where this copy was probably kept until the Secularisation of the early C19. The first wrote marginalia in black ink summarising key passages; in his ex-libris on the front pastedown he calls himself  lector  and  praedicator  hence he was probably a teacher of philosophy in a religious school but also  exul , his handwriting suggesting British origins. Another annotator, who may also be the rubricator, highlighted Holkot s sources in red, particularly Ovid (whom he marked in red as  poe[ta] ). He was much offended by a passage, which he crossed out, concerning the foundation of the Augustinian monastic rule and the orders that followed it, including the Hermits of St Augustine. Holkot stated that, as a Manichaean youth, Augustine had been neither a monk nor a hermit, and he mocked the traditional origin of these orders who traced their foundation to the saint s early adhesion to monasticism.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HOLKOT, Robertus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816145822031,"sku":"L2863","price":8500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Holkot-L2386-1.jpg?v=1781794945"},{"product_id":"cato-marcus-porcius-varro-marcus-terentius-columella-junius-moderatus-palladius-rutilius-taurus","title":"CATO, Marcus Porcius, VARRO, Marcus Terentius, COLUMELLA, Junius Moderatus, PALLADIUS, Rutilius Taurus","description":"\u003cp\u003eBel exemplaire de cette  édition, extr‚àö‚Ñ¢mement rare  ( Catalogue des livres de la biblioth√®que de feu M. le marquis De Terzi , this copy, 1861, lot 195). The earliest recorded private owner of this copy was a priest in Bergamo, and the last the Bergamese Marquis de Terzi. It was the second edition issued in northern Italy, and one of only three works printed by the de Bruschis the first printers in Reggio Emilia.  This is a good example of the rivalry between the prototypographers, five Italian incunabula of the  Scriptores rei rusticae , by five different printers, in three cities; three editions by three different printers in one of them, Reggio Emilia   After that the tradition of the four  Scriptores  was common  (Sarton,  Hellenistic Science and Culture , 388). This florilegium of agricultural works was devised for a readership interested in the classical rustic virtues of landownership and the practical aspects of country life, with topics as varied as the best place to set up a beehive, horticulture, remedies for dogs with flees and sick horses, ways to scare snakes off stables and regulations for workers. Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BC) was a Roman statesman, military officer and author. His only complete, extant work,  De Agri Cultura  (c.160 BC) is a manual on the management of a country estate reliant on slaves, with a special interest in the cultivation of vines. A prolific writer patronised by Augustus, Marcus Terentius Varro (116-107BC) based his  Rerum rusticarum libri tres  on his direct experience of farming. He notably warns his readers to avoid marshlands, where  animalia minuta  that cannot be seen by the human eye may be breathed in or swallowed and cause illnesses. A soldier and farmer, Lucius Moderatus Columella (4-70AD) is best known for his  Res rustica  in this edition with a commentary by Pomponius Laetus which deals with a wealth of activities including the cultivation of vines and olives, the farming and treatment of animals, and the management of workers. Inspired by Columella and much admired in the medieval period, Palladius s (C4-5AD)  Opus agriculturae  (or  De re rustica ) provides an account of the typical monthly activities of a Roman farm, and mentions the utility of building mills over abundant waterways to grind wheat. A well-margined copy with very practical marginalia highlighting sections on castrating chickens suggesting a landowner s everyday use.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATO, Marcus Porcius, VARRO, Marcus Terentius, COLUMELLA, Junius Moderatus, PALLADIUS, Rutilius Taurus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820339175759,"sku":"K137","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20250306_174935-copy.jpg?v=1781794848"},{"product_id":"gregory-i","title":"GREGORY I.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis edition  rigorous   with a handsome Gothic typeface  is included among those  of priceless value according to the unanimous opinion of bibliographers  produced by the Torresani two years after Manutius had left, on amicable terms, to set up his own press (Bernoni,  Dei Torresani , 79, n.89). This was also the penultimate edition of the C15. From a Patrician Roman family, Gregory (504-604AD) served as prefect, the highest office in Rome, before deciding to devote his life to the Christian church. Albeit keen on monastic meditation, he was, for his talents in diplomacy and administration, elected pope. He famously organised the first systematic mission to Britain, including Augustine of Canterbury, to convert the Anglo-Saxons.  Moralia  was written during his diplomatic stay at the court of Tiberius II in Constantinople, and it was completed after his papal appointment. His major work,  Moralia  is also one of the longest Western theological texts. It is a monumental commentary on moral questions raised in the book of Job addressed in their historical, moral, allegorical and typological sense Job being interpreted as a prefiguration of Christ and of the persecuted Church.  Encyclopaedic and synoptic, it is a cornucopia brimming with odd bits of information about the natural world, medicine, human nature, and society mixed unpredictably with sober analyses of guilt and sin, disquisitions on Christology, and reflections on the Church s place in the world, along with the unfolding of Job s story  a manual for Christian life (Straw,  Job s Sin , 72-73). The sparse annotator of this copy glossed two sections as  allegoria  and  moralitas . Handsome, fresh copy of one of the most influential theological works.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GREGORY I.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820342190415,"sku":"L3283","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_7468-scaled.jpg?v=1781794840"},{"product_id":"canon-law","title":"[CANON LAW]","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of this small-format formulary for canonists, first printed in Rome in 1474. It is a collection of templates for legal documents, preceded by a detailed index. These precedents, which follow the practice of ecclesiastical courts of the papal curia, had been circulating in ms. among scribes and clerks, in the C15. The collection is subdivided into broad categories, split in turn into more specific types. Among these are forms for the approval of the university curriculum and the obtainment of a  Baccalaureatus , as well as precedents for the surrendering of debt, the collection of ecclesiastical benefices, the purchase of habitations, the summons of prisoners to court, and even the purchase of books. For this, a template, which uses Justinian s  Infortiatum  as an example, identifies the notary as the witness to a financial transaction between the owner and the bookseller, for the sale of the book at the price of ten florins, and for which the number of leaves and the words at the beginning and end of text and the commentary should be specified. A very sound idea. This third German edition testifies to the gradual spreading of  the learned Romano-canonical procedure   into the German-speaking regions that traditionally had had lay judges ( Sch√∂ffen )  (Korpiola,  Introduction , 11).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[CANON LAW]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820347859279,"sku":"L3391","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3391-1.jpg?v=1781794806"},{"product_id":"book-of-hours-16","title":"BOOK OF HOURS.","description":"\u003cp\u003eProvenance: \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Most probably written and illuminated in Besançon for a male patron: the liturgical usage is either Autun or probably Besançon, while the Calendar is firmly the latter, with the local saint, Pierre de Bellevaux (also known as St. Peter of Tarentaise, 8 May), founder of the Cistercian abbey of Bellevaux where his relics were kept throughout the Middle Ages, as well as saint-bishops of Besançon: Claudius (early sixth century; 5 June) and Antidus the martyr (d. c. 407; 17 June). That said, St. Symphorianus, patron of Autun, appears in the Litany and so there may be some liturgical crossover between these two regions in the commission of this volume for an individual patron. The prayer, Obsecro te, appears on fol. 94 in the male form. \u003cbr\u003e\n C16 ms inscription on fly  Orants. Oudot La Verne . La Verne is a village about 30 km from Besançon.  Oudot  was a popular medieval Christian name in the region and later also a surname. Oudot La Verne, a merchant tanner, married in 1582 and a little later Alexandre Oudot was cur é of Verne. \u003cbr\u003e\n Almost certainly lost or disposed of following the suppression of religious life during the Revolution. \u003cbr\u003e\n Re-emerged recently in France \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Text: \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Principally Latin with some French. The volume comprises: a Calendar (fol. 1r); Readings from the Gospels (fol. 14r); the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (fol. 20r), Lauds (fol. 34r), Prime (fol. 48r), Terce (fol. 55r), Sext (fol. 60r), Nones (fol. 64r), Vespers (fol. 68r), and Compline (fol. 76r); Hours of the Cross (fol. 83r); Hours of the Holy Spirit (fol. 87v); the Obsecro te and O intemerata (fol. 91v), followed by the Sept joies de la Vierge, Dulcissime domine and the Sept joies again in Latin; Penitential Psalms (fol. 103v) followed by a Litany; the Office of the Dead (fol. 127v); and Suffrages to the Saints (fol. 144r). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Illumination: \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The miniatures here with their distinctively stout bodied figures and split eyes identify this as the work of a Besançon artist working in the second quarter of the fifteenth century (cf. F. Avril and Reynaux, Les manuscrits ‚àö‚Ć peintures en France, 1440-1520, 1993, no. 109). Our artist has been attributed to the painter of another Book of Hours, Use of Autun, now BnF., NAL. 3118, a follower of the artist of BnF., lat. 1186 (Book of Hours, Use of Langres) and New York, Morgan Library, M. 293 (Book of Hours, Use of Besançon). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The miniatures are: (i) fol. 20r, the Annunciation to the Virgin within a richly decorated interior with a burnished gold background; (ii) fol. 87v, Pentecost, with a gold and coloured tessellated background; (iii) fol. 103v, Judgement Day with Christ seated on a rainbow resting his feet on an orb, all before a dark blue night sky; (iv) fol. 127v, a funeral with hooded and tonsured monks standing before a covered coffin, all before a gold and coloured tessellated background; (v) fol. 144r, Archangel Michael striking a demon, before a gold and coloured tessellated background; (vi) fol. 146r, St. Anne and the Virgin Mary at the Golden Gate; (vii), fol. 151v, St. Nicholas. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An attractive and unusually early bourgeois Book of Hours, remarkably preserving its original decorative binding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOOK OF HOURS.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820348186959,"sku":"L3364","price":37500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_7958.jpg?v=1781794805"},{"product_id":"grassus-antonius","title":"[GRASSUS, Antonius.]","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery good, well-margined copy of this scarce Roman edition of an extremely successful manual for notaries. First composed c.1400, it circulated extensively in ms. before reaching the press in Rome in 1474 and undergoing numerous reprints in Italy, Flanders, France and Germany, as well as a German translation, until the early 1500s. Its authorship is debated: although the Brescia edition mentions the name of the Bolognese Antonius Grassus, judge of the Apostolic Tribunal of the Sacred Rota, it has also been attributed to the French jurist Johannes de Gradibus or simply considered anonymous. The title  Ars notariatus  was constructed a posteriori following a variation of the incipit found in some ms. copies  Notariatus [instead of  Notaria ] est ars scribendi et dictandi  . It is a very simple and clear summary of a notary s work which it introduces as follows:  the art of being a notary is the art of writing and expressing arguments in writing so as to straighten the complexities of human fragility and commit them to perennial memory.  There follows a clarification of what a notary is by law and who can become a notary a free man, not of peasant origins, not constrained by other ties (e.g., holy orders), a male individual compos mentis (e.g., he should not be prone to excessive anger), with good eyesight and hearing, sound reputation and character (still desirable). The rest of the work is concerned with what and how a notary should proceed in his everyday business dealing with contracts, obligations, customs, sales arbitrations and stipulations, and, most importantly, how to deal with last wills and testaments and the subdivision of inheritance (e.g., if a son refuses to ransom his father from the Saracens and the father dies in prison, his inheritance will go to the Church). A little jewel of early legal studies, from one of the most productive presses in late C15 Rome, shedding light on the professional role and individual character of the medieval notary.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[GRASSUS, Antonius.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820348645711,"sku":"L3077","price":5950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/ars-notariatus-L3077-2.jpg?v=1781794804"},{"product_id":"boethius-1","title":"BOETHIUS.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe illuminated C follows a frequent ms. tradition portraying Boethius in prison. Unlike most, however, Boethius is shown half-figure, alone, behind bars. The rubrication and overall style are reminiscent of German-speaking Central Europe. Boethius s hat, remote from usual representations, looks vaguely Slavonic. Whilst the smaller initials and decorative layout of the C were produced by a professional, the portrait may be by the rubricator himself. Boethius s unusual blue hair and beard suggest the artist did not have lead white, useless for rubrication. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An excellent, fresh, very tall copy, in a handsome Sunderland binding, of this milestone of Western philosophy the second Koberger edition, including both the Latin text and the long commentary attributed to Thomas Aquinas, but probably written by the Oxford Dominican Thomas Waleys (1287?-1350?). One of the most influential early Christian philosophers, Boethius (477-524AD) was a Roman politician at service of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths. He probably studied in Athens where he became fluent in Greek and acquainted with important Hellenic philosophers. Imprisoned by Theodoric upon charges of high treason, he famously wrote  De Consolatione philosophiae  in 523-24 during a one-year imprisonment, eventually leading to his execution. The work reflects on the negative turn of events in Boethius s hitherto very successful career. In this fictional dialogue, Lady Philosophy consoles him, as they discuss the evanescent nature of worldly fame and riches, virtue, the ills of fortune, human folly, passion, hatred, free will, justice and predestination, with Boethius s Christianity heavily tempered by Hellenism. Waleys s commentary was one of the most successful and most reprinted. Boethius s work was taught at grammar schools for its elegant Latin and educational content, and lectured on at universities for its philosophical value. The contemporary annotator provided interlinear paraphrases of the first four pages, with Boethius s verse complaint, the apparition of Lady Philosophy, and her initial arguments. In addition to turning everything to the third person, glossing  ego  with  Boethius , the annotator provided synonyms of most words or phrases, seeking to follow the original meaning whilst slightly altering the lines. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding is typical of Charles (1674-1722), third Earl of Sunderland s collection (e.g., BL IB30218). His collection comprised  some 20,000 printed books: it was particularly strong in incunabula  , in Bibles, in first editions of the classics and Continental literature of the C15 and C16. A small portion of the volumes were bound in morocco, the bulk in calf  (de Ricci, 38). The description of this copy is remarkably similar to that of the copy sold as lot 1694 at the 'Bibliotheca Sunderlandiana' sale in 1881.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOETHIUS.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820349923663,"sku":"L3390","price":27500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-2_71489068-b96e-48ac-beb5-c2e22c24960f.jpg?v=1781794800"},{"product_id":"holkot-robert-1","title":"HOLKOT, Robert","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn attractive and interesting copy, rubricated and with some C16 annotations, of the first edition of this incredibly learned work in Scholastic philosophy‚Äîthe standard theology textbook of the middle ages. The English Dominican Robert Holkot (or Holcot, c.1290-1349) was a renowned philosopher and biblical exegete, professor of theology at Oxford and follower of William of Ockham‚Äôs scholasticism. His commentary on Peter Lombard‚Äôs (1096-1160) ‚ÄòLibri Quattuor Sententiarum‚Äô has survived in a greater number of mss than the commentary by William of Ockham. A collection of statements on the Scriptures by acknowledged authorities, the ‚ÄòSentences‚Äô discussed the Trinity, the Creation, the incarnation of the word, and the doctrine of signs, touching on the sacraments, demons, sin and human will. This first edition was produced, from numerous, often imperfect manuscripts, by the famous scholar and printer Jodocus Badius Ascensius (1462-1535), editor and proofreader for Jean Trechsel in Lyon, in 1492-98.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe C16 annotator of this copy was keen on calligraphy and drawings, highlighting sidenotes with inked scrolls, and drawing maniculae and diagrammatic penflourishings. He was interested in a variety of questions: belief in the articles of faith, their relationship to ‚Äòratio naturalis‚Äô (the law of nature), free will and the intellect, God‚Äôs distributive justice, the determination of what is just, whether God and angels can read our secret thoughts, the significance of the priest‚Äôs words during baptism and whether they remain the same in different languages, which water is pure enough (when it remains within its species) to validate baptism (sea water, due to salt, is mixed with ‚Äòeartly parts‚Äô; thermal water is fine, urine or beer are not), and baptism of children ‚Äòin periculo mortis‚Äô.\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eJacques Maistret (1584-1615) was a Catholic bishop, and a monk in the Carmelite monastery of Lyon. Lazare Berthiot (fl. C17) was prior of the Carmelite convent of Chalon, Narbonne.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HOLKOT, Robert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820351693135,"sku":"L1221","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-78.jpg?v=1781794793"},{"product_id":"gafurius-franchinus","title":"GAFURIUS, Franchinus","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A very good copy, of illustrious provenance, of this ground-breaking work for the history of printed music. This second edition was revised and more complete than that of 1480. The t-p displays one of the most famous early music woodcuts, one of the earliest depictions of the organ; the four woodcuts of Pythagoras are  the first to portray him as a musician  ( History , 76). .Franchinus Gaffurius (Francesco Gaffori, 1451-1522) was an Italian music scholar and composer. A Benedictine monk and priest, he became  maestro di cappella  in the Duomo at Milan in 1484, which hosted one of the most renowned choirs in Europe, patronised by the Sforza family. In addition to writing church compositions for his choir, he also published on the theory and practice of music, and the harmony of instruments.  Theoria  begins with a general section on the benefits of music and the difference between celestial, human and instrumental music. From the second part onwards it is solely devoted to musical mathematics, as at the time music was correctly considered closely related to mathematics and geometry. Gaffori was heavily inspired by the ancient Greek tradition, by which all music intervals are established around set ratios a system illustrated with woodcut diagrams of proportions. Using the ratios of Pythagoras (himself portrayed in four handsome woodcuts) as well as Greek notation (diapason, diapentes, etc.) as a starting point, Gafurius discusses consonances with long analyses on the mathematical proportions, their definition, types (including the  superparticulares , containing fractions) tones and semitones, the invention and disposition of sounds along strings, intervals and the application of syllables to notation. The staffs with letters and notation reproduced at the end were produced with wood blocks,  so cut that the lines of the staff and the shapes of the notes stood out in relief,   locked in the form with the letterpress, and the whole page was easily printed in one impression  (Kinkeldey,  Music , 100-1).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .From the library of Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), famous Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor, especially praised for his interpretations of musical classics of the Romantic era.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GAFURIUS, Franchinus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859626565967,"sku":"K181","price":75000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K181-6.jpg?v=1781793808"},{"product_id":"hyginus-1","title":"HYGINUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eHandsome and splendidly illustrated copy of the third edition of Hyginus  Poeticon Astronomicon, in a fine contemporary Italian binding. In particular, the same small circular tools and elegant knotwork centrepieces appear on bindings made in Venice between the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century (see: De Marinis I, n. 370 and II, n. 1716). Another interesting connection between this copy and Venice is represented by the two ms. notes at the very end: the two operas quoted were written and first presented in this city. Interestingly, the first two verses read:  pupille amate \/ vezzose stelle , which translates into 'beloved eyes \/ charming stars ; it is possible that the writer was inspired to copy these words by the astronomical topic of this book. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Poeticon Astronomicon is an extremely fascinating combination of a manual of astronomy and a book on Roman and Greek mythology. In the preface, Hyginus states that he wants to explore constellations and planets more deeply than his predecessor Aratus. The first book describes the celestial sphere and its circles, the second tells the myths connected to 42 constellations, 5 planets and the milky way, the third presents the shapes of each constellation and the fourth is concerned with their position and connections with the zodiac signs. Identified with the Roman historian Gaius Julius Hyginus (1st century BC) during the Reinassance, the author follows Ptolemy's Almagest (II century BC) so closely   listing stars in the same order   that modern scholars tend to attribute the Poeticon Astronomicon to a more recent homonymous writer (c. II century BC).    \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The splendid woodcuts were commissioned by the printer Erhard Ratdolt to the Italian engraver Hyeronimus De Sanctis (15th century) and to the German artist Johannes Santritter (15th century) for the first illustrated edition of 1482. They are the first printed illustrations of the Greek constellations. There are dynamic pictures of all constellations, each overlaid with images from the Greek mythological tradition, as well as personifications of the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, all equipped with chariots pulled by animals of allegorical significance. Some of them resemble the iconography found in manuscripts, while others are quite unique: for instance, Orion is unusually depicted as a knight in medieval armour. Although the positions of the stars in these images have little to do with those described by Hyginus or with their actual location, these woodcuts served as fundamental templates for the grand star atlases of the 17th and 18th century. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy is from the important library of Philippe Milon, a French colonial officer, ornithologist, traveller and bibliophile.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HYGINUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859635446095,"sku":"L3705","price":16500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-1_acfb3904-f449-4bf0-a876-ee79a924e995.jpg?v=1781793780"},{"product_id":"albertus-magnus-pseudo","title":"ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Pseudo.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA remarkable copy of this treatise on human reproduction by Pseudo Albertus Magnus, bound with a 17-page manuscript containing a astronomical text on the principles of chronological computation, apparently for astrological purposes, doubtless inspired by the printed text and an intriguing example of manuscript and print at the time of their transition. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Secreta Mulierum  (On women s secrets) was composed in the late 13th or early 14th century by an unknown disciple of Albertus Magnus, the most learned and prolific writer of the Middle Ages. Although scholars proposed the names of Thomas of Brabant or Henry of Saxony, the problem of authorship remains unsolved. The main text is accompanied by, and at times mixed with, a commentary, whose attribution is also debated. Relying on ancient and medieval writings, Pseudo-Albert discusses various aspects of reproduction, including the generation of the embryo, the formation and development of the fetus, the signs of conception, virginity, chastity, defects of the womb, impediments to conception and others. In the introduction, he states that his style will be  partly philosophical, partly medical, just as seems to fit the material . By \"philosophical\" he refers to natural philosophy, or natural science, concerned with the study of the world and cosmos. Although Pseudo-Albert raises a number of medical topics   nature of the menses, birth complications, gestation   his knowledge of medicine is limited. On the other hand, the discussion on natural philosophy is complex and it explores in detail the relationship between human nature, reproduction and celestial bodies. Crucially, the author describes the effects of astrological influence on the developing fetus, also showing how the sphere of the fixed stars confers different virtues: Saturn gives the ability to reason, the Sun to remember, Jupiter grants generosity, Venus causes the separation of hands and feet, the Moon completes the skin.  Vincent of Beauvais and Michael Scot may note some of the celestial effects, but pseudo_Albert addresses himself seriously to the problem of how they come about, and this effort forms the major thrust of his writing. Although the De secretis mulierum names women's secrets as its subject matter, if we weigh the length and the level of discourse we can almost consider this to be an astrological treatise.  (Lemay) \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Renaissance scholars commonly practiced astrology, and the manuscript pages at the end suggest that the early owner of this volume was particularly involved. The text is a  Computus Ecclesiasticus , which discusses solar and lunar cycles in relation to religious festivities and mobile feasts of the ecclesiastical calendar (Julian). In addition to basic knowledge (e.g. what is a lunar cicle), it provides precise instructions on how to calculate ( computare ) dates of feast days, such as  dies dominicales (Sundays). Interestingly, it is arranged around metric formulas that were traditionally used to memorise calculations: here these are underlined in red, and each word corresponds to a number or provides a letter which will be used in the computations. For example, we find  Sed, Quinque, Tred, Ambo, Decem, Doc, Septem, Quind, Quater, Dud, Jota, Novem, Sept VI, Quard , used to calculate the  Golden number  (a number from 1 to 19 which designate the year within the Metonic cycle of the moon phases). We also find:  Bonus erat homo Katho, nobilis quoque Seno , which was employed to calculate the insertion of a leap day, week or year into a calendar and the second part of the manuscript is mostly concerned with this. Learning  computus , the science of calculating times and dates, was fundamental for astrologers. This discipline, used in conjunction with astrolabes to predict the position of the planets (mentioned in the manuscript) and astronomical tables, was used to cast horoscopes, exactly like the one that we find at the beginning of the manuscript. The text was composed by two writers between the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century: in a few places, the second updates and annotates the first, including adding  ab anno 1500  and  1501  to his comments.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Pseudo.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859643801935,"sku":"L3672","price":22500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3672-5.jpg?v=1781793743"},{"product_id":"platina-bartolomeo-sacchi-da","title":"PLATINA, Bartolomeo Sacchi da.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good copy of this incunable edition of Platina s classic and influential  Lives of the popes  (first 1479), beautifully printed by the Italian Giovanni Rosso, active in Treviso and Venice during the second half of the 15th century. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This volume belonged to Claudius de Britonis, a  miles sanctissimi sepulchri , meaning knight of the Holy Sepulchre. The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre traces its origin back to the first crusade. After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, the order was established, and the mission of its knights   who fought in the subsequent crusades   was to defend the tomb of Christ. In the Renaissance, the Order continued to defend and support the Christian faith in the Holy Land. Claude de Berton (b. 1535), lord of Crillon and Saint Jean de Vassols,  chevalier de l ordre du Pape et de celui du Roi  (Vie de Louis de Berton de Crillon des Balbes, 1825, p. 170), commanded the troops of the Pope at the siege of Menerbe near Avignone in 1574. The name  Berton  was commonly latinized as  De Britonis  or  Briton . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Italian Renaissance humanist Bartolomeo Sacchi (1421-1481), was born to a poor family of Piadena. Known as Platina, from the Latin name of his birthplace, he refused to use the surname Sacchi as it betrayed his humble origins. In his youth, he served as a mercenary soldier under Francesco Sforza and Niccol‚àö‚⧠Piccinino, then studied in Mantua and later in Florence. In 1462, he followed the young cardinal Francesco Gonzaga to Rome and obtained a post in the papal chancery as abbreviator. After a series of disagreements with Pope Paul II, which lead to Platina being imprisoned twice, accused of heresy and even tortured, he obtained the favour of Sixtus IV, who appointed him Prefect of the Vatican Library (the subject of a great fresco by Melozzo da Forl‚àö¬®). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Platina s  Lives of the popes , from St. Peter up to the accession of Sixtus IV, was the first systematic handbook of Papal history, undertaken at the behest of Sixtus. Elegantly written in the form of individual biographies arranged chronologically, on the model of Suetonius's  De vita caesarum , this work was based on several written sources, including the Liber pontificalis, on Platina s own experience and notably oral sources. The author s aim was to produce a modern work on papal history, improving the Latin of the earlier medieval accounts:  Instead of the confused and often fabulous Chronicles of the Middle ages, we find here for the first time a clear and serviceable handbook of real history. The graphic descriptions, the elegant, perspicuous, and yet concise, style of the work have won for Platina s  Lives of the Popes  many readers even down to the present day  (Pastor). A remarkably critical and innovative historian, Platina is not always impartial: he is particularly venomous about Paul II, who had made him redundant from his position in the College of Abbreviators ( cruel and an enemy of science ) and had him imprisoned as the author of a defamatory pamphlet. Platina is also often disparaging about the conditions in the Church, mentioning nepotism and corruption. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n According to a manuscript note, Jean Morelli is the author of a history of the wars of religion (never printed), in which Berton actively participated. Nevertheless, Jean Morelli (or Mor ély, 1524-1594) is also the name of a French protestant theologian of Geneva, close to Calvin and author of a treatise on ecclesiastic discipline ( Traict é de la discipline et police chretienne , 1564).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PLATINA, Bartolomeo Sacchi da.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859646751055,"sku":"L3792","price":6750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3792-1.jpg?v=1781793732"},{"product_id":"odendorff-henricus-de","title":"ODENDORFF, Henricus de.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Attractive first edition of this encyclopedia of canon law. This incunable was beautifully produced by Albrecht Kunne (b. 1435), the earliest printer of the Upper Swabia region in Germany. Kunne was an expert on printing types   he designed and created the lead letters himself   and this is the first appearance of his own  Schwabacher , a vibrant and decorative gothic type that resembles handwriting. Remarkably, this volume also contains one of the earliest examples of printed manicules. These fine  little hands  (maniculae), originally used in manuscripts to draw attention to important points in text, were introduced in print by Leonhard Pachel and Ulrich Scinzenzeller in 1479. Kunne was among the first to adopt and reproduce this symbol. The volume is further embellished with calligraphic hand-painted initials in blue and red ink. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Henricus de Odendorff (often spelled Oldendorp\/Odendorp, c. 1360-1400), was born in Cologne. A  licentiatus utriusque iuris  meaning he obtained a doctorate in both civil and church law, he became rector at the University of Vienna in 1385 and contributed to the drafting of its statutes. He died, probably from the plague, around 1399-1400.  Repetitio capituli , is an encyclopaedia on confession comprising a detailed explanatory commentary on Canon 21,  Omnis utriusque sexus  (Everyone of both sexes), issued by the IV Lateran Council in 1215. This commands all Christians above twelve years of age, male or female, lay or clerical, to confess all sins at least once a year to their parish priest, under penalty of excommunication. In the introduction, Odendorff expresses his hope that this work will be appreciated and read in schools. This treatise explains every aspects of the sacrament of confession and what is expected from confessors as well as the rules they must obey. After the text of the canon in Latin and a German vernacular translation by Sixtus (von Tannberg), bishop of Freising (d. 1495), Odendorff analyses the text of the canon word by word (underlined in red), focusing on one  particula  (small section) at a time. The six main chapters deal with the three parts of confession   contrition, confession, satisfaction   and communion, and explain that a confessor should be  peritus  (expert), discuss different forms of penance (including how many days a man should  abstain from his woman ), and innumerable rules relating to particular circumstances e.g. confession in shipwreck or particular people e.g. the confessor of a prince. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .In 1577, this book was gifted to  M. Christophorus Kirmeserus , most likely Magister Christoph Kirmeser (b. 1550), a remarkable scholar born in Schemnitz (Upper Hungary) who graduated at Ingolstadt. He was rector of the pastoral school of Nysa (Poland, 1574-80) and later abbot of the Augustinian Monastery of Glatz (Poland, 1583) and of the Benedictine monastery of St. Lambrecht (Austria, 1596). He wrote a book of sermons published in 1582 at Ingolstadt. The donor of this volume was  Johannes Teskl , who defines himself as a  Doctor  meaning that he obtained a doctoral degree. The name might correspond to the German  Johann Teschl  or  Teschel    a man named Johann Teschel was priest of Marienau (Germany, south of Leipzig) in 1598 (K. Stehr, Chronik der ehemaligen Hochritterlichen Maltheser-Ordens-Commende, 1845, p. 179).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ODENDORFF, Henricus de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859647734095,"sku":"L3787","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/odendorff-L3787-4.jpg?v=1781793729"},{"product_id":"fonte-johannes-da","title":"FONTE, Johannes da.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Rare incunable edition of this popular Medieval anthology, first printed c. 1480.  Auctoritates aristotelis  (also known as  Parvi Flores ) is a florilegium, that is a compendium of important extracts (auctoritates = authoritative passages) from other works   in this case, classical and medieval philosophical treatises. It was composed between 1267 and 1325 by Johannes de Fonte (fl. 1300), lector of theology at the Franciscan convent of Montpellier. This compilation, which enjoyed great success in Germany, was used for education in universities and monasteries. It contains excerpts from Aristotle and sayings drawn from Plato, Porphyry, Seneca, Apuleius and Boethius. The first section focuses on logical works, the second is concerned with natural philosophy, metaphysics and ethics. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n . .A very interesting and rather unusual feature of this volume is that the rubricator, who coloured the title page, decorated all the initials and provided useful paragraph marks, also added brief annotations in red ink. These marginalia mostly consist in single words, such as  nota  or  considera , pointing the attention to key passages underlined. This indicates the decorator was an interested reader with a good understanding of the text. At the end, the colophon is ornamented with a nice red-ink frame, below are the initials  N.S: , probably those of the reader-rubricator.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n . .The manuscript inscription  oro otto releuer no(n) reueler oro otto  on the title page in black and red ink in two different hands, is a very curious and rare palindrome (the first two words should be inverted). Interestingly, we were able to find only three other occurrences of this sentence, and all three are manuscript inscriptions appearing on 15.th. century codexes that belonged to Otto Ebner (C. Vindobonensis palatinus 3332, C. Latinus Monacensis 18513b, 6948). Ebner (fl. 1453-1484, d. after 1491) was chaplain at the Heilig-Geist-Spital in Munich, writer, and owner of a small library. On a codex he inscribed:  Otto oro relever, non reveler oro Otto, Otto tenet mappam madidam mappam tenet Otto .  It appears that he enjoyed palindromes containing his name   which is also a palindrome   and used to write them on his books. It is highly probable that volume also belonged to him. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n . .From the important library of the Dutch businessman and book collector Joost R. Ritman (b. 1941), Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FONTE, Johannes da.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859652223311,"sku":"L3853","price":8500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_3311.jpg?v=1781793721"},{"product_id":"gilbert-of-hoyland","title":"GILBERT of Hoyland.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A very good copy of the first edition of Gilbert of Hoyland s sermons on the Song of Songs. Beautifully printed in Florence by the German Nicolaus Laurentii (fl._1475 1486), this is a most fascinating witness of the great interest, among Italian Renaissance humanists, for this remarkable medieval commentary by an English author. Very few English authors were published in the 15.th. century and this is the only incunable edition of this author. The present copy has an early Italian provenance and interesting manuscript annotations. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Gilbert of Hoyland (d. c. 1172) was abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Swineshead in Lincolnshire. This area was known as  Holland  or  Hoyland . Gilbert is most famous for his  Sermonum super cantica canticorum  (here), a continuation of Bernard of Clairvaux s sermon commentary on the Song of Songs. When St. Bernard died in 1153, his commentary remained unfinished: Gilbert took on the task of writing 47 additional sermons, beginning from where St. Bernard had left off (the beginning of the third chapter), and reaching the fifth chapter before his death in 1172. Though written in the style of Bernard, these sermons are infused with Gilbert s personal spirit and contemplative insight, and reveal a profound knowledge of the Scripture and the classics. The Song of Songs is one of the most poetic texts in the Bible, describing the erotic encounters of two lovers    in his exegesis, Gilbert embraces and articulates the Church s allegorical interpretation of the Canticle as a celebration of the mutual love between God and mankind, containing teachings on doctrine and spiritual union. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .An early owner of this copy was Master Francesco Maria Ferragatta (17.th. century) of Carmagnola, a small village not far from Turin (Piemonte, Italy). Ferragatta was an Augustinian friar, teacher of theology, and Secretary General of the Augustininan Order under Father General Gerolamo Valvassori of Milan. Ferragatta was praised by his contemporaries as an excellent preacher, and he is the author of numerous sermons, orations and panegyrics. A quite extensive manuscript annotation and a few more brief notes scattered throughout the volume are in a different hand   likely belonging to another Augustinian friar of the monastery in Carmagnola. This second anonymous reader was particularly interested in Gilbert s discussion concerning the bride s  little bed , described in the Song: the author remarks that a little bed has to be preferred, as there is no space for adulterers. In his notes, the commentator points out that  the beds in the houses of the great [presumably the rich and noble] are very large, not made for resting but to give space to more than one (person) so large and so wide, that there is plenty of space for adulterers and concubines . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .In the 19.th. century, this was in the hands of Italian doctors of Dogliani, another village in Piemonte not far from Carmagnola: Lorenzo Sciorelli (see his thesis,  De Gravidarum Regime , 1809) and Ferdinando Fracchia (see  Annuario d Italia, per l anno 1892 , 1892, p. 435).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The present is one of some copies in which the first words of a2 verso read 'taturcui sic videt[ur]' (see BMC VI, p.630).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GILBERT of Hoyland.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859653632335,"sku":"L3865","price":8500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3865-2.jpg?v=1781793718"},{"product_id":"swineshead-richard","title":"SWINESHEAD, Richard.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A fine wide-margined copy of the second edition of this most important C14 theoretical mathematical work -  the first to apply mathematics to natural science  (Leibnitz). Incunables on applied or theoretical mathematics, and works on these subjects written by English authors and published before 1500, are very rare. Richard Swineshead (or Suiseth or Suisset, fl.1340-54) was a mathematician and natural philosopher, and a member of the  Oxford Calculators  at Merton College. The  Liber Calculationum  (c.1350) was first printed in 1477 and here edited by the medicine professor Giovanni da Tollentino, probably comparing the first edition with a manuscript preserved in Pavia, preserving the frequent medieval abbreviations. The  incipit  of  Liber calculationum  (c.1350) calls it  a very useful golden book on calculations which can be applied to all the sciences .  Swineshead presupposes an Aristotelian\/Neoplatonic physics, and searches for a logically adequate, mathematically precise account of it  . He considers imaginary, physically impossible cases as long as they are not logically contradictory    (Longeway, p.468). The 12 chapters begin by analysing the degrees of qualities (intension and remission), e.g. heat, according to whether their degree is uniform or not uniform; rarity and density (I.e.,  the proportion of quantity of matter to volume ); the power of an action (maximum and minimum) and of resistance when a body interacts with another; the movement of a body towards the centre of the earth (which, albeit moving slower and slower, it will never reach); light and how it illuminates and reflects over a body or medium, a theory based on  simple geometrical visualization  and influenced by Grosseteste; and local motion, considering  force, resistance and velocity  as well as  the mean-speed theorem  (Longeway, p.468). Most interesting is the  registrum  at rear, which does not specify the number of leaves in each gathering, but rather specifies the first one or two words on the recto of the leaves in the first half of each gathering. The C16 annotator was interested in local motion and resistance, glossing the beginning of the chapter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SWINESHEAD, Richard.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859663528271,"sku":"L4106","price":45000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4106-2-1.jpg?v=1781793699"},{"product_id":"gaietanus-de-thienis-janduno-joannes-de","title":"GAIETANUS de THIENIS; JANDUNO, Joannes de.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A very good copy of the second edition of this important incunabular collection of three Aristotelian commentaries, the first two being milestones of early psychology. Gaietanus de Thiene (1387-1465?) was professor of philosophy and medicine at Padua, where he introduced, through his commentaries, many philosophical theories from England and France.  As far as we know, most of these commentaries were written for use in a university setting. As a consequence, the choice of texts commented upon and the degree of detail given to a certain passage is often due, at least in part, to its use in a classroom, a universitarian debate or its relevance for exams  (Stan. Enc. Phil.). Gaietanus s commentary on Aristotle s  De anima    which has been called the first book of scientific psychology   was read by medical students to understand how a creature could be defined as  living  or  having a soul , the nature and kinds of soul (vegetative, animal, rational, etc.), reproduction, nutrition, the senses and the concept of sensation, the intellect, and movement according to the number of senses possessed. These fundamental questions were argued by physicians, for instance, when determining whether\/when a foetus was  alive  or how movements are generated through the brain and nerves. Partly influenced by Averroism, Gaietanus provides short Latin excerpts from  De anima , followed by commentary.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n . Quaestiones de sensu agente , was written entirely by Gaietanus. Its subject, clearly inspired by  De anima , is  sensus agens  (active sense), which had been explored by the Scholastics and Averroists alike. Active sense was used to explain the act of cognition and perception through the senses, i.e., how the soul is affected by the external object it perceives (e.g., when it  memorizes  it), and how the soul perceives the object in the first place (e.g., when the eye is filled with light). It is followed by two similar  quaestiones , argued by Gaietanus, on the common senses ( De sensibilibus communibus ) and the intellect ( De intellectu ). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The third is a commentary on Averroes s treatise on substance that constitutes the earth by Joannes de Janduno (or Jean de Jandun or Johannes de Gandavo) (c.1285-1323), French philosopher and theologian, professor at Paris. The work investigates whether the form and matter of the heavens as a whole is the same as that of terrestrial bodies, discussing the movement and nature of the heavens, whether they are animate or inanimate, corruptible or incorruptible.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This copy was in two northern Italian convents, one of Augustinian Hermits, the other, Dominican, probably located in Piacenza. The earlier (cursive) annotator   Anselmo Vincetini - was interested in the intellect, glossing a passage, in the commentary to  De anima , with detailed references to interpretations by the medieval Augustinian philosopher Egidio Romano, mentioned by Gaietanus. In  De sensu agente , he glossed two sections on the interaction of the active sense and the soul, with references to the theories of Agostino Nifo. The slightly later annotator glossed passages in Book I on the difference in the soul and intellect of humans and animals, and the  accidents  of knowledge and perception, \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .ISTC dates this to 23 December 1493, following the colophon date  decimo kal. Januarias 1493 , GW suggests 1492. This depends on the reference system, the date in 1493 according to the Julian or 1492 according to the Gregorian calendar.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GAIETANUS de THIENIS; JANDUNO, Joannes de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859668050255,"sku":"L4011","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4011-1-1.jpg?v=1781793685"},{"product_id":"macrobius-2","title":"MACROBIUS.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy, with contemporary Spanish provenance, of this attractive incunabular edition of two of the most influential works of late antiquity – the first being ‘the most satisfactory and widely read Latin compendium on Neoplatonism that existed during the Middle Ages’ (DSB).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMacrobius (fl. early 5thC) was a poet probably born in Greek-speaking areas of the Roman Empire. ‘Somnium Scipionis’, part of Book VI of Cicero’s ‘De Republica’, recounts the dream vision of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, two years before the fall of Carthage in 146BC. Visited in his sleep by his late grandfather Scipio Africanus, he is foretold his future and given a ‘mystical’ overview of the Earth from the heavens, its climatic zones, and the workings of the celestial spheres and planets, with Stoic discussions of the nature of the soul, the gods and virtue. Macrobius’s Neoplatonic commentary to Cicero’s text contributed to its enormous success through the middle ages down to the Renaissance, with hundreds of extant mss. Of particular interest, to the likes of Dante and Chaucer, were his theories of music, astronomy and the interpretation of dreams, i.e., how to determine which were predictive of events, and which were not, as well as the cosmographical information he provided, with ‘lengthy excursuses on Pythagorean number lore, cosmography, world geography and the harmony of the spheres’ (DSB). Ms and printed copies quickly absorbed the visual aids of medieval cartography, with the presence of diagrams and, as here, a woodcut map illustrating the climatic zones Scipio Aemilianus sees in his dream. The map in this edition shows the Red Sea, Ethiopia, Europe, India, the Ocean and, in the south, ‘Temperata Antipodum nobis incognita’, i.e., today’s Australia and Antarctica. Organized in the guise of a conversation during the holiday of the Saturnalia, Macrobius’s  ‘Saturnalia’ is a treasure trove of information on antiquity, based on a variety of ancient sources and authorities. Among the hundreds of topics discussed are the Roman calendar and its festivities, religion, rhetoric, luxury, sumptuary laws and ancient authors, such as Vergil, whose Homeric influence is also analysed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese were eminent university textbooks for centuries. ‘Among the roughly 150 manuscripts recorded by Destombes dating from 1200 to 1500 AD nearly 100 contain a simple map illustrating Macrobius’s theories’ (Shirley 13) .The early owner, Pedro Vasquez, purchased it in Alcalà de Henares (‘Compluti’) in 1516. A similar inscription – where he signed himself ‘Hispaniensis Catholicus’ – is also present in a student edition of Apuleius and Statius, printed by Pincius, now at the Univ. of Seville Library. Vasquez was most likely a student in Alcalà. In our inscription, he records the death, in the year he bought this book, of the benefactor Cardinal Domingos Francisco Simodes or Simonides [i.e., Simoes or Simois] of the ‘collegia complutensia’, i.e., the conglomeration of colleges which formed the kernel of the University of Alcalà from 1512. He also records the price of the book, most probably unbound – 4 ½ silver coins (i.e., pesos). Among the professors at the time was the mathematician Pedro Ciruelo.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MACROBIUS.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859668246863,"sku":"L2959","price":8500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2959-6.jpg?v=1781793684"},{"product_id":"justinus-marcus-junianus-and-florus-lucius-annaeus-with-lucian-of-samosata-and-diodorus-syculus","title":"JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus. [and] FLORUS, Lucius Annaeus. [with] LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA. [and] DIODORUS SYCULUS.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.In the original C15 binding, two of the most important textbooks of the medieval period. The second work, largely untrimmed, opens with the second edition of Lucian of Samosata s  Verae Historiae  (2.nd. cent.), considered the earliest surviving work of science fiction. A famous satirist, Lucian begins by stating his account is, in fact, a big lie, and proceeds to narrate the most surreal and fantastic adventures, described as  historiae , which bring to exaggeration some of the classic commonplaces of ancient histories. The author and his fellow travellers go beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Flying through space, they reach the Moon   which Lucian describes   where they strive to avoid a war between the King of the Moon and the King of the Sun, and their armies made of alien creatures, for the colonization of the Morning Star. They are later swallowed by a whale so big its stomach is inhabited, they see gigantic insects, and meet the heroes of Troy on the Island of the Blessed, as well as speaking statues much resembling automata, and 'intelligent' lamps who have formed their own society.  With this celestial war, the wondrous and bizarre creatures, and Lucian s ability to venture into space, the notion of utopian and even modern science fiction has been raised in the context of  Verae Historiae   (Clay, p.38), including such commonplace tropes as gigantic creatures or societies formed by sentient objects, with implicit comparison to human society. The second text, Diodorus Siculus s (1.st. cent.)  Bibliotheca historica , is a history which encompasses the whole known world, from Mesopotamia to India, Egypt, Arabia, Africa and Europe, with great attention to the Empire of Alexander the Great. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..First printed in 1470, the first work includes two  epitomae , i.e., compilations. The Roman historian Justinus (2.nd. cent. AD) compiled the most interesting and useful excerpts from Pompeius Trogus   Liber Historiarum Philippicarum  (1.st. cent. AD), here edited by the Bolognese humanist Philippus Beroaldus. It is a history of the Kings of Macedonia and an ethnographic and geographical account of the territories eventually conquered by Alexander the Great. It is followed by a compendium of Roman history by Lucius Annaeus Florus (c.1.st. cent AD), a major historian born in Africa under Emperor Hadrian. The  epitome  is based on Livy s  Ab Urbe Condita , and reaches down to 25BC, touching on the causes of Rome s expansion and decline. Untrimmed, original copies..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus. [and] FLORUS, Lucius Annaeus. [with] LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA. [and] DIODORUS SYCULUS.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868676006223,"sku":"L4107","price":8950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9444.jpg?v=1781793650"},{"product_id":"colonna-francesco-1","title":"COLONNA, Francesco.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe first and only incunable edition of this example of finest Renaissance book production, and a masterpiece of woodcut illustration. Rated as ‚Äòthe most beautiful book of the fifteenth century‚Äô (Mortimer, p.131), it is also one of Aldus‚Äôs only seven illustrated books (Gibbs, ‚ÄòAldus‚Äô, p.109). ‚ÄòUniversally revered as a landmark in C15 typography‚Äô (Harris). The absence of the errata leaf and the 4 preliminaries including an additional or substitutional titlepage, may indicate a first or early issue. Two woodblocks contain what are now considered the first Arabic words to appear in print, carved on a stone and over three doorways. ‚ÄòWhile the script of the first inscription recalls Islamic bookish hands, that of the second reprises the use of calligraphy in Arabic-Islamic culture, with the practise of inscribing monuments and artefacts‚Äô (Piemontese, p.207).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe woodcuts, in fresh, early impression in this copy, changed the history of Western book illustration and art, influencing the likes of Titian and the Carracci as well as the C16 French school after the work‚Äôs translation in 1546. Scholars have suggested that they were not designed in Aldus‚Äôs workshop, but were already present in the ms that reached him; their authorship has been linked to Mantegna, Alberti or Benedetto Bordon; certainly to a northern Italian artist. An anonymous cutter transferred them onto woodblocks in Venice. Scholars have suggested that, in order to portray classical monuments, ruins and epigraphic inscriptions so vividly and in detail, the illustrator had access to drawings of ancient monuments discovered in Rome; their appearance dates the illustrations to 1470-95 (Huelsen, ‚ÄòIllustrazioni‚Äô, 175-6).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis majestic work, both in conception and production, has been attributed to Francesco Colonna (1433-1527), an Italian Dominican. The plot‚ÄîPolifilo‚Äôs quest for his love, Polia, through a dreamlike world, narrated in the first person‚Äîis framed within a complex setting based on classical allegory, emblems and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The language is an unusual Latinate Italian. It begins with Polifilo‚Äôs walk into a Dantesque ‚Äòdark wood‚Äô infested by snakes and wolves, and it follows him through allegorical landscapes with enormous pyramids surmounted by statues, obelisks sitting on the back of elephants, pedestals with ancient inscriptions or sculpted scenes‚Äîall handsomely depicted in the accompanying woodcuts. What makes the ‚ÄòHypnerotomachia‚Äô unique is the ‚Äòoverall composition of text and image into a harmonious whole, which allows the eye to slip back and forth between textual description and corresponding visual representation [‚Ķ].  It is the first experimental montage of fragments of prose, typography, epigrams, and pictures [‚Ķ] an extraordinary visual-typographical-textual ‚Äúassemblage‚Äù of a type not repeated until the avant-garde books of the 1920s and 1930s‚Äô (Lefaivre, ‚Äò‚ÄúHypnerotomachia‚Äù‚Äô, 17). It was also the first published book where the illustrations consistently appeared on the same page as the text they illustrated.\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n \u003cp\u003eThe gilt ducal shield probably belongs to the Salviati, a prominent Florentine family since c.1400. In the C18, their very fine library, which included dozens of important medieval mss, was part bequeathed to Giovan Vincenzo‚Äôs son, later 6th Duke, Averardo (1721-83), and part sold. A c.1700 armorial ink stamp very similar in design to ours appears on selected books and mss which had been in the Salviati library since the C15. The C18 binding and the ‚ÄòA‚Äô point to Averardo.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"COLONNA, Francesco.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868676661583,"sku":"K172","price":125000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/2-copy.jpg?v=1781793647"},{"product_id":"bartolomeus-brixiensis-with-dalen-michael-de","title":"BARTOLOMEUS BRIXIENSIS. [with] DALEN, Michael de.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Excellent, crisp copies, rubricated and in contemporary boards still retaining the original wooden pegs, of the first editions of two important legal commentaries on the  Decretals . These were collections of papal decrees, issued regularly throughout the middle ages for the use of jurists, which regulated the functions, structure, personnel and law of the Catholic Church. They offer priceless insight into the everyday legal and theological questions of the age. A precious reference work, this copy was bequeathed by Jacobus Wilhelmus to the library of Nieuwe Kerk, Delft, c.1500, where it was probably chained.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Bartolomeo da Brescia (d.1258) studied canon law at Bologna and was the author of numerous legal works. Written when Bartolomeo was still a student,  Casus decretorum  - a revised and enlarged version of Benincasa da Arezzo s (d.1206)  Casus decretum  - is a commentary on the  Decretum , a legal textbook by the C12 jurist Gratian and one of the 6 works that formed the  Corpus Juris Canonici . Later Bartolomeo wrote the standard  Glossa  used for centuries, based on the work of Johannes Teutonicus.  Casus  reprises Gratian s subdivisions into  distinctio ,  causa  and  questio , and deals with a great variety of  cases  spanning the office of bishops, monks and priests, synods, the resignation of a pope, and various regulations pertaining to clerics concerning questions as wide-ranging as property ownership, inheritance and fornication. Little is known of the canonist Michael de Dalen, author of this commentary on two important collections of  Decretals  which followed those of Gregory IX. The  Liber Sextus Decretalium  was issued under Pope Boniface VIII in 1258 and the  Constitutiones Clementis V  under Clement V in 1314. They were the last collections of decretals overseen by a Pope. Together with Gregory s  Decretals , they formed part of the  Corpus Juris Civilis . They discuss all kinds of questions pertaining to the life of clerics, e.g., illegitimate children, monetary transactions, oaths, burials, offices, tithes, the mass, simony, etc. Two very handsome incunables, beautifully preserved..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BARTOLOMEUS BRIXIENSIS. [with] DALEN, Michael de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868678562127,"sku":"L1947","price":10500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4294-copy.jpg?v=1781793646"},{"product_id":"bonatus-guidus","title":"BONATUS, Guidus.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Remarkably good, crisp copy, in two vols, of the first edition of this very handsome, illustrated work on astronomy, and much easier to read and use in this unusual two-volume format. The early provenance, and probably the binding, can be traced to the wealthy Austrian monasteries of Lilienfeld and Melk. The most famous astrologer of the C13, the Friar Minor Guido Bonatti, from Forl‚àö¬®, worked for major figures like Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, and Guido da Montefeltro, and for several civic governments including Florence. He famously features in Dante s  Divine Comedy , residing in hell as a punishment for his astrological practices. Written in 1277,  Liber Astronomiae  - his most famous work   was a standard textbook until the early C16. This first edition is illustrated with nearly 200 handsome woodcuts of planets and constellations. Divided in 6 parts, it begins with a defence of astrology and the principle that astrologers need not be expert astronomers, as well as an introduction to judicial astrology, the properties and aspects of the stars, planets and the zodiac, and the 12 Houses. Part II introduces the theory of the positions, attractions and movements of the planets for devising horoscopes. Part III goes into the detail of horoscope calculations, focusing on each of the 12 Houses and providing  judicia  for a variety of events such as breastfeeding, conception, the building of churches, buying and selling, theft, hunting, etc. Part IV discusses the Revolutions of the planets and astrological predictions of future events, with chapters on comets and the significance of their tail. Part V focuses on nativities, and how the planets influence the body and mind of individuals, as shown in their horoscope, as well as their lives (e.g., number of children, time of marriage or death, etc.). Part VI discusses weather forecasts, especially rains, through astrological predictions, as  astrology was as close as it got to science concerning weather forecast, well into the C18  (Cantamessa). A very attractive copy.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..A 14-leaf Registrum, with a separate title and prefatory letter, here not present, was produced during printing and is frequently absent (e.g., two of the three BL copies). Its presence is now commonly taken as indicating a later issue..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BONATUS, Guidus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868679119183,"sku":"L4202\/1-2","price":45000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4286-copy.jpg?v=1781793643"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-18_at_4.34.52_PM.png?v=1781797048","url":"https:\/\/www.sokol.co.uk\/collections\/incunabula.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}