{"title":"Interesting Provenance","description":"\u003cp\u003eBooks with notable ownership histories, inscriptions, bookplates, annotations, or distinguished previous owners.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"briggs-henry","title":"BRIGGS, Henry","description":"\u003cp\u003e1st edn. of the first complete set of trigonometrical tables, \"containing the natural sines, tangents and secants to the one hundredth part of a degree and to 15 places, which have never been superseded by any subsequent calculations\". The work arose out of discussions between Briggs, professor of geometry at Gresham College, and the great Scots mathematician John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, who in 1614 had published his 'Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio'. Napier agreed to suggestions by Briggs for adapting his invention more readily to the construction of tables, and the result, entailing prodigious labour, was Briggs's 'Arithmetica Logarithmica' (1624) and the present work. It is clear that the scale of logarithms now in use, in which 1 is the logarithm of the ratio 10 to 1; 2 that of 100 to 1, etc., is due to Briggs, and that Napier's role consisted simply in advising him to commence at 1 and make the logarithms increase, rather than decrease, with the natural numbers. Briggs is certainly the originator of the principle of logarithms having 10 for their base. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n On his death in 1630 the 'Trigonometria' was still unfinished, but was completed by his friend Henry Gellibrand, professor of astronomy at the same college, who added a preface explaining the application of logarithms to plane and spherical trigonometry. They also proved highly useful in the advance of systematic geography and navigation, and among the pioneers in this field who benefited from Briggs's friendship and special knowledge were Samuel Purchas, Capt. Luke Fox and Edward Wright. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n \"He [Briggs] was a man of the first importance in the intellectual history of his age  He published many books on arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry, as well as tables for navigation . But, significant though Briggs was as a mathematician in his own right, his greatest importance was as a contact and public relations man\". He was at the center of a group that included William Gilbert, Edward Wright, Thomas Blundeville, Aaron Rathborne, Mark Ridley, Robert Hues, Hackluyt, and John Pell amongst many. \"Briggs seems to have been the first person to appreciate the significance of Napier's invention of logarithms  and from his interview with Napier onwards Briggs used all Gresham College's resources to popularise this discovery  It has recently been claimed that in calculating his logarithms Briggs used results equivalent to the Binomial Expansion, whose discovery is normally attributed to Newton.\" ..\"Gellibrand (1597-1637) another friend and prot ég é of Brigg's, completed his master's work on logarithmic trigonometry tables: wrote on navigation; and demonstrated the secular variation of magnetic declination. His work was known to Mersenne. \" C. Hill. Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy with excellent provenance; Lord Arundell of Wardour (1606- 1694) commanded gallantly for Charles I in the civil war, was employed by Charles II in arranging the negotiations for the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV, was imprisoned for five years in the Tower during the Titus Oates hysteria, appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal under James II and remarkably died in his bed at the age of 88.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRIGGS, Henry","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816077599055,"sku":"L1000","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1000-Briggs-3.jpg?v=1781795323"},{"product_id":"perrault-francois","title":"PERRAULT, Francois.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this rare and most interesting work on demonology in general with a highly unusual second part recounting the author s personal experience of a haunting, or poltergeist, in which he and his household were subject to a series of unremitting attacks from an evil spirit; the work was written by Perrault (or Perreaud) in 1613 but not published until 1653, when he was already 81 years old. It was translated into English and German and reprinted several times. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The Demonologie was not written as a free standing treatise. Its significance therefore derives from its being a preface to L Antidemon de Macon, a highly personal account of an extended haunting which Perreaud explains by referring to maleficent magic. After describing the poltergeist activity at length, he then informs the reader that some people thought the trouble lay with his wife s maid who was already suspected of being a witch and came from a suspect family. .. His favoured explanation, however, involves a third person altogether. The previous owner (of the house) had had to be dispossessed by judicial judgement in order to make way for the Perreauds, and naturally she was resentful ... Perreaud tells us she was discovered one day kneeling beneath the chimney calling upon the devil to do harm to him and his family. Perreaud s experience, then, reluctantly published so long after the event, provides us with a reminder of seventeenth-century Protestant attitudes towards preternatural phenomena. L Antidemon along with the prefatory Demonologie, supports traditional Protestant views on possession and witch-craft, for it acknowledges that Satan s power is real but limited and that his attacks are part of God s plan for humanity .. .. Perreaud s Demonologie, then, neatly summaries the principal lines taken by a Protestant divine when discussing magic, its manifestations in the created world and the way humans may cope with these. The Antidemon which follows gives a particular instance of a preternatural happening and an illustration of how a devout Calvinist family dealt with it. Most significantly, perhaps, while the Demonologie had reiterated orthodox teaching against Satan s tendency to work through illusion, Perreaud was in no doubt that his ghostly experiences had been real and had been caused by a deliberate operation of maleficent magic. Orthodoxy and experience, it seems, were not necessarily always in agreement.  P. G. Maxwell-Stuart.  Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy of this extremely rare work from the library of the noted neurologist and collector of early medical books and works on demonology and witchcraft, Dr. Maurice Villaret.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PERRAULT, Francois.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816114004303,"sku":"L1711","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1711.jpg?v=1781795308"},{"product_id":"de-lorme-philibert","title":"DE L'ORME, Philibert","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe third edition, using all the woodcuts of the first (1561), of this important and beautifully printed and illustrated treatise. De L Orme (c.1510-1570),was one of the great Renaissance architects of the 16th century, the first French architect to possess the universal outlook of the Italian masters without merely imitating them. Mindful that French architectural requirements differed from the Italian, and respectful of native materials, he founded his designs on sound engineering principles, fusing the orders with a delicacy of invention, restraint, and harmony characteristic of purest French classicism. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  the simple woodcuts are excellent examples of perfectly understood and clearly presented structural details and show De Lorme s system of built up timber roofs, requiring no ties or heavy timbers, which was successfully used as late as the end of the eighteenth century in the Halle-aux-Bles in Paris. Indeed, De Lorme is unique among the early writers on architecture for the emphasis he placed upon construction. ..A copy of the 1576 edition was in the library of Thomas Jefferson (Sowerby, No. 4183).  Fowler (on the first edition). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Of the leading early French architectural writers, De Lorme is the most interesting and original, but is less distinguished an artist than Jean Bullant and is less versatile as a draughtsman than Du Cerceau. De Lorme has been called the first modern architect because of his original contributions to construction and his skill as an organizer, but Blomfield says that  It was by his strong individuality rather than by his art that De Lorme won, and has maintained, his place among the great Frenchmen of the sixteenth century  (Blomfeld French Arch. I Vol. I p. 92)  Fowler. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  First published in 1561 the  Nouvelles inventions (the treatise on roofs) describes ingenious techniques which replace the use of large rectilinear pieces of square section, with small flat and curved elements assembled like keystones. This new invention appears to comply with a rational approach in industrial terms, in that it keeps costs down, standardises construction and means that a relatively unqualified workforce can be employed. These innovative ideas, which were too revolutionary to achieve much success despite the persuasive force of the author, were not put into practice properly until after 1750, the date when the modern science of building properly emerged.  Vaughan Hart  Paper Palaces   The treatise  Le nouvelles inventions  .... is a milestone in the history of wood inventions as it contains different conceptions of how wood can be used. Anyone who wishes to study wooden roofing has to consider the theories of this French architect.  Maria Rita Campa.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DE L'ORME, Philibert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816117543247,"sku":"L1511","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_fd11f9cf-817b-46f8-b4ec-4ea1f92e5ab8.png?v=1781795304"},{"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":"de-medici-lorenzo","title":"DE MEDICI, Lorenzo","description":"\u003cp\u003eFIRST EDITION of the poems and poetic commentary of Lorenzo de'Medici, some of which are were written as early as age 17. The sonnets, sestinas, and songs are almost entirely preoccupied with love for beautiful women, in a style both imaginative and lively that strives toward the lyric of Dante and Petrarch. In his \"Comment\" on the poems, Medici expounds on life, love, his philosophical influences, and even current events that inspired him. For instance, he describes the death of Simonetta Vespucci, \"la bella Simonetta\" after his own nickname for the model for Boticelli's Venus, and its influence over his work: throughout Florence her early death produced sadness and 'a most ardent longing for her. And therefore she was taken uncovered from her house to the burial place, and moved all who crowded around to see her to copious tears'. Poems written later in life are also included in the volume, of a more serious and religious nature: on the virgin Mary, and the Crucifiction and Resurrection of Christ. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Lorenzo de'Medici \"The Magnificent\" (1449 - 1492), scholar, politician, and poet, was the driving force behind the flourishing culture of 15th century Florence through his patronage of the arts. Walter Pater's characterization of Lorenzo's age with that of Pericles is perhaps most apt: \"It is an age productive in personalities, many-sided, centralized, complete. Here, artists and philosophers and those whom the action of the world has elevated and made keen, do not live in isolation, but breathe a common air, and catch light and heat from each other s thoughts. There is a spirit of general elevation and enlightenment, in which all alike communicate.\" \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n George Fortescue (1791-1877) son of the first Earl Fortescue, was member of Parliament for Hindon, who supported many pro-catholic bills in parliament. Although little noticed a a collector, he had a fine library, particularly of Aldines.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DE MEDICI, Lorenzo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816126554447,"sku":"L1815","price":8750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1815-4.jpg?v=1781795275"},{"product_id":"rhodiginus-caelius","title":"RHODIGINUS, Caelius","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of these massive and learned commentaries of the Italian Renaissance in sixteen books. Caelius Rhodiginus is the humanist nickname of Ludovico Ricchieri (1469-1525), a respected professor of Latin and Greek in Rovigo. In 1511, Rhodiginus moved to Milan to take over the lectureship of Demetrios Chalcondyles, under the auspices of the city treasurer and renowned book collector Jean Grolier. The Antiquae lectiones are dedicated to Grolier, with a remembrance of Aldus Manutius, recently dead. The work gathers together a considerable number of short essays and notes on Latin and Greek antiquity, ranging from literature, philology and science to philosophy, history, anthropology and morality. Remarkable considerations on ancient music are to be found in book five, chapters XX-XXIX. The somewhat confusing encyclopaedic structure was modelled after Gellio s Noctes Atticae and Erasmus s Adagia. The book was very well received and was frequently reprinted up to 1666. Despite some initials charges of plagiarism, even Erasmus ended up to value Ricchieri s work. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In his Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries (London 1869, I, p. 272), Henry Hallam defines it as  by far the best and most extensive collection hitherto made from the stores of antiquity. It is now hardly remembered; but obtained almost universal praise, even from severe critics, for the deep erudition of its author, who, in a somewhat rude style, pours forth explanations of obscure and emendations of corrupted passages, with profuse display of knowledge in the customs and even philosophy of the ancients, but more especially in medicine and botany.  This copy was annotated by a contemporary reader mainly interested in the philosophical passages, while the owner inscribing the head of the title-page commented on two musical essays at pp. 231-233.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RHODIGINUS, Caelius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127537487,"sku":"L1764","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Last-Import-12_a9eeeffe-642c-4401-8518-6877f99995a2.jpg?v=1781795273"},{"product_id":"origen-adamantius-with-aquinas-thomas-and-origen-adamantius","title":"ORIGEN Adamantius [with] AQUINAS, Thomas [and] ORIGEN Adamantius","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn appealing collection of influential biblical commentaries, including the first editions of Origen s rare homiletic exegesis on the Pentateuch, the Books of Joshua, and Judges and St Paul s letter to the Romans, all in the Latin translations of St. Jerome. Origenes Adamantius (c.185-c.254) was the most prominent textual critic of the Bible of the early Church as well as an authoritative and prolific commentator. He exerted great influence especially over Eusebius and Jerome, though some of his radical ideas (i.e. the final redemption of all creatures and their ultimate reconciliation with God) prevented him from being regarded as a Church Father.   Together with the pioneering edition of the Bible comparing six different versions of the Hebrew and Greek tradition (Hexapla), the numerous homilies Origenes preached in Caesarea represent his most relevant contribution to early Christian Biblical scholarship. The central work bound in this volume is the third edition of Thomas Aquinas' commentary on St. John's gospel, first published in Rome in 1470. That this collection was used by contemporary scholars is proved by the numerous annotations of two German hands, reporting mainly biblical references.  The Aldine edition of Origenes marks an important turning point in the history of this famous press. In its anonymous preface to the reader, the role taken by Andrea Torresani, Aldus's father-in-law and business partner, was finally acknowledged in print: men of letters were said to be indebted equally to Andrea s generosity as an entrepreneur and to Aldus s outstanding skill as a humanist printer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ORIGEN Adamantius [with] AQUINAS, Thomas [and] ORIGEN Adamantius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816131010895,"sku":"L2156","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2156-Origen-1-e1450291411161.jpg?v=1781795262"},{"product_id":"warwick-guy-de","title":"WARWICK, Guy de","description":"\u003cp\u003eA wonderful, most beautiful copy, with remarkable provenance, of this extraordinarily rare chivalric romance concerning the English knight Guy de Warwick, almost certainly the only surviving copy in private hands and one of three known copies; the other two are held at the Bibliotheque National de France (one of which is substantially damaged).This copy of this work epitomises all the elements of bibliophilic desirability; it is beautifully printed with wonderful illustration, it was exceptionally bound by the Royal binder for a group of the most discerning bibliophiles, it has exceptional royal provenance, and is of the utmost rarity. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The work was bound by Luc-Antoine Boyet (who would shortly after become the Royal binder in 1698) for a member of a very select group of bibliophiles known as  Les Curieux  made up of at least four members, Duvivier, Leriche, La Vieuville, and an as yet unidentified  Grand Curieux . Isabelle de Conihout and Pascal Ract-Madoux describe them in detail, for the first time as a group, in the  Reliures Francaises du XVII. Chefs-D Oeuvres du Mus ée Cond é  pp 64-110. The books bound for this group were exclusively important and extremely rare works in French or works translated into French and were bound by Luc-Antoine Boyet in what they describe as an  archa√Øsantes  style. The identical gilt shield with a date between 1695-6 (here Janvier 1696) occurs on many of these binding, see Conihout Ract-Madoux page 65 figure 1. The tools on this binding also correspond to those given by Conihout Ract-Madoux as those of Boyet s gilder, most notably the central fleuron on the spine (p. 110 figure 2) and the roll used on the inner dentelle p. (p. 110 figure A). These tool occur on the almost identically gilt spine of No. 26 in the catalogue which has the date 1695. Conihout Ract-Madoux suggest that the great bibliophile Jerome Duvivier was at the heart of this group of collectors and it is possible that this book was bound for him as he rarely signed his books, whereas the others in the group were prone to do so. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This volume then made its way into the library of Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Comte de Toulouse, the youngest son of Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan. Louis Alexandre was created Count of Toulouse in 1681 at the time of his legitimation, and, in 1683, at the age of five, grand admiral. Though his father had legitimated him and his three surviving siblings, and even declared his two sons by Madame de Montespan fit to eventually succeed him to the throne of France, this was not to be, as immediately after Louis XIV's death the Parlement of Paris reversed the king's will. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Guy of Warwick is the English hero of a popular Romance in England and France from the 13th to 17th centuries. The story of Sir Guy is considered by scholars to be part of the romances of English heroes that form a loose corpus of Medieval literature that in general deals with the locations, characters and themes concerning England, English history, or English cultural mores, and shows some continuity between the poetry and myths of the pre-Norman or  Anglo-Saxon  era of English history as well as themes motifs and plots deriving from English folklore. Following tests of his skill and strength with dragons, monsters, giants, a great boar and the legendary Dun Cow, earning him the hand of his beloved, Guy comes to regret his violent past, and embarks on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, on his return, secludes himself in a hermitage in repentance. The chronicles of Thomas Rudborne and John Hardyng treat Guy as an historical figure (cf. Richmond 1996, ch. 4,5). Thus, like King Arthur and Robin Hood, Guy became a figure of legend, and the text became increasingly popular through the 18th and 19th centuries. The 25 fine woodcuts in this copy were either commissioned for this edition, or, as seems more likely from the fact their size makes them extend beyond the column widths, were designed to be used interchangeably in other chivalric works. They differ considerably in iconography, style and format from those of the Paris 1525 edition printed by Regnault \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A wonderful copy of this most rare and beautiful work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WARWICK, Guy de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816134418767,"sku":"K41","price":75000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K41-5.jpg?v=1781795215"},{"product_id":"catullus-tibullus-and-propertius-with-juvenal-and-persius","title":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS [with] JUVENAL and PERSIUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine volume with two clean and remarkable editions of Latin classic poetry. The first is an early reprint of the 1502 ground-breaking Aldine edition in octavo of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, who were, together with Ovid, the main lyric poets of the first century BC. In their innovative verses, they focused on personal matters and day-to-day images, dwelling on the passionate feeling for their lovers. This is the first edition published by Simon de Colines (c.1480 -1546), a highly skilled printer who was trained by Henry Estienne, led the Estienne workshop until Robert entered the business in 1526 and then became an independent and distinguished publisher in Paris. He was renowned for the beauty of his Roman, Greek and Italic fonts, often modelled on Aldus s types. In this book, he employed the famous Saint Augustin flourished italics. The second part of the volume comprises an exceptionally bright copy of the genuine 1501 Aldine edition of two masters of Latin satire, Juvenal (c.55-127 AD) and Persius (34-62 AD). This publication (not to be confused with an almost identical imprint issued some twelve years later by the Aldine) was the fourth ever printed classic in the renowned octavo series with Griffo s italic font, soon after Virgil, Petrarch and Horace. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The book has an interesting early English provenance connected to the seventeenth-century academia in Oxford. Henry Bracegirdle bought it in Oxford on 6 December 1660 and then read it over and over, drafting marginalia extensively throughout and compiling a detailed index of topics; this suggests he used the book for his university studies and perhaps as source of inspiration for his own writing. He must be the BA who graduated at Merton College in 1667, the son of Richard Bracegirdle from Wolverhampton and the owner of two manuscript miscellanies of English poetry (Cambridge, King s College, Hayward Collection, H. 11. 13-14). Below Bracegirdle s price note, one can see another seventeenth-century inscription ( Ed. Palmer e Coll. Reg. Oxon. ) written by probably the subsequent owner of the book, that is Edward Palmer, son of Sir William of Warden in Bedfordshire, BA at Queen s College in 1668 and poet. In 1667, he published An elegy on the death of Mr. James Bristow, late fellow of All-souls (A. Wood and P. Bliss, Fasti Oxonienses, II, London 1820, p. 301). The sale of his library was advertised in 1681 (cf. ESTC, R221392).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS [with] JUVENAL and PERSIUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816134451535,"sku":"L2265","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2265-1-1.jpg?v=1781795215"},{"product_id":"pliny-caecilius-secundus-gaius","title":"PLINY, Caecilius Secundus, Gaius","description":"\u003cp\u003eA finely bound copy of this rare edition of the letters of Pliny edited by Issac Casaubon with tremendous early North American provenance; from the library of Jean-Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, with his arms as Bishop of Quebec and Nouvelle France. He was the second Bishop of Qu ébec and Nouvelle France, and served from 1685-1727, over forty years, at one of the most critical periods of the provinces history. The binding is probably contemporary to the printing so Saint-Vallier s arms and the cover gilding were almost certainly added after 1688 when he was officially consecrated as Bishop, perhaps even during his time in North America, and most probably well before 1713 when he gave up the Bishop s Palace and retreated to the Hopital General to live in a single room with few belongings - though including a few shelves of books. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  In 1684 Abb é Saint-Vallier was 31 and already his appointment to a see in France was generally anticipated. At that time his spiritual director, the Jesuit Father Le Valois.. spoke to him of the see of Quebec. The incumbent of the see, Bishop Laval, was thinking of resigning. He proposed to come to France to ask Louis XIV to choose a successor for him. Would Abb é Saint-Vallier agree to be this successor? An ambitious priest would certainly have refused. Created just ten years before, situated two or three months  sailing time from France, burdened with a harsh climate, the diocese of Quebec in 1684 was perhaps the most wretched and difficult of all the dioceses in mission lands. It was immense, taking in the greater part of the territories that had already been explored in North America: Newfoundland, Acadia, the valley of the St Lawrence, the region of the Great Lakes, and even the whole of the valley of the Mississippi, which Cavelier de La Salle had just traversed down to its mouth. This diocese on a continental scale was on the other hand scarcely populated. And what diocesans! Nine out of ten were Indians, who were almost completely refractory to Christianity and who were on the brink of resuming the offensive against the French. In the midst of these Indians there was a handful of French settlers, barely more than 10,000. Abb é Saint-Vallier s first sojourn in Canada lasted 18 months. Despite his lack of training the young priest astonished the clergy by his endurance and his zeal. First he visited Quebec, next all the parishes along the St Lawrence, and finally Montreal. Then, following the inland rivers and lakes, he went with two priests and a small escort to distant Acadia. He left in the spring of 1686 without even waiting for the break-up of the ice. They went from river to river, from lake to lake. Sometimes they had to break the ice to get the canoes through. At one time they thought they would die of starvation. Then came the summer, the unbearable mosquito bites, the humid heat. Everywhere they met Frenchmen or Indians, Abb é Saint-Vallier preached, catechized, rebuked, praised. He ate little, scarcely slept, and worked unceasingly. When he returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1686 he even thought of going inland as far as the Great Lakes. . DCB. This small pocket size volume may well have accompanied the Bishop on his many travels in Quebec and Nouvelle France. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good edition, finely printed by Paul Estienne in this miniature format, of the Estienne text of the Younger Pliny's Letters with the notes of Issac Casaubon. (Who was Paul Estienne s brother in law.). Dibdin describes the various edns., first printed in 1591, as 'elegant and valuable . This particular edition seems to be one of the rarest, with worldcat locating two copies only, one at the BNF and one at Harvard. It is not mentioned in any of the usual bibliographies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PLINY, Caecilius Secundus, Gaius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816135303503,"sku":"L2340","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_2064-e1520956141781.jpg?v=1781795211"},{"product_id":"calvin-jean","title":"CALVIN, Jean","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery good, handsomely bound copy of this immensely influential work by Jean Calvin (1509-1564), a French theologian who contributed to the introduction of the Reformation to France and Switzerland. First published in Latin in 1536, the  Institutio  presented a systematic analysis of Protestant doctrines with the purpose of dissociating the new religious ideas from attacks against established political authority launched by the Anabaptists and condemned by Francis I, to whom the work is dedicated. In this third, expanded Latin edition the twenty-one chapters discuss fundamental theological questions like the knowledge and understanding of God s divine nature, the doctrines of justification by faith alone and of predestination which differentiated Calvin s thought from Luther s. His influential theories inspired, among others, the religious and political ideas of the French Huguenots and the Scottish, English, and Irish Presbyterians.  The elegant and uncommon early C16 binding, the detail of which remains very crisp, celebrates the political and religious pre-eminence of the Holy Roman Empire over the Ottomans. It portrays Emperor Charles V, Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, and Andreas de Auria (Andrea Doria) this being his sole recorded occurrence on German bindings according to the Einbanddatenbank (EBDB r004398). Andrea Doria (1466-1560), a most successful admiral of the Republic of Genoa, was in the service of Charles V from 1528 to the 1550s, fighting the Ottomans and helping him to strengthen his hold over Italy. The rolls have been traced to the workshop of Hans Reisspergk in Saxony, where they were used between 1533 and 1560 (Haebler I, 369, 4). The costumes reflect the fashion of the 1530s, when Charles V and Andrea Doria defeated the Ottomans in Tunis, and Ferdinand withheld their invasion of Hungary events which the binding may be celebrating with images of the victors.  The remarkable provenance of this copy is traceable to the Lower Silesian city of Breslau (Wroc aw). The first owner was Ambrosius Moibanus (1494-1554), an influential Lutheran theologian who studied at Cracow and Wittenberg, where he met Melanchthon. He was pastor at St Elizabeth s Church in Breslau from 1525, and among the first to introduce the Reformation into Silesia. Moibanus wrote a Catechism, hymns, and epistles (some to Calvin concerning the reception of the Reformation in Hungary and Poland). He strongly believed in the importance of women s education, which he promoted at his parish school. The second ex-libris is of his fifth son, Ambrosius (1546-1598). He taught theology in Wittenberg, became pastor at St Elizabeth s, and was in possession of his father s books by 1569 as stated on the t-p of an incunabulum now at Harvard. In 1570 the younger Ambrosius donated this copy to his brother-in-law, M. Salomon Frenzel von Friedenthal (1529-1602), and his sons, including the future humanist Salomon Frencelius. M. Salomon was appointed pastor of St Elizabeth s in 1567, and left Breslau for Brzeg in 1571. The annotations in this copy reflect the interests of its Protestant readers. It was probably Moibanus the elder who annotated sections rejecting as  error et stultitia  the doctrines of the Anabaptists, whose persecution he encouraged.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CALVIN, Jean","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139530575,"sku":"K120","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5661-e1507729084471.jpg?v=1781795186"},{"product_id":"clement-of-alexandria","title":"CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good, crisp copy on thick paper of the editio princeps of Clement of Alexandria’s complete extant works, edited by the humanist Pietro Vettori. A Church Father and saint, Clement (c.150-215) converted to Christianity in his youth and studied at the Catechetical School of Alexandria, where he became professor. His thought was imbued with Greek philosophy and he had an excellent knowledge of pre-Christian cults. The ‘Protrepticus’ (‘ ’) is an exhortation to the Greeks to convert to Christianity in which Clement displays his mastery of their theology and mythology. The ‘Pedagogus’ (‘ ’) illustrates how to live according to a Christian ethics and in imitation of Christ. The ‘Stromata’ (‘ ’) is an eclectic work in three books, concerned with Greek philosophy, faith, asceticism, martyrdom, Greek poetry and prophetic biblical books.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLorenzo Torrentino (1499-1563) was appointed printer to Cosimo de’ Medici in 1547. Thanks to the handsome rounded types from his Brabant press, he overcame competitors like the Giunti, and produced for the Medici Press over 250 editions in two decades. Among those who convinced Cosimo to hire an official printer was Pietro Vettori (1499-1585), who planned to publish editiones principes of Greek texts to ‘rescue them from the ruins of time’. In his dedication to Cardinal Marcello Cervino, Vettori calls this edition a ‘monument to a saint and a very learned mind’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe remarkable provenance is traced to Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), Flemish cartographer and the father of the modern atlas. Published in over 25 editions before 1600, his ‘Theatrum orbis terrarum’ (1570) introduced maps into the everyday life of the early modern middle classes and changed the way European civilisation understood world geography. As stated in the 1606 English edition, Ortelius’s library was ‘well-stocked with all kinds of books, so that his house might truly be called a shop of all manners of learning’. This copy sheds light on Ortelius’s interest in Greek texts; until now only one—Suidas’s ‘Lexicon’ (Basle, 1544)—has been assigned to his library, which bears a similar casemark (G\/ckb\/) to this copy (F\/ck\/). Ortelius discussed Greek editions with the humanist Isaac Casaubon and Bonaventura Vulcanius, professor of Greek and Latin at Cologne and Leiden.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe C14 mss in the pastedown are taken from ‘Sermones dominicales Parisienses’ and ‘Summae virtutum ac vitiorum’ by Guillaume Perault (1190-1271), a Dominican preacher and writer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139923791,"sku":"K113","price":20000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K113.jpg?v=1781795185"},{"product_id":"catullus-gaius-valerius-tibullus-albius-propertius-sextus","title":"CATULLUS, Gaius Valerius, TIBULLUS, Albius, PROPERTIUS, Sextus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe attractive, gilt armorial binding was produced c. 1700 for Nicolas Lambert, seigneur of Thorigny and Vermont. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very good, crisp copy of this Aldine first edition, edited by Hieronymo Avantio, of the immortal poems of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius the three most important elegiac authors of the late Roman republic and early imperial era. Catullus, Propertius and Tibullus s poems revealed a new poetic feeling rejecting the heroic character of the epic tradition in favour of a more familiar tone and intimate subjects like love, erotic desire, rejection and mourning. Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54BC) spent most of his life in Rome where he was acquainted with important authors and politicians. His most famous  carmina , 116 of which are extant, include verse on his love and desire for  Lesbia , and lampoons against public figures like Julius Caesar. Albius Tibullus (55-19BC) was part of the circle of the Roman orator and politician Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. His verse survives in four books, only the first two of which are of safe attribution, and is mostly devoted to his intense and star-crossed love for the married  Delia . Sextus Propertius (c.50-15BC) enjoyed the protection of Maecenas and Augustus and is most famous for his four books of poems, many written for his beloved  Cynthia . This  elegiac collection  format was successfully republished in Europe throughout the century; in the 1590s, several editions appeared in which the texts were  castigati  and  expurgati  of their most obvious sexual references. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy was once part of the Bibliotheca Lamoniana. First acquired by Guillaume de Lamoignon in 1650, the library was augmented from 2500 to over 6000 volumes in the following century, especially by Chr étien François II de Lamoignon. Upon his death in 1789, it was sold to the English bookseller Thomas Payne. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Nicolas Lambert (1659-1729) de Thorigny and Vermont was a French politician and bibliophile. Like several members of the Lamoignon family, he held office as a Parliamentary councillor and then president of one of the chambers. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Robert Dalrymple (also Hamilton) (b. 1716) was probably the third son of Sir Robert of Castleton (d. 1734) and grandson of Sir Hew Dalrymple, 1st Baronet of North Berwick. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Fredrik Wulff (1845-1930) was professor of philology at Lund.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, Gaius Valerius, TIBULLUS, Albius, PROPERTIUS, Sextus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816141889871,"sku":"L2711","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2711.jpg?v=1781795173"},{"product_id":"dionysius-halicarnassensis","title":"DIONYSIUS, Halicarnassensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine copy of this beautifully printed edition, in a beautiful contemporary Scottish armorial binding, with the arms of John Stewart, 5th Earl of Atholl, and remarkable Scottish provenance. The M M monogram above the arms could have been added later, possibly the initials of one of John s descendants from the Murray family. Early Scottish armorial bindings are particularly rare. Of particular interest is the autograph Robertus Lindesius on the title which could very well be that of the Scottish chronicler Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie (c. 1530 c. 1590).  Scottish historian, of the family of the Lindsays of the Byres, was born at Pitscottie, in the parish of Ceres, Fifeshire, which he held in lease at a later period. His Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, the only work by which he is remembered, is described as a continuation of that of Hector Boece, translated by John Bellenden. It covers the period from 1437 to 1565, and, though it sometimes degenerates into a mere chronicle of short entries, is not without passages of great picturesqueness. Sir Walter Scott made use of it in Marmion; and, in spite of its inaccuracy in details, it is useful for the social history of the period. Lindsay s share in the Cronicles was generally supposed to end with 1565; but Dr Aeneas Mackay considers that the frank account of the events connected with Mary Stuart between 1565 and 1575 contained in one of the MSS. is by his hand and was only suppressed because it was too faithful in its record of contemporary affairs. The Historie and Cronicles was first published in 1728. A complete edition of the text (2 vols.), based on the Laing MS. No. 218 in the university of Edinburgh, was published by the Scottish Text Society in 1809 under the editorship of Aeneas J. G. Mackay. The MS., formerly in the possession of John Scott of Halkshill, is fuller, and, though in a later hand, is, on the whole, a better representative of Lindsay s text.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This beautifully printed edition of Dionysius  most important work is edited by by Sigmund Gelenius, with an additional chronology supplied by Henri Glareanus.  Gelenius at one time studied Greek under Marcus Musurus and visited Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and France before returning to Prague, where he lectured privately on Greek authors and entered into correspondence with Melanchthon.   Probably in 1524 he moved to Basel, where he lived in Erasmus  household. He spent the remainder of his life working for the Froben press as a scholar, editor, corrector, and translator from the Greek, even declining a position as professor of Greek at Nuremberg for which he was recommended by Melanchthon in 1525 and 1526.   in his day there cannot have been many major productions of the Froben press which did not benefit from his selfless scholarly devotion.   There is also evidence that he collaborated on a number of editions by Erasmus   Erasmus held Gelenius in high regard as is attested to by himself and others  Contemporaries of Erasmus, II, pp. 84-85.  Glareanus  annotations arose from a cultural, intellectual and even religious background that was very different from that of his predecessors. In sixteenth-century Basel, Henricus Glareanus was part of a flourishing community of scholars and printers engaged in the business of bookselling and publishing. Both emulating the Aldine model and pursuing the footsteps of Erasmus of Rotterdam, they collaborated to produce new editions of classical and patristic texts, which were based on a critical study of the manuscripts. This marked in the words of Hans-Hubertus Mack, the origins of classical philology as a scholarly discipline.  Marijke Crab.  Exemplary Reading . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Historian and rhetorician of the first century BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus left Greece for Rome where he researched and composed a history of the city in twenty books. This tenth book is nearly complete while later ones are fragmentary. Informed by the classical concept of history as a source of exemplary and instructive ethical models, the text aimed to justify Roman rule over Greece and argued for a Greek origin of Roman ancestry. It is followed by De compositione, seu orationis partium apta inter se collocatione, a work on different styles of rhetoric. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A remarkable copy; beautifully bound with extraordinary provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DIONYSIUS, Halicarnassensis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816143921487,"sku":"K69","price":10000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_1112.jpg?v=1781794952"},{"product_id":"terentius-afer-publius","title":"TERENTIUS AFER, Publius.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAccurate Estienne edition of one of the masters of Latin comedy. A liberated slave of North African origins, Terence (c. 195\/185-159 BC ) is the most prominent comic playwright of ancient Rome along with Plautus. Relying extensively on the plays of the New Greek Comedy and especially those of Menander, the six comedies written by Terence enjoyed long-lasting success, were copied in several manuscripts and thus exceptionally survived all together. For almost two millenniums throughout the Middle Ages and early modern times, they were employed as model of polished Latin in schools. This is regarded as the best edition published by the humanist printer Robert Estienne, including three fundamental commentaries: the first, featuring the earliest biography of the author, by the famous grammarian Aelius Donatus (fl. mid-4th century AD); the second, complementing Donatus with an insight into the third comedy (The Self-Tormentor), by the scholar Giovanni Calfurnio (1443-1503), one of Aldus s editors; and the third, briefly illustrating Terence s metric system and vocabulary, written by Erasmus, whose emendations of the textual faults in a previous edition by Estienne himself (1529) are gladly accepted here. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy belonged to Ren é-Alexandre Aubry, lord of Barneville and counsellor of the Parisian Parliament, died 1740. There is no record about his library, though two other books with his distinctive supralibros (Guigard, II, p. 23) have appeared on the French market in recent years. At the beginning of 1921, the book was presented to a promising young Latinist, Jean Bunard, by the French novelist and poet Anatole France (1844-1924), who appears to have acquired it in 1873. Son of a Paris book dealer, France, born François-Anatole Thibault, was a well-known bibliophile. A few months after this gift, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TERENTIUS AFER, Publius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816144347471,"sku":"L2210","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2210-Terence-1-e1520515161433.jpg?v=1781794953"},{"product_id":"bembo-pietro","title":"BEMBO, Pietro","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe very handsome binding was produced for the bibliophile Marco Foscarini (1696-1763), a poet and diplomat who served as 117th Doge of Venice between 1762 and 1763, when his office was cut short by illness and death. It is an almost exact match with BL C47d10, probably made in Rome where Foscarini was ambassador for Venice between 1736 and 1740 ( BL Bookbindings Database ).   Very good copy of the first edition of Pietro Bembo s  Rime . Born in Venice, Bembo (1470-1547) was a scholar, poet, critic and later cardinal. After his studies at Messina and Padua, he travelled extensively in Italy; his love for the Tuscan vernacular, which he considered the perfect language for Italian literature, developed during a stay in Florence. In 1525, he published  Le prose della volgar lingua , a ground-breaking work of philology and literary criticism celebrating the cultural value of the vernacular versus Latin and electing Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio masters of the Tuscan vernacular whose works he also edited as the highest models for Italian poets. Bembo followed his own advice in  Rime , a collection featuring sonnets and longer poems. A jewel of Renaissance literature,  Rime  pays tributes to the  Three Crowns , especially celebrating the half-angelic\/half-earthly  gentile  lady of Dante s  dolce stil novo , who gives  vigour  to the flowers around her, as well as Petrarch s fleeting muse Laura, whose look can make the poet feel  burning and tied  and experience  joy mixed with torment . The light-hearted stanzas at the end of the work, focusing on love and its effects, were originally composed to be read at a masquerade organized by the Duchess of Urbino. This first edition of the  Rime  includes the introductory letter to Ottaviano Fregoso dropped from later ones.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BEMBO, Pietro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816147722575,"sku":"L2875","price":13500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2875.jpg?v=1781794938"},{"product_id":"bardaji-y-almenara-juan-ibando-de","title":"BARDAJÍ Y ALMENARA, Juan Ibando de","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe elegant armorial binding, unusual for law books, bears the same variation of the Aragon arms (first quarter: Cross of Íñigo Arista, second: St George’s cross with four severed Moors’ heads, third: the Bars of Aragon) as another copy of the same work preserved at the Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza (F.A.49). The archive includes records from the Diputación del Reino de Aragón (1364-1708), an institution concerned with administrative and financial policy. It was heavily involved in the administration of justice, as the king could not pass any laws without its approval, as well as in the settling of legal disputes between social groups. The present copy was used for reference by members of the Diputación (or ‘diputados’) involved in legal administration—one of whom underlined numerous passages throughout—among whom were representatives of the ecclesiastical authorities, the nobility, universities and cities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGood copy of the first edition of two legal manuals of the Kingdom of Aragon written by Juan Ibando de Bardaxí y Almenara (d.1586), a lawyer from Zaragoza and councillor in the Real Chancillería. After his death, his brother—professor of law—edited and published Juan Ibando’s numerous mss held in the archives of the Diputación del Reino. The ‘Tractati’ were two of many ‘national’ legal manuals produced in C16 Spain by private initiative on the basis of everyday professional practice. The first explains the origins, appointments and duties of the ‘procurator general’ or ‘governor general’, an officer dealing with fiscal, administrative and political questions in the king’s absence and traditionally entrusted to the second in line to the throne. The second part examines the procurator’s authority in the area of criminal justice, and the statutes regulating accusation, capture, interrogation, detention and trial (also in absentia). Both works engaged with long-standing debates on the relationship between royal power and the Aragonese authorities; its legal interpretation, influenced by Castilian custom, had been strongly criticised, especially in Zaragoza.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BARDAJÍ Y ALMENARA, Juan Ibando de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816152670543,"sku":"L2861","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2861.jpg?v=1781794937"},{"product_id":"bruto-giovanni-michele","title":"BRUTO, Giovanni Michele","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery good, clean copy, handsomely bound, of Giovanni Michele Bruto s controversial history of Florence. Born in Venice, Bruto (1517-92) was a Hermit of St Augustin and a historiographer. He soon left the convent and started a life of frequent travels, during which he encountered humanists like Reginald Pole. In the 1550s, the Papal printer, Paulus Manutius, first substituted Bruto s name with an alias due to suspicions of heresy which would accompany him throughout his life. In 1562, Bruto was in Lyon, in touch with circles upholding anti-Medicean views ideas which also pervade  Florentinae Historiae . The preface is a long and complex apology of the volume, contextualising it within the Western historiographic tradition from ancient authors like Livy to more recent ones like Paolo Giovio. Giovio s  Historiae  (c.1520s), caught between praise and criticism of the Medici, is often cited as an inspiration. Leaving historical chronology in the background, Bruto examines the recent history of Florence through its civic and national policy and the character of its governors, none of whom is spared criticism. For instance, in the course of three pages, Cosimo de  Medici is called  fortunatus , powerful and magnanimous as well as seriously flawed with vice and cupidity. The Medici sought to curb the circulation of this work by seizing and destroying numerous copies, hence its relative scarcity.  Wiguleus Hund of Lautterbach was a Bavarian jurist and historian. He held numerous political offices including that of imperial counsellor to Duke Albrecht V, ambassador of Duke William IV to Emperor Charles V, and negotiator on the recall of the Jesuits in the early 1550s. He was the author of three antiquarian  Stammen Bücher  of Bavarian princely and aristocratic families.  Christian Gobel von Hofgiebing (1590- 1658) was a Bavarian doctor of law and imperial councillor to Duke Albrecht V.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRUTO, Giovanni Michele","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816153063759,"sku":"L2818","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2818.jpg?v=1781794930"},{"product_id":"ribadeneyra-pedro-de","title":"RIBADENEYRA, Pedro de","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe gilt arms belong to the Catalan patriot Josep de Margarit i de Biure (1602-85), member of a baronial family from Girona. Josep fought as a general of the Catalan army siding with the French against Spanish aggression into Catalan territory. For his support, he was appointed governor of Catalonia by Louis XIII. In particular, he played a major part in the Catalan  revolta dels Segadors  (1640-52) which concluded with the capitulation of Barcelona to Spain after a dramatic siege. As a reward for his courage, his Aguilar estate was turned into a marquisate by Louis XIV. Josep spent the last years of his life in exile in Perpignan where he continued to defend Catalan identity in Roussillon, annexed to France with the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). The bearing of the arms of Catalonia, Navarre and Aragon-Sicily had been granted by King Juan II to Josep s C15 ancestor, the bishop Juan Margarit, as a reward for his defence of the city of Girona. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The C17 annotator of this copy interested in the long  letter to the Christian reader  may have been Josep de Margarit himself. In a section discussing the reasons why a prince might want to continue a war through violence or political pressure, he highlighted a passage stating that  in order to destroy any city or province without a war, there is nothing like presenting them as places full of sin and vice, and to persuade [his subjects] that past injuries are never forgotten, despite the benefits received . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very good, clean, well-margined copy of this intriguing anti-Machiavellian Jesuit work in Castilian. This is the fourth edition published by the Antwerp printer Jan Moretus, who held the royal privilege for some of the most successful liturgical works of the Counter- Reformation. Born and raised in Toledo, Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1527-1611) was admitted to the Jesuit order in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola, of whom he would later write the first biography. After studying theology and rhetoric at Leuven, Paris and Padua, he taught at Italian and German Jesuit colleges, was sent on missions to Belgium and England by Ignatius himself and held important posts in Italy. Dedicated to Philip II of Spain,  Tratado  presented Machiavelli s ideal Christian prince as a misleading model contrived by an impious and godless  politician  a member of  the worst sect invented by Satan  to destroy piety, virtue and godly fear. He opposed the Machiavellian belief that history and  reason of state  were shaped by fortune, not religion and virtue, explaining how religion and  reason of state  were instead inseparable, and how a true Christian prince should defend the Catholic faith whilst piously administering government. The second part explores the fundamental concept of dissimulation a feigned  mask of virtue  which Machiavelli s prince should sometimes wear. Ribadeneira condemned dissimulation as a sin except for good reasons, e.g., maintaining secrecy for the sake of political prudence a behaviour equally adopted by Jesuits through  equivocation , an ironically near-Machiavellian variation of dissimulation used to escape persecution.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RIBADENEYRA, Pedro de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816153162063,"sku":"L2289","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2289-1-1.jpg?v=1781794928"},{"product_id":"lucian-of-samosata","title":"LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe handsome printed armorial ex-libris belongs to the bibliophile Hans (J√°nos) Teilnkes, citizen of Breslavia (or Presburg), then in Hungary and now in Slovakia. It was probably printed in Nuremberg, hence the Germanisation of his name into Hans, and is reputed to be the first ex-libris ever to be used in Hungary. This copy probably never travelled far from Breslavia. It was originally a prize book given to the student Joannis (J√°nos?) Talirasy by a teacher probably named Christophorus Borbonius. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy of fascinating provenance of Lucian of Samosata s satirical masterpiece against the traditional representation of Greek deities, translated into Latin and edited by the humanist Ottmar Luscinus. Originally from Syria, Lucian (c.125-180AD) was a Hellenistic author renowned for his very successful, mordant works in prose, poetry and dialogue form, inspired by the philosophical current of the Cynics and their indifference towards received conventions.  Dialogues of the Gods  teased the portrayal of Greek gods and goddesses immortalized in Homeric poems, with both a complicit yet disenchanted eye. It features 75 dialogues between deities and heroes of the heavens, sea and underground, including Jove, Prometheus, Neptune, Hermes, Apollo, Bacchus as well as nymphs. For instance, the Cyclops Polyphemus complains with his father Neptune about how Ulysses blinded him in his sleep in Homer s  Odyssey ; after mocking his son s incompetence, Neptune concludes ominously that, although he may not be able to cure blindness, he has full power over mariners; and Ulysses  is still navigating . As proved by the provenance of this copy, in the Renaissance Lucian s works were deemed useful for the education of youth for their engaging content and brilliant style. A great promoter of the teaching of Greek in Strasbourg, Luscinus explained in the preface how he had been taught Greek on Lucian s  Dialogues . Widely translated, Lucian s writings influenced European authors including Shakespeare and Marlowe, and inspired fundamental works of Western thought like Thomas More s  Utopia .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816153260367,"sku":"L2592","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4205.png?v=1781794930"},{"product_id":"mendoza-bernardino-de","title":"MENDOZA, Bernardino de","description":"\u003cp\u003eExceptionally rare first edition of the English translation of Mendoza s guide to military strategy by Sir Edwarde Hoby, first published in Madrid in 1577 and rewritten for an edition of 1595, as a guide for the future Phillip III. The work begins as a treatise on government. Mendoza explains the offices and shapes of armies and exhorts the prince both to behave as one (he ironically owes much here to Castiglione s  Courtier ) to take appropriate care and consideration in his decisions, with especial regard to defence in times of peace. The author had recently written a study of the Duke of Alva s campaigns in the Low Countries, published in 1592, and was certainly brought close to military thinking in his brilliant diplomatic career, as ambassador to England for 10 years until the execution of Mary Queen of Scots (an event he refers to obliquely) and orchestrator of the pro-Spanish  Ligue  in France, which he ended by arranging the marriage of Henry IV to Phillip III s sister.  The Author who had served in the Netherlands under Alva, gives a clear and succinct account of the generals system. In an interesting passage on cavalry, he pronounces for the lance against the pistol, and describes the manner of handling the former arm Mendoza was the inventor of a piece of artillery made of metal, firing a shot of one pound weight, which he says would pierce a two foot wall; but neither the range or the charge is given. pp. 82-147 are on seiges; pp. 148-165 on naval matters.  Cockle \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  For Hoby, Guise was the epitome of the Renaissance general . We might wonder whether Hoby s intended audience appreciated the subtleties of his account of Guise s efforts at Calais, but Hoby himself was certainly aware of contemporary debates over the nature of effective military command. Two years after translating La Popelinière s  Histoire  he dedicated a translation of Bernardino de Mendoza s  Theorique and practise of warre , a treatise providing a first-hand account of the war in the Low Countries between 1567 and 1577, to his fellow Middle Temple Lawyer, Sir George Carew. Hoby served on diplomatic missions to Scotland and the continent, sat in the House of Commons and served as constable of Queenborough castle in Kent. His only recorded military experience was to accompany the Earl of Essex on the Cadiz expedition in 1596  Hoby s translation points to a new desire for objective, rational histories. .. This desire presumably overrode the potential objections that La Popelinère had been accused by Hugenots of a being a pro Catholic writer and the siege of Calais and the achievements of the Guise were not suitable subjects to be celebrated in English.  Joanna Bellis.  Representing War and Violence: 1250-1600.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n With exceptional provenance. From the library of the celebrated English bibliographer and collector William Herbert;  his edition of the  Typographical Antiquities  increased three times the size of the original of Ames. The unfinished edition of Dibdin has not superseded it, and it remains a monument of industry, and the foundation of our bibliography of old English literature.  DNB.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MENDOZA, Bernardino de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816153817423,"sku":"L2702","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/image-1_ec151296-d15c-47f9-83e7-345364a801d8.jpg?v=1781794926"},{"product_id":"abravanel-juda-ben-isaac","title":"ABRAVANEL, Juda ben Isaac.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAbravanel s (1465   ca. 1535) important philosophical treatise on love, first published posthumously in 1535. The Dialoghi was exceedingly popular and went through at least five editions (four by Aldus) in twenty years, and was quickly translated into French, Hebrew and Latin. It is notably one of the first original philosophical compositions to be published in the vernacular.  Don Yehudah Abrabanel, the son of Rabbi Yitshak Abrabanel, has been one of the most extraordinary and fascinating personalities in Jewish philosophy on the threshold of modernity. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n His Dialoghi d Amore has become one of the most celebrated books of Renaissance literature and thought. Despite his personal afflictions   the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the abduction and forced conversion of his son by the King of Portugal (about which he wrote a moving poem  complaint on the times )   he has bequeathed to us one of the most outstanding philosophical books of the epoch. Dialoghi d Amore is one of the chief expressions of Italian Platonism, revived and flourishing at the time.  Ze ev Levy.Modeled on the Platonic dialogue, the Dialoghi d Amore examines the nature of spiritual and intellectual love, which is regarded by Abravanel as the principle dominating all existence, reaching its apotheosis in the love of God. He structured his three dialogues as a conversation between two  characters , Philo, representing love, and Sophia, representing science or wisdom. The first dialogue is a contemplation on the distinctions between love and desire, or the types of love and their true nature. The second postulates that love is the dominant principle of all life and describes how love operates in human beings  lives. The third and most lengthy is a discussion of God s love, how it encompasses all of existence, from the lowest creatures to the heavens. A discussion of beauty and the soul follows, with an analysis of Plato s ideas. The dialogues cover a huge range of subjects including beauty, the intellect, fascination, the influence of the planets, reproduction, nature, psychology, mans place in the universe, creation, reason, friendship, virtue, poetry and much more.  Abrabanel attempts (especially in the third dialogue of his book) to bring about a merger between Jewish-religious conceptions and Renaissance Platonism. To this purpose he welds together the Jewish concept of love of God with a religious-aesthetic idealization of the world. For the first time in the history of Jewish thought, there was a philosopher who awarded space to aesthetic reflections .. and who set out to explicate and define beauty.  Ze ev Levy. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Vivian de Sola Pinto (1895-1969) was a poet, professor, literary critic, translator and historian ??. A close friend of Siegfried Sassoon and his second in command on the western front, he appears in  Memoirs of an Infantry Officer  etc under the pseudonym Velmore. A leading authority on D.H. Lawrence, Pinto gave evidence for the defence in the 1960  Lady Chatterly s lover  obscenity trial. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An unsophisticated copy of this important work, beautifully printed at the Aldine press.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ABRAVANEL, Juda ben Isaac.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816154702159,"sku":"L2931","price":2350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190807_143913.jpg?v=1781794921"},{"product_id":"herrera-gabriel-alonso-de","title":"HERRERA, Gabriel Alonso de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery scarce edition of this extremely successful and ground-breaking manual of agriculture in Castilian. Gabriel Alonso de Herrera (1470-1539) was a Franciscan agronomist and brother to the humanist Hernando and the musician Diego Alonso de Herrera. He is most renowned for this  Libro de agricultura , first printed in Spain in 1513, which underwent over 20 editions in just a few decades and was translated into Latin, Italian and French. It was a compilation based on a variety of agricultural and medical sources, including Greek (Galen and Hippocrates), Arabic (Avenzoar and Avicenna), and Latin  De re rustica  authors (Columella, Cato, Varro and Palladius). Following the classical tradition, Herrera presented a holistic view of the agronomist as knowledgeable in the cultivation of crops and trees, techniques for making soil and water suitable for agriculture and horticulture, the forecast of adverse weather conditions, farming and herbal medical remedies. He also injected into this solid tradition new ideas based on contemporary agricultural theories and his own experience concerning the identification of high-quality seed which should be grown separately from the rest to improve the quality of crops, as well as plant reproductive morphology, i.e., he believed that plants could be masculine or feminine. Juan de Valverde s  Despertador  and Guti érrez Salinas s  Discursos  similarly deal with agricultural and horticultural techniques; the first also discusses farming and the use of beasts of burden as well as the remedies to preserve one s estate in times of famine and inclement weather. \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n  The printer, Mat√≠as Mares, intended this text to be bound with Juan de Valverde s  Despertador , Diego Guti érrez Salinas s  Discursos del pan y del vino del Ni√±o Jes√∫s  originally printed in Alcal√° de Henares in 1600 and here summarised and Gregorio de los Rios s  Agricultura de jardines  printed in Zaragoza in 1604. This copy contains the 4 ll. of preliminaries (plus an additional leaf of errata) and 242 ll. of text which encompass the (complete) works by Herrera, Valverde and Salinas. The separately printed 6 ll. containing de los Rios s work were not bound in this copy, as Palau, see below.  \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n  Jos é de Aguirre SJ was an Inquisitor whose  expurgatorio  dating from the 1640s is recorded in other Spanish books. He authored the pamphlet  Profec√≠a de Santa Hildegardis .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HERRERA, Gabriel Alonso de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816155947343,"sku":"L2970a","price":1850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4157.jpg?v=1781794911"},{"product_id":"doglioni-giovanni-nicolo-1","title":"DOGLIONI, Giovanni Nicol√≤","description":"\u003cp\u003eScarce copy of this important didactic almanac including the prediction of weather conditions, planetary influence and a perpetual calendar  one of the earliest if not the earliest almanack according to the Gregorian Calendar unknown to Poggendorff  ( Bibliotheca Chemico-Mathematica  1076). Giovanni Nicol√≤ Doglioni (1548-1629) was a Venetian notary appointed to several public offices in the city, and the author of works on chronology, cosmography and the calculation of time.  L anno  contextualised for a broader audience the reform of the Julian calendar introduced by Gregory XIII in 1582 a revision which led to major scholarly debates on  gnomonica  or the computation of the portions of the solar day. The first section of the work discusses the four elements that constitute the world, the subdivisions of the earth into continents, countries and provinces, the meteorological phenomena resulting from the mixture of the elements as well as a table tracing the movements of the planets. In the second section Doglioni explains the subdivisions of time according to conventional units. The fundamental unit the day can be natural (following the planetary course of the sun in relation to the earth as a whole) or artificial (according to the specific place in which the onlooker is situated). This distinction is used as the basis to explain the correct construction of sundials on buildings. There follows an examination of the subdivision of historical time the discipline of chronology so dear to the medieval and Renaissance periods and the meaning of  century ,  age ,  age of man  and  age of the world , with a perpetual calendar and a long table recording universal dates and events from the creation to the year 5545 [1586AD]. Later owners annotated the perpetual calendar counting the days for the years 1646, 1668 and 1709. The last section provides perpetual calendars to identify Feasts of the Saints and moveable liturgical feasts. It was reprinted as  L anno riformato  in 1599 and its tables accordingly updated. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Giovanni Battista Lambruschini S.J. (1755-1827) was professor at the Jesuit seminary in Genoa, a great opponent of the French Revolution and the centre of a Jesuit circle including the renowned philologist Cardinal Angelo Mai.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DOGLIONI, Giovanni Nicol√≤","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156078415,"sku":"L2885","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_e03e142e-f040-46f2-84c1-4d818e74ac66.png?v=1781794912"},{"product_id":"fabri-ottavio","title":"FABRI, Ottavio","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of the first edition of this important work on the application of triangulation. Ottavio Fabri (fl. late C16-early C17) was an Italian mathematician of whom little is known. His greatest contribution to the discipline, immortalized in this work, was the invention of the  squadra mobile , a brass geometrical instrument to  measure, level and transfer onto paper every distance, height and depth , with applications in astronomy, geometry and the measuring of terrain. The edition was printed in two issues with differing preliminaries, though no priority has been established. The first section is devoted to measurements and includes comparisons between units used in different cities (the  Braccio toscano  in Florence, the  Tornadure  in Cervia) or countries ( Piedi  in France and the Trevigian  Pertica  in Cologne). He proceeds to explain the construction of the instrument; this part was illustrated by an engraved plate portraying the  squadra mobile , absent in most copies. The best material for the instrument, he found, is copper, a piece of which  as thick as a knife s back  can be bought  from any ironmonger in town . He even advertised the best craftsman in Venice to assemble the instrument,  M. Battista degli Horologli  in his Spadaria shop, who made clocks and scales. The rest, illustrated with handsome engravings, explains the most common applications of the instruments in measuring from various positions the distance, depth and height, in relative and absolute terms, of buildings, hills, allotments, etc. The  squadra mobile  could even be used to map a city s area without a compass both from inside or outside its walls. Illustration XIII pasted on p. 37 appears to have been an editorial afterthought as it is also found in the NYPL copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FABRI, Ottavio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160207183,"sku":"L3013","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Fabri-L3013-1.jpg?v=1781794900"},{"product_id":"gellibrand-henry","title":"GELLIBRAND, Henry.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this important and influential work on trigonometry, with most interesting contemporary provenance. Gellibrand had been a student at Trinity College, Oxford, when he was introduced to mathematics and became acquainted with Henry Briggs. After graduation he was ordained and took a job as curate in a small town in Kent. When Edmund Gunter died in 1626, Gellibrand applied for his post as professor of astronomy at Gresham College and was elected in early 1627. One of his sponsors was Henry Briggs, and Gellibrand repaid the debt by completing the second volume of Briggs  Trigonometria Britannica and seeing it through the press after Briggs died in 1630.  He .. became a friend of Henry Briggs, on whose recommendation he was chosen professor of astronomy at Gresham College, 2 Jan. 1626 7. Briggs dying in 1630 he left his unfinished  Trigonometria Britannica  to Gellibrand. Gellibrand held puritan meetings in his rooms, and encouraged his servant, William Beale, to publish an almanack for 1631, in which the popish saints were superseded by those in Foxe s  Book of Martyrs.  Laud, then bishop of London, cited them both into the high commission court. They were acquitted on the ground that similar almanacks had been printed before, Laud alone dissenting, and this prosecution formed afterwards one of the articles exhibited against him at his own trial. In 1632 Gellibrand completed Briggs s manuscript, and published it in 1633 as  Trigonometria Britannica  According to Ward, an English translation of Gellibrand s book was published in 1658 by John Newton as the second part of a folio with the same title. During 1633 he also contributed  An Appendix concerning Longitude  to  The strange and dangerous Voyage of Captaine Thomas James,  4to, 1633, which has been frequently reprinted. Gellibrand died of fever 16 Feb. 1636, and was buried in the church of St. Peter the Poor, Broad Street, London.  DNB. Gellibrand is also known for his discovery of magnetic declination and for application of mathematics and astronomy to practical problems of navigation. This book contains two brief expositions on plane and spherical triangles followed by a major section consisting of trigonometric functions, logarithms and navigational and astronomical tables. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Sir Lewis Dyve (1599 1669) was an English Member of Parliament and a Royalist during the English Civil War; he was knighted in 1620 and was one of the attendants of Prince Charles at Madrid. He was elected MP for Bridport in the Parliaments of 1625 and 1626, and for Weymouth in that of 1628. Dyve fought for the Royalist cause and was captured at the siege of Sherborne, later imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1645 to 1647. Being moved to the King s Bench, he escaped, but was recaptured at Preston. Imprisoned in Whitehall he escaped once more, according to his own account on the very day he was to have been executed; John Evelyn records in his Diary on 6 September 1651 that Dyve dined with him and related the story of his  leaping down out of a jakes two stories high into the Thames at high water, in the coldest of winter, and at night; so as by swimming he got to a boat that attended for him, though he was guarded by six musketeers. Dyve then made his way to Ireland where he once more served with the Royal forces; in 1650 he published an account of events in that country during the previous two years. He lost much of his fortune through his loyalty to the Crown, but also in part due to heavy gambling: in 1668, the year before he died, Samuel Pepys called him disapprovingly  a great gamester . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy of this rare work. ESTC cites two copies recorded in the US only; at the Folger and Huntington.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GELLIBRAND, Henry.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160403791,"sku":"L3015","price":5950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3015-2.jpg?v=1781794899"},{"product_id":"euclid-2","title":"EUCLID","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis outstanding copy was printed on blue paper for presentation. No copies on blue paper of this edition are recorded in major bibliographies or at US libraries. Intended as a substitute for parchment, blue paper was first employed by Aldus, and perfected by Giolito, for  deluxe  copies prepared for important personalities. It became an increasingly widespread practice with selected copies of particularly scientific and architectural works in the course of the C16. The translator and commentator of this edition, Federico Commandino, had also overseen the printing on blue paper of a limited Latin edition of Euclid s  Elements  in 1572. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very rare copy, on blue paper, of the first Italian translation of Euclid s  Elements  edited by Federico Commandino. Commandino (1509-75) was a humanist from Urbino renowned for his translations of the works of ancient Greek mathematicians including Aristarchus of Samos and Pappus of Alexandria. Several of his Latin (and later vernacular) renditions of Greek mathematical terms, for which he relied on previous adaptations by Roman authors like Cicero and Vitruvius, became the standard. Euclid (4th century BC) was the first to reunite mathematical theories from the ancient world into a coherent, bi-dimensional system centred on simple axioms of plane geometry, based on angles and distance, from which further propositions (or theorems) could be deduced. His  Elements  began with the crucial definition of  point ,  that which has no part nor size  and which is only determined by two numbers defining its position in space the fundamental notion on which the Euclidean geometrical system is based. The fifteen books of the work, the last two of which are now considered spurious, discuss plane and solid geometry, the theory of proportion and the properties of rational and irrational numbers. Euclid s  Elements  was commonly used in schools for centuries and is  the oldest mathematical textbook in the world  (PMM 25). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy belonged to an early mathematician who wrote a long marginal re-phrasing of a corollary. Between the late C18 and early C19, it was in the collection of the bibliophile Count Remigio Filiberto Costa della Trinit√†.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EUCLID","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160862543,"sku":"K135","price":39500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K135-5.jpg?v=1781794897"},{"product_id":"schultes-johann","title":"SCHULTES, Johann","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis copy belonged to Bartolomeo Folesani Riviera (1722-95), professor of Surgery at Bologna in 1749-95. The C18 surgeon Antonio Scarpa, when still a student, wrote that at Bologna  surgical practice was undertaken with an intelligence uncommon in other parts of Italy because in the main hospital worked Riviera, former student of the famous Molinelli  (Scarpa,  Epistolario ).  Excellent, superbly illustrated copy, of fresh impression, of this major, much translated surgical manual. It was first published posthumously in 1655, following the notes left by its author, Johannes Schultes (Scultetus, 1595-1645). A physician from Ulm, he received his doctorate at Padua studying with major surgeons like Fabricius ab Aquapendente and van de Spiegel.  Armamentarium  was extremely successful, this being the fifth edition in ten years. It was produced and structured in size and content to facilitate practical use, and illustrations were paramount. The 43 superb engravings are as fresh as when they were printed. The first part is organized as a commentary to each plate: e.g., on surgical instruments like the forceps,  cannulae  to treat intestinal ulcers and haemorrhoids and implements to extract a deceased foetus after a miscarriage; techniques to treat fractures, skull trauma, dental cavities, urinary tract stones (through operations portrayed with painful vividness) or amputated body parts, including breasts in case of cancer. The work is especially renowned for its proposed technique of hand amputation, which became the  routinely adopted method  after the first edition (Weinzweig,  Mutilated Hand , 9). The second part examines surgical operations  from head to heel , based on notes taken by Schultes during his daily work e.g.,  In 1637, on January 9, at 7pm, Johannes Happelius from Ulm 32 years old was wounded seven times , followed by the specific location of the wounds and the treatment and medicines provided, day by day. A milestone in the history of surgery; a fresh copy of illustrious provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SCHULTES, Johann","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816163942735,"sku":"L3120","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190719_145251.jpg?v=1781794886"},{"product_id":"tunstall-cuthbert-1","title":"TUNSTALL, Cuthbert.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first English book wholly on arithmetic, by the great Catholic humanist, Cuthbert Tunstall (1474-1559). The work was Tunstall s farewell to secular scholarship as he was made Bishop of London a few days after its publication, and thereafter Lord Privy Seal. He wrote it so that his friends could make their own calculations and no longer be cheated by money changers. It is designed as a practical work on arithmetic with the emphasis on commercial transactions, undoubtedly based on models Tunstall encountered during his studies in Padua.  The book includes many business applications of the day, such as partnership, profit and loss and exchange. It also includes the rule of false, the rule of three and numerous applications of these and other rules. It is, however, the work of a scholar and a classicist rather than a businessman.  Smith p.134, It is dedicated to his particular friend Thomas More, who, the previous year had been appointed sub-Treasurer of England, because there was no more appropriate dedicatee than the man engaged in supervising the finances of the King This was also the return of the compliment which, six years earlier, More had paid Tunstall in the opening lines of the Utopia. The work was actually rather too scholarly for ordinary businessmen and it was not reprinted in England. However, it achieved some success on the continent and Rabelais (Oeuvres II 222) mentions it as required reading for the young Gargantua in Paris; it was also prescribed as an arithmetical study text in the Oxford statues of 1549, (together with Cardano). The dedicatory epistle to M[ore], gives an interesting picture of M[ore] and Tunstall  Gibson 157. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Cuthbert Tunstall began his studies in Oxford but soon moved to Cambridge because of the plague. He later studied Canon and Roman law at Padua. He held several appointments in Henry VIII s court and was made Bishop of London only a few days after this work was published. This is the first complete work on arithmetic to be published in England. It was preceded only by a chapter in Caxton s Myrrour of the World, published in 1481. .. In content and structure the work resembles that by Luca Pacioli and other Continental arithmetics, which Tunstall undoubtedly encountered in Padua or during his extensive travels for Henry VIII. An unusual feature in the book is the separate tables for addition and subtraction as well as those usually found for multiplication. .. Robert Recorde s English language arithmetic appeared fifteen years later in 1537 and seems to have eclipsed Tunstall s work, at least in England. The title page is a revised version of one by Hans Holbein, whose initials can be seen on the left border. The woodcut was first used by a printer in Basel in 1516.  Erwin Tomash. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Michael Wodhull studied at Winchester school when Joseph Warton was second master; he later attended Brasenose College Oxford. He was high sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1783. Wodhull wrote poetry, collected first editions of classics and incunabula, and contributed many items to the Gentleman s Magazine under the signature  L. L.  One of his Euripides translations appeared in an Everyman s Library edition. The character  Orlando  in Thomas Frognall Dibdin s Bibliomania is supposed to represent Wodhull. Dunn was a bibliophile who amassed a splendid library with particular strengths in early printing, law books and medieval manuscripts. His remarkable collection was sold in a number of sales between 1913 and 1917.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TUNSTALL, Cuthbert.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816166007119,"sku":"K165","price":32500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190718_150525.jpg?v=1781794874"},{"product_id":"busbecq-ogier-ghislain-de","title":"BUSBECQ, Ogier Ghislain de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of these remarkably important letters on Turkey, written in the 1550s, with the only surviving glossary of a long-extinct Germanic language. Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522-92) was a scholar, keen herbalist and diplomat in the service of the Austrian monarchy; he spent several years in Constantinople where he negotiated the boundaries of disputed territories and was involved in politics at the court of Suleyman the Magnificent. First published without authorial licence in Paris in 1589 as  Itinerarium Constantinopolitanum ,  Epistolae  is his most famous work and one of the earliest Western testimonies on the Ottoman world. It gathers letters which Busbecq sent to the Hungarian diplomat Nicholas Michault. In addition to observations on the natural environment, he included in his work the first and only recorded glossary (80 words), as well as the excerpt of a song, in a Crimean dialect. Having heard of a Germanic language being spoken in Turkey, he managed to have an interview with a native speaker noting words close to Dutch (e.g.,  tag   day ,  plut   blood ), others which differed, and cardinal numbers (Considine,  Dictionaries , 140-41). Busbecq also expresses strong opinions on the conquest of the New World, as colonisers  seek the Indies and the Antipodes through the vastity of the ocean because there the booty is easy to take from na√Øve and gullible natives, without bloodshed . One of the English annotators of this copy, who wrote in English, Greek, Latin and Arabic, was a scholar at University College, Oxford, as per ex-libris on t-p. He wrote in Arabic the word  sherbet  to gloss a sentence on  sorbet , a cooling fruit drink typical of Eastern territories; according to the OED, the word was first recorded in English in 1603. He was also interested in Busbecq s observations on Turkish flora and fauna, as he glossed  glycyrrhiza  as  liquorish  and  sicedula  as  nightingale  and  beccafico . The Latin verse on the fly reprises some of the epigraphs which Busbecq used to conclude his accounts, e.g., the Tacitean  religion is the pretext, the object is gold  in his discussion of the conquest of the New World. A very influential work in the history of Western perceptions of the Ottoman world. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A jeweller named William Leedes took part in expeditions of the Turkey Company in 1579 and 1584, with other merchant adventurers, arriving as far as Baghdad.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BUSBECQ, Ogier Ghislain de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816167645519,"sku":"L3181b","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3181b-2.jpg?v=1781794864"},{"product_id":"bg-mazzella-scipione-with-de-bry-theodor","title":"BG. [Mazzella Scipione.] [with] DE BRY, Theodor.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe beautifully illustrated, rare and important eleventh vol of Theodor De Bry s Small voyages containing three important travel accounts including the relation of Vespucci s third and fourth voyage to America, in a stunning, finely preserved, contemporary morocco binding from the library of James I, very much in the style of Bateman. The first part contains all the plates from Mazella s history of the kings of Naples. The Small Voyages were printed in a total of 13 parts and an Appendix, at Frankfurt from 1597 to 1633; this is the sole Latin edition of part eleven of the Small voyages. This eleventh part contains three narratives: 1) [p. 5-10] The relations of the third and fourth voyages of Vespuccius to America, in 1501 and 1503; it is a reprint of selections of the author s: Mundus novus, first printed under title: Albericus Vespuccius Laurentio Petri Francisci de Medicis salutem plurimam dicit Amerigo Vespucci, Paris, 1503 but generally known as: Mundus novus. 2) [p. 11-46] An account of Robert Coverte s travels by land through Persia and Mongolia [here, Church is incorrect. Instead of Mongolia, it is the Mogul Empire], after his shipwreck off Surat. This relation was first printed in English, at London in 1612; it is a translation of  A true and almost incredible report of an Englishman, that (being cast away in the good ship called the Assention in Cambaya the farthest part of the East Indies) trauelled by land through many vnknowne kingdomes, and great cities, by Robert Coverte, first printed London, 1612  3) [p. 47-62] A geographical description of Spitzbergen and a refutation of the claims of the English to the northern whale fisheries, with the journal of the voyage of Willem Barentsz and Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, in 1596, Cf. Church. It is a translation of: Histoire du Pays nomm é Spisberghe collected and edited by Hessel Gerritsz, printed in Amsterdam, 1613, which is, in turn, a translation of selections of his: Descriptio ac delineatio geographica detectonis freti; sive Transitus ad occasum, supra terras Americanas, in Chinam atque Japonem ducturi, recens investigati ab M. Henrico Hudsono Anglo, first printed in Amsterdam, 1612. There are two states of the title page: in the first one, the vignette has two natives and a centre engraved portrait of Olivier van Noort, with two map hemispheres; the other has a native woman on the left with her child and a native man on the right with two ships in the centre. This copy contains the rare Plate VII, of a woman being carried in state to be burned with the body of her husband. This is often replaced by the plate, in which a woman is represented as throwing herself into the funeral pyre of her husband, used as plate IX.  JCB. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The language of Vespucci s first public letter is compatible with the idea of a  new world  under and subordinate to the known configuration of lands. But in his second published letter Vespucci treats the southern and northern parts of the area he and Columbus explored as a single continent that is not Asia. This was a stunning breakthrough in the state of knowledge, one Columbus never achieved  Wills, Letters from a New World. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This marvellous copy, with two works of particular interest to the English, comes from the library of James I (1566-1625), the first and probably the most learned  King of Great Britain  as ruler of both Scotland and England.  He studied Greek, French, and Latin and made good use of a library of classical and religious writings that his tutors, George Buchanan and Peter Young, assembled for him. James s education aroused in him literary ambitions rarely found in princes but which also tended to make him a pedant.  EBO. His numerous books were often customised with his arms by the royal binder, John Bateman, who employed various style, material and techniques (M. Foot, The Henry Davids Gift, I, pp. 38-49, 52). This copy is of exceptional quality even within Bateman s refined and wide-ranging output.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BG. [Mazzella Scipione.] [with] DE BRY, Theodor.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820341961039,"sku":"L2228","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-42_d5a4bb79-5a04-48bd-8311-0188ce5fe46a.jpg?v=1781794842"},{"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":"reuchlin-johann","title":"REUCHLIN, Johann.","description":"\u003cp\u003eInteresting annotated copy of this famous anti-Catholic satirical play. Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) was a German humanist, and one of the earliest scholars of Greek in Germany, trained at Paris and Basel; he was known for his theories of Greek pronunciation. Having fled to Heidelberg after the death of his patron, Count Eberhard of W√ºrttenberg, he gained the position of tutor to the children of Philip, Count Palatine of the Rhine. His sister s grandson was the Protestant Philip Melanchthon, with whom he fell out after the Reformation. Despite his Catholicism, Reuchlin was critical of aspects of the Roman Church like the frequently debatable behaviour of monks and the commerce of false relics the subject of this play. First published in 1504 and much reprinted,  Sergius  marked  the beginning of Neo-Latin comedy in Germany  (Dall Asta,  Lateinische Drama , 14). Its title refers to Sergius\/Bahira, a Nestorian monk of the 6th century and the narrative persona of Reuchlin s adversary, the Augustinian Conrad Holzinger who prophesized to Muhammad his glorious future. Considered a heretical monk and the inspiration to the Christian content of the Qur an, he was a frequent presence in Renaissance anti-Islamic writings. In the play, Sergius stands as the heretical monk par excellence  the chief of the chiefs  of  all lechery  , the head without soul or reason . The other characters take on the role of social critics following the ancient Roman comic tradition. The contemporary annotator was especially interested in Act I. He studiously noted information on Reuchlin on the t-p, and appears to have been studying the text as a fine example of Neo-Latin prose. He glossed it with interlinear and marginal notes on metrics (linked to debates on Neo-Latin poetry), figures of speech, synonyms and references to Quintilian and the work of contemporary scholars like Jacob Spiegel, close to Protestant humanist circles.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REUCHLIN, Johann.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820342223183,"sku":"L3333","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6808-scaled.jpg?v=1781794840"},{"product_id":"guillermus-parisiensis-with-agricola-daniel","title":"GUILLERMUS PARISIENSIS [with] AGRICOLA, Daniel","description":"\u003cp\u003eContemporary hand-coloured copies, in fine C16 Swiss binding, of these successful works addressed to priests, to improve their understanding of  lessons  from the Gospels, read at liturgy. These didactic manuals, intended to be bound together, are illustrated with superb full-page or smaller woodcuts by the Swiss artist Urs Graf, added to decorate and facilitate memorisation, even more striking, as here, in fresh period colouring. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The first work is William of Auvergne s (or Guillelmus Parisiensis, c.1180-1249) major commentary ( postilla ), first published in Lyon in 1471. Appointed bishop of Paris in 1228, he was a Scholastic theologian and the first medieval philosopher who sought to reconcile Christian doctrines with Aristotelianism. Addressed to  less experienced clerics and preachers in their early stages ,  Postille  presents on each page a small excerpt ( lesson ) from the Epistles or Gospels to be read on Sundays or weekdays of specific parts of the liturgical year, surrounded by a commentary based on authorities like Nicolaus de Lyra, Rabanus and the Glossa Ordinaria.  More than one hundred editions of the  Postilla    were printed during the C15. Surely this esteemed compilation must be regarded as one of the earliest  best sellers  [...]. This compilation of the  Postilla  was written down in 1437 expressly for members of the clergy and for those desirous of understanding the excerpts \u003cbr\u003e\n from the Epistles and the Evangelists, more commonly called lessons, which are read at appropriate services throughout the church year. It obviously filled a most pressing need  (Goff,  Postilla , 73). The  Passio  shares a similar structure and purpose. First published in 1511 by the Swiss Franciscan preacher Daniel Agricola (or Meyer, 1490-1540), it presents excerpts almost a concordance from the Gospels  narration of Christ s passion, surrounded by glosses, as an instrument to facilitate the composition of Lenten homilies. It is prefixed by an index entitled  Directorium in Dominice Passionis articulos  with the imprint 1513. The early annotator (and perhaps painter) of these copies, probably the Swiss Jacob Thursson, was a preacher. He was interested in the proper behaviour that becomes ministers of the church, who should pursue  what honours God and is helpful to people , keeping  a humble mind and a pure flesh . He also highlighted explanations of key issues such as that the proof of Christ s divinity came from  the union of the Word and the flesh in the Virgin s womb , and minor points like the true geographical position of the region of Pamphylia. Most interestingly, he added marginalia with typological cross-references to the Old Testament, summarising several sections with a brief sentence. Some annotations appear to be prayers (e.g.,  Custos Virginis que pro morte nostra adesse ) which we have not been able \u003cbr\u003e\n to trace, or notes jotted down in preparation for homilies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GUILLERMUS PARISIENSIS [with] AGRICOLA, Daniel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820343763279,"sku":"L3284","price":5500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3284-2.jpg?v=1781794829"},{"product_id":"bembo-pietro-navagero-andrea-castiglione-baldassare-cotta-giovanni-flaminio-marco-antonio","title":"[BEMBO, Pietro, NAVAGERO, Andrea, CASTIGLIONE, Baldassare, COTTA, Giovanni, FLAMINIO, Marco Antonio].","description":"\u003cp\u003ePocket size edition, in a handsome, contemporary Florentine binding, reminiscent (especially the IHS monogram) of de Marinis I, 1132. This book was a gift from the renowned humanist Ercole Ciofano (d.1592?) to the young Durante de Durantis. Born in Sulmona, Ciofano was the author of a commentary on Ovid s  Metamorphoses  published in Venice by Aldus the Younger in 1575, and much praised by Marc-Antoine Muret and Paolo Manuzio. This was followed by another on Ovid s  opera omnia . Among his correspondents were Aldus the Younger, Pier Vettori and Vespasiano Gonzaga. In the early 1580s, Ciofano fell out with Aldus, vehemently accusing him of stealing his own marginalia in a copy of Cicero he lent Aldus. Ciofano s vitriolic letters about the misdeeds of the  Aesopian Jackdaw  (Aldus) have survived, one of which, for instance, begins as follows:  That ass, and fellow more ignorant than ignorance itself, Aldus Manutius, to whom I have become most inimical, has robbed me of, and printed under his own name, many explanations and emendations upon the  Offices  of Cicero  (quoted in Hartshorne,  Book Rarities , 53-56, 63-67). Another letter claims that Aldus the Elder was a Jew. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In 1577, Ciofano was in Rome seeking work as tutor for the scions of the Farnese and Orsini families. This copy, with an ex-dono inscription from the same year, was presented by him to the Brescian Durante Duranti, probably during Duranti s educational stay in Rome. This convenient and inexpensive edition was likely a reward for Durante s scholarly commitment. It is a compendium of the best Neo-Latin poetry by Italian authors of the first half of the C16, mostly composed in a pseudo-Catullan vein. The authors include Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), Andrea Navagero (1483-1529, official historian of the Serenissima), Baldassarre Castiglione (1478-1529), Giovanni Cotta (1480-1510) and Marco Antonio Flaminio (1497\/8-1550). Of the latter there also feature two further collections of verse (one dedicated to Alessandro Farnese, the other to the sister of the King of France, and a paraphrase of thirty psalms).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[BEMBO, Pietro, NAVAGERO, Andrea, CASTIGLIONE, Baldassare, COTTA, Giovanni, FLAMINIO, Marco Antonio].","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820344549711,"sku":"L3367","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_8446-scaled.jpg?v=1781794823"},{"product_id":"bentzius-johannes","title":"BENTZIUS, Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn elaborately bound copy of the second, substantially enlarged edition of this scarce Latin-German lexicon. The lovely contemporary binding of German influence, as shown by the traces of green, black and red paint on the vellum, suggests this was a present. Johann Bentz (fl. late C16-early C17) from Brussels was professor at Strasbourg, and the author of Latin textbooks on rhetoric and grammar. This is the second, much enlarged edition ( alterum ), published by the same printer in the same year as the first ( primum ). Like the first, it is divided into subjects (or  loci ), e.g., God, the soul, justice, temperance, history, the state, geometry, medicine, astronomy, the graphic crafts and the  evil  arts. Under  De graphicis artificiis  are  typographia ,  typographus ,  excudere ,  operae typographicae ,  typus ,  loculi  or  capsulae  (the printers  type drawers),  praelum ,  sphaera ,  atramentum typographicum  (blank ink),  minium  (red ink),  fusor typorum  (the type founder),  bibliopegus  (bookbinder), and  compingere  (to bind). In most sections, Latin words are listed alphabetically, with a German translation. This second edition was reset in double column, and substantially revised with additional Latin and German synonyms, and long lists of related Latin phrases (either adjectives or verbs), so that the young owner could learn how to write in Latin on specific subjects (traditional and contemporary) using an idiomatic language. A detailed subject and a diagrammatic index were added as preliminaries, and the work concluded with an 83-page dictionary of all the German words mentioned in the work. A scarce work of linguistic and typographical interest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BENTZIUS, Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820344648015,"sku":"L3193b","price":7950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/spinebook.png?v=1781794823"},{"product_id":"erasmus-with-plutarch","title":"ERASMUS. [with] PLUTARCH.","description":"\u003cp\u003eInteresting, annotated, very scarce Parisian editions of Erasmus s and Plutarch s collections of maxims the second unrecorded in major bibliographies. Erasmus (1466-1536), the greatest humanist and philologist of the northern Renaissance, wrote some of the most important  mirrors for princes  ( Institutio principis Christianis , 1516) and educational works for the elites ( Adagia , 1500). Like the latter,  Apophthegmata  was a collection of sayings gathered from Greek and Latin lives of great personalities including Plutarch, Suetonius and Xenophon, grouped according to the virtue they epitomise. First published in 1531, it is here in a new, revised and enlarged edition. This copy was also marked by a near contemporary censor, as shown by his note on the t-p, stating that  Erasmus s works should be read with caution  and expunged due to his  corruption . Several passages (e.g., one called  Deus insepultus ) were highlighted by the censor, and one was erased with the gloss  vox Erasmi  ( the voice of Erasmus ). From the Index of 1564, Erasmus was included as an author permitted but in need of expurgation; however, this work and the similar  Adagia  were never mentioned specifically or especially targeted (Pabel, 146). The C16 annotator of this copy glossed extensively the dedicatory epistle and the first sections on Agasicles and Agesilaus, kings of Sparta. He was especially interested in material derived from Plutarch s  Apophthegmata Regum et Imperatorum  (of kings and emperors) and  Apophthegmata Laconica  (of Spartans), a very scarce Parisian edition of which, printed in 1507 by Jehan Petit, was bound together with Erasmus s work by an early owner. Plutarch (46-120AD) was a Roman magistrate and ambassador, and one of the most influential authors in the Renaissance for his biographies of the lives of the emperors and great ancient personalities, and wise maxims derived from them. Each is contextualised within a short anecdote from the lives of personalities including Silla, Diogenes, Lycurgus and Periander.  Apophthegmata regum , in the Latin translations by Francesco Filelfo and Raffaele Regio, and  Apophthegmata Laconica , together with  Moralia  in Greek, were Erasmus s models.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ERASMUS. [with] PLUTARCH.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820346581327,"sku":"L3415","price":3350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9396.jpg?v=1781794810"},{"product_id":"ennenkel-georgius-acacius","title":"ENNENKEL, Georgius Acacius.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good, clean copy, of excellent provenance, of the first edition of this interesting legal work on Roman and civil law regulating the relationship between parents and children perhaps the earliest separate treatment of this subject. This copy appears to have been in the library of the Austrian archdukes quite possibly a presentation; the work is dedicated to Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria. Georgius Acacius Ennenkel (1573-1620), Baron von Hoheneck, an Austrian Protestant aristocrat, studied classics and philosophy at Strasbourg and T√ºbingen. He married the daughter of Christoph Freiherr von Althann, president of the Exchequer of the Austrian empire. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Ennenkel calls the parents-children relationship  the closest and strongest of all human ties and contracts . He begins with an introduction to the meaning of  parent  and  child  according to Roman and civil right, with the help of authorities like Baldus de Ubaldis. He comments on dozens of particular circumstances, e.g., that a  contemptuous and impious  father should legally be considered a father nevertheless; the cases in which the mother is Jewish or another relative has acted  in loco parentis ; that a baby  who died during delivery  should not be considered legally a son or daughter, as well as any child struck by supernatural monstrosities or portents. The second section is an historical overview of laws among the Romans, Greek and Jews, touching on the murder of children and the extent of parental authority. The following discuss dozens of legal topics, such as  pietas  between parents and children; the rights and duties of fathers (e.g., their authority, their right to take revenge (e.g., killing an adulterous daughter); in case of  frightful events  children are not compelled to obey their fathers, what happens after a father s death); the necessity of parental consent for marriages; their obligations in terms of sustenance to their children; and inheritance. A scarce and fascinating reference work for the history of children and the family.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ENNENKEL, Georgius Acacius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820346777935,"sku":"L3362","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9329.jpg?v=1781794810"},{"product_id":"mazzolini-da-prieiro-silvestro","title":"MAZZOLINI DA PRIEIRO, Silvestro.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA handsome copy, in its original Flemish binding, of this most important legal work. Silvestro Mazzolini da Prierio (or Prierias, 1456\/7-1527) was a Dominican theologian, professor at Bologna, Pavia and Rome, and Master of the Sacred Palace from 1511, by request of Julius II. He is renowned for being the first Catholic theologian to publish a critique based on the Indulgences section of his  Summa  on Luther s theses on papal authority in 1519 (Tavuzzi,  Luther s Catholic Opponents , 224). Among his wide-ranging works, including astronomy and demonology,  Summa summarum , or  Summa Sylvestrina , was the most successful. First published in 1514, it was reprinted over 50 times. It is an alphabetic compendium of varied theological and legal questions, spanning sacraments, adultery, divorce, holy water, natural and illegitimate children, murder, heresy, bigamy, ban for clerics to fight in war, juridical issues (e.g., accusation and oaths), and alchemy, reaffirming Catholic beliefs. The near contemporary annotator noted this in his glosses to the Eucharist section, mentioning the Lutheran position (officially formulated in 1536), based on Mark 14 and Luke 22, that the body and blood of Christ are truly present in the consecrated bread and wine. More generally, he highlighted adding notes from authorities like Gregory IX s  Decretals , and  updates  from the Lateran Council V (1512-17) questions involving criminal law (e.g., if people accused and condemned to execution can defend themselves), canon law (e.g., ecclesiastical benefices, elections, excommunication, masses, burials, simony, superstition), and practical questions such as the materials allowed for the making of chalices (i.e., not prone to rusting or fragility), and that  altars should not be made of wood or earth, but of stone , which he glossed with explanations, also on decorations allowed, with references to the Old Testament. He added glosses on the confessions of condemned criminals, on the scaffold and at the stake. In the C17, this copy was in the library of the monastery of the Augustinians of the Order of the Holy Cross in Cuik, North Brabant. Its wealthy library, with over 1400 books including mss and incunabula, was dispersed after Napoleon s suppression of religion orders in 1812 (Hermans,  Annales , 172). Rare.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MAZZOLINI DA PRIEIRO, Silvestro.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820347367759,"sku":"L3286","price":2500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1.-Mazzolini-cover.jpg?v=1781794810"},{"product_id":"pollux-julius","title":"POLLUX, Julius","description":"\u003cp\u003eHandsome copy of the  editio princeps  of this important Greek dictionary, from the library of a Milanese humanist who funded, in the 1490s, the printing of Greek incunabula. Bartolomeo Squassi (or Squasso, fl. 1490-1510) was secretary of Lodovico Sforza, then regent for Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan. With the ducal secretaries Vincenzo Aliprandi and Bartolomeo Rozzone, he contributed to the printing expenses of the  editio princeps  of Isocrates (Milan, 1493) and the Latin  Erotemata  (Milan, 1494), prepared by the major Greek scholar Demetrios Chalcondylas. In the colophon of the  Isocrates , as in the ex-libris in this copy, he appeared as . In 1494, Gian Galeazzo granted Squassi, Calchondylas, Aliprandi and Rozzone a ten-year privilege to print Greek and Latin works, which suggests that, like Calchondylas,  they too had acquired an excellent reputation as scholars of the classics  (Calvi,  Castello , 75). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The  Onomastikon , composed by the Greek grammarian Ioulios Polydeukes (Julius Pollux) in the second century AD, is a lexicon of phrases and synonyms in Attic dialect. Divided by subject, it includes invaluable information on ancient customs, mythology, and everyday life, touching on themes as varied as oracles, poetry, horses, trees, and navigation. This edition is prefaced by two indexes, in Latin and Greek. Squassi used it for practical purposes as he annotated sections on specific subjects including gods  names, temples, the eyes, body parts, the arts, musical instruments, dance, singing, games and theatre. He wrote on the margins the names of the ancient authors thereby mentioned (especially Aristophanes, Isocrates, Herodotus, Homer, Xenophon and Plato) as well as interesting nouns or verbs, sometimes in different grammatical forms. A handsome Greek Aldine of bibliographical interest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"POLLUX, Julius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820347924815,"sku":"L3391\/b","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9325.jpg?v=1781794806"},{"product_id":"cicero","title":"CICERO","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis very rare, fascinating woodcut stamp a comet with seven points surmounted by a small lily and flanked by AF has defied our attempts at discovering the identity of its mysterious owner, who proudly stamped it 3 times on t-p and once on verso of last. The heraldic route led to the Schinin‚àö‚Ć family of Ragusa, who bear very similar arms, but the keeper of their collection confirmed it is not among the recorded family ex-libris. Its rarity, unusual iconography and absence from major provenance bibliographies suggests it probably belonged to an individual student or young scholar with a small library, or to a small scholarly institution or accademia. If an individual, it was probably someone who did not bear arms he could use for an ownership stamp. The little lily might indicate a Florentine provenance. We could only trace another copy vol.3 of 3 of Cicero s  Orationi  (Venice, 1556), at the Biblioteca Storica in Longiano (M5272) with the same stamp appearing twice on the t-p and twice on the last two ll. That both occurrences appear in mid-C16 student editions of Cicero supports this theory. In the 3-volume Longiano set, only vol.3 bears the stamp, vol.1 having none and vol.2 lacking the first and last gatherings. Both vols 1 and 3 share the same early C17 ms. ex-libris, though vol.3 is sewn differently, with 4 instead of 3 stations. This suggests that vol.3, the only one with the stamp, was probably acquired separately by the same early C17 owner who then signed all t-ps. Since this set has since been preserved intact in Longiano, the comet stamp must have already been present when vol.3 was acquired and signed, plausibly dating it no later than c.1600.  A fresh, well-margined copy of the second volume, published separately, of the  Opera Rhetorica , edited by Paulus Manutius. The second edition, the text based on the 1546 and corrected by Manutius. One of the most influential figures of classical antiquity, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) put his legal skills to the service of politics with speeches which became landmarks of forensic oratory. Defined by Quintilian as  eloquence itself , his copious prose production occupied a fundamental place in medieval syllabi. This second volume begins with  De oratore , an immensely influential analysis of how a good orator should construct persuasive arguments which should however be driven by sound ethical principles. There follow  Orator , a description of the perfect orator integrating observations in previous works, and  De claris oratoribus , a history of eloquence through individual figures including Pericles and Solon.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CICERO","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820348416335,"sku":"L3464","price":1850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_1009.jpg?v=1781794803"},{"product_id":"pallet-jean","title":"PALLET, Jean.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good, clean copy of the second edition of the first French-Spanish bilingual dictionary, originally published in Paris in 1604. The French Jean Pallet (or Palet, fl. late C16\/early C17) was physician to Henry IV of France and translator from the Italian of  Discours de la beaut é des Dames (1568). An influential lexicographer, he published his bilingual dictionary only a few years after Hornkens s French-Spanish-Latin of 1599. Even more than Hornkens, Pallet was catering to the  Belgian  aristocracy, generals and officers who, upon the Infanta s marriage with Archduke Albert in 1596 and the greater administrative autonomy over the Low Countries granted to them by her father Philip II, found themselves having to deal with a Spanish-speaking court ( W√∂rterb√ºcher , 2977). The printer Velpius was granted a privilege by the Archduke. Whilst the French-Spanish part was mostly based on Hornkens, the Spanish-French section drew on Antonio de Nebrija s Spanish-Latin dictionary (1492-5) and Crist‚àö‚â•val de Las Casas s popular Tuscan-Castilian dictionary of 1570. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In 1607, this copy was in the library of the Flemish physician Sebastianus Egbertus, professor of anatomy at Amsterdam and author of a commentary on Dodoens s  Herbal  (1640); he was deemed  a man of great learning  by the anatomist Nicolaes Tulp, famously portrayed by Rembrandt. In 1638, it was in the possession of the lawyer Johannes Carlier (c.1612-48), owner of a substantial library of which the inventory unusually specifies the colour of the shelves and their arrangement in the room (de Jong, p.151); in 1649, the copy was inherited by Johannes Spillieurs, probably the same registered as a student at Leiden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PALLET, Jean.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820349071695,"sku":"L3519","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-1-3_55d260c7-f77d-44ec-86c4-6dd8afbc07a3.jpg?v=1781794801"},{"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":"tertullian-1","title":"TERTULLIAN.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good, clean, well-margined copy of this handsome editio princeps  the first impression of the entire works of Tertullian  (Schoenman, 15), edited by the humanist reformer Beatus Rhenanus (1485-1547).  The typographical execution of the volume is worthy of the press from which it issued. It is a book of uncommon occurrence; and, as an editio princeps, it should have a place in all libraries of any critical pretension  (Dibdin). The handsome   woodcut borders were produced by Ambrosius Holbein, Hans Franck and Hans Holbein the Younger, whom Froben had hired especially for his ambitious editions of the Church Fathers. Based on two mss from the monasteries of Peterlingen and Hirschau, edited by Beatus Rhenanus (1485-1547), this edition was revised using a third. (Graesse VI, 69).   Tertullian (155-240AD), of whom little is known, was born in Carthage and was probably a lawyer and priest. He became one of the earliest defenders of Christianity against pagan cults like Gnosticism; he was also the first Latin writer to use the word  trinity . This edition includes his sermons on patience, Christ s flesh, its resurrection, martyrs, penitence, wives and monogamy. It also features his  adversus  against the Jews and the Valentinians, as well as his most famous  Apologeticus , which discusses key theological questions like the nature of Christ and the devil, the kingdom of God, the Roman religion, and why pagan deities should not be considered  gods . One early annotator of this copy was especially interested in  Adversus Marcionem , against the errors of the Marcionites, a middle eastern cult often identified with a strand of the Gnostics. The annotator also glossed Beatus Rhenanus s commentary on  De Poenitentia , in relation to Protestant criticism of the traditional sacrament, and its theological and scriptural foundations, with observations on confession and penance. He also annotated the sermon on  the character of women , especially their being  the gate of the devil, the first to contravene divine law . In 1596, this copy was purchased in W√ºrzburg, Bavaria, by Erasmus Schaiblin. He was a doctor in theology from Steinbach am Wald, and canon at St Johannes in Haugis, in W√ºzburg. He left it to the Jesuit College of W√ºrzburg in 1613, whence it moved to the colleges of Bremen in 1654 and Minden in 1668.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TERTULLIAN.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820350218575,"sku":"L3510","price":11500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3406-1.jpg?v=1781794799"},{"product_id":"ruscelli-girolamo","title":"RUSCELLI, Girolamo","description":"\u003cp\u003eNewly corrected second edition of the collected letters of Girolamo Ruscelli. The table of contents to each volume illustrates the range of scholars, politicians, authors, military and religious figures Ruscelli had correspondence with. Numerous cardinals, Prince of Carpi Alberto III, the admiral Andrea Doria, Duke of Urbino Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Renaissance author Baldassare Castiglione, the poet Annibale Caro, military leader Pietro Strozzo and Pope Clement VII are included. Ruscelli was a prolific polymath in sixteenth century Italy who published on topics ranging from cartography to alchemy. He lived in a number of cities, eventually settling in Venice where the first edition of Delle Lettere Di Principi was published. Another notable work ascribed to his hand under the pseudonym Alessio Piemontese is  De Secreti Del Alessio Piemontese  which received considerable success and went on to be translated into French, English, German, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, Polish and Danish. These volumes demonstrate the rich social context of Renaissance Venice and Ruscelli himself can be perceived as the epitome of the multi-disciplinary Renaissance man. Scholarship has shown that Ruscelli s other work on Pyrotechnics could have inspired the depictions of fire and explosions common in Titian s paintings (Hills, Paul. Titian s Fire: Pyrotechnics and Representations in Sixteenth-Century Venice, 2007). Ruscelli began collecting these letters in 1562, and Gamba calls these volumes  raccolta pregevolissima.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n More significant is these volumes  provenance. In vol 3 is the engraved bookplate of Edward Gibbon with the recognisable lion and shell family crest. His printed label appears in vol 1. These volumes were sold to Pickering on the 20th December 1934 at Sotheby s important sale of Edward Gibbon s Library. Books from Gibbon s personal collection with this bookplate and name-label can be found in Trinity s Wren Library, confirming the volumes were owned by the author of the famous  History . Gibbon owned an extensive library, of which he wrote in his autobiography  I have gradually formed a numerous and select library, the foundation of my works, and the best comfort of my life, both at home and abroad.  At his house on Bentinck Street in Marylebone a catalogue was made of his library in 1777, with 2000 titles in 3300 volumes listed. Keynes refers to Gibbon s  addiction to books  but underlines that his collection was very much a  working library.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Though Gibbon is best known for his Decline and Fall, he was a prolific writer in a variety of other fields. His Miscellaneous Works are a multi-volume coagulation of Gibbon s essays, commentaries and remarks on subjects ranging from the ancient circumnavigation of Africa to Roman triumphal processions. Printed posthumously by Gibbon s long standing friend John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield, it includes a significant portion of Gibbon s personal correspondence. In this way, Gibbon emulated the practices of Ruscelli himself. From the 1934 Sotheby s sale, a number of books are recorded as being in their original calf binding. These particular volumes appear to have been rebound by Gibbon himself for regular use: Gibbon stated  I am not conscious of having ever bought a book from a motive of ostentation, that every volume, before it was deposited on the shelf, was either read or sufficiently examined. (Keynes, p. 16).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RUSCELLI, Girolamo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820351562063,"sku":"L3526","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9526.jpg?v=1781794793"},{"product_id":"paracelsus-theophrastus-with-sendivogius-michael","title":"PARACELSUS, Theophrastus [with] [SENDIVOGIUS, Michael]","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn interesting sammelband of scarce German Paracelsiana. The Swiss Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493\/4-1541) used the pseudonym Paracelsus for most of his successful career as an alchemist, philosopher and physician. He was very influential in the development of empirical observation and the use of chemistry (embracing toxicology) in medical practice, though associated with Hermetic and occult philosophies. After his death, many spurious alchemical texts were attributed to him for marketing purposes and printed individually or in collections, as here. Hence their complex bibliographical history and his increasing reputation as a magician. ‘De lapide’ gathers three treatises connected with the philosopher’s stone, with references to the false ‘metalworkers’ or ‘cacomedici’, i.e., physicians and alchemists who err in theory and practice. ‘De lapide medicinali’ is concerned with the medical properties of the philosopher’s stone as ‘the perfect balm’, its nature (‘Electrum’), preparation and use. ‘Tinctura physicarum’ and ‘Tinctura planetarum’ include references to the Tabula Smaragdina, reputed to contain the Hermetic secrets of the prima materia, and discuss metal transmutations, the alchemy of the body and the retention of planetary influence. The second work—‘Schreiben’—comprises two treatises. ‘Liber vexationum’ discusses bodily ailments and treatments based on transmutation, including the therapeutic properties of sulphur and mercury, as well as gems. ‘Thesaurus alchemistarum’ includes, among many, a hair-raising transmutation involving corrosive aqua fortis, and very explosive saltpetre and ammonium salts. The third work is attributed to the Polish alchemist and pioneer chemist Sendivogius (Michał Sedziwój, 1566-1636). It focuses on the philosopher’s stone, its properties and making.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe early annotators of this copy were two German alchemists. The C16 one devised a system associating specific ink colours with alchemical signs for metals, better to understand his own underlining, according to a ‘legenda’ he wrote at the beginning of ‘Liber vexationum’. Though not always consistent, yellow was for gold and red for mercury. He was also interested in the medical virtues of gems. The C17 annotator copied a few obscure alchemical poems—a much-used didactic genre in early modern Germany—one by the Lutheran theologian and mystic Johann Arndt (1555-1621). He glossed passages on the philosopher’s stone and Electrum with quotations from ‘Rosarium Philosophorum’ and Arnaldus de Villa Nova, highlighted lines on spagyric chemistry and ‘vulgar’ (base) metals, and glossed Hermes Trismegistus as ‘father of the wise’. He was also interested in astrological questions, and underlined passages in ‘Tinctura Planetarum’. He drew a diagram summarising the four elements, the basic chemical elements and the resulting tincture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PARACELSUS, Theophrastus [with] [SENDIVOGIUS, Michael]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820353331535,"sku":"L3509","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-49.jpg?v=1781793815"},{"product_id":"agricola-franciscus","title":"AGRICOLA, Franciscus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis copy was in the library of David Gregor Corner (1585-1648), abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Göttweig, Lower Austria, in 1631-48. Educated in Breslau, Prague and Graz, he was a priest before entering Göttweig and becoming a major Counter-Reformation figure. For Austrian communities who had recently returned to Catholicism he published ‘Groß Catholisch Gesangbuch’ (1625), a hymn book which ‘brought together […] all the Catholic hymn books he could have access to at the time’ (Allg. Deut. Lex.).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n \u003cp\u003eA very good copy of this scarce and interesting work on clerical concubinage. Franciscus Agricola (1548-1624) was a Catholic priest at Rödingen and Sittard, Netherlands, and a prolific theological author—‘one of the most important controversists of the Reformation’ (‘Annalen’, 191). ‘Nova Apodixis’ (rhetorical demonstration) was a harsh critique of the dangerous status of clerical concubinage—i.e., the cohabitation of priests ‘more uxorio’, with ‘de facto’ wives and even children. This issue, which had plagued the Church since the middle ages and was berated by Reformers, was systematically addressed at the Council of Trent. Concubinage was henceforward considered a capital sin which, upon relapse, was punished by excommunication. It remained nevertheless widespread, and until the first quarter of the C17, works continued to be written on the subject. ‘[These] reflected the new, ideal model of sacerdotal life that had been […] enforced in the post-Tridentine Church, namely that which saw the role of the priest transform from a typically medieval “ministerial” figure—meaning someone who simply administered the sacraments—to that of a “shepherd of souls”’ (Salvi, 257). Agricola’s first section sets the tone by presenting concubinage as a mortal sin which, for ecclesiastical clerics, is worse than for secular ones or laymen. In particular, clerics guilty of the sin of ‘luxuria’ and the ‘sacrilege of libido’ who administer communion and all other sacraments, are ‘worse than the traitor Judas’ and ‘almost crucify Christ again’. With particular attention to relapsing clerics (‘impaenitentes’), the following sections seek to demonstrate how they are, among others, ‘sons’ and ‘servants’ of the devil, ‘dogs’, ‘thieves of souls’, ‘idolaters’, ‘worse than adulterers’, ‘heretics’, ‘haters of God’ and ‘worse than infidels’. The second part—‘De exarchia seu primatu S. Petri, et successorum eius’—supports the Counter-Reformation tenet of the pope’s authority over the Church. Each section begins with quotations from authorities (scriptural or theological) supporting the Catholic or Reformed stance on St Peter’s pre-eminence over the other apostles, and proceeds to analyse these statements at length.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"AGRICOLA, Franciscus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859627876687,"sku":"L3542","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3542.jpg?v=1781793803"},{"product_id":"aristophanes-3","title":"ARISTOPHANES.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition in Italian of this important collection of eleven of Aristophanes  comedic plays by Italian translators Pietro Rosettini and Bartolomeo Rositini (both C16th c.). Andreas Divus was the first to circulate Latin translations of Aristophanes  plays in 1528, and their success lead to several translations and adaptations into modern languages. These influenced Renaissance and post-Renaissance literature, inspiring figures like Racine and Goethe to compose based on popular texts like The Wasps and The Birds.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Aristophanes was the greatest of the Athenian comic dramatists. For richness and fertility of imagination probably only Shakespeare is comparable and Aristophanes  direct influence on English literature was considerable; the comedies of Jonson, Middleton and Fielding derive from him. Apart from constituting one of the surviving glories of Hellenic culture, Aristophanes  comedies are an invaluable source for its social history. His surviving plays   out of a probable forty or fifty   provide us with an accurate if satirical commentary on the political, religious, sexual, economical and domestic life of Athens over a period of thirty six years. His changes in style and content match the concurrent constitutional and social changes in the State itself. The plays  themes are invariably contemporary; a mocking mirror to the condition of the city. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This copy was in the 1775 sale of the collection of Dr Anthony Askew (1722-1772), who had attempted  to secure a complete series of all the Greek classics ever published  (De Ricci p. 52), and in 1792 in the sale of the collection of Denis Daly (1748-1791), Irish landowner and politician.   \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Charles Williams-Wynn (1775-1850), was a British Tory politician from an illustrious Welsh family who was a Member of Parliament for Old Sarum and Montgomeryshire. Charles Meek (1885-1965) was a well-known anthropologist and colonial administrator. Robert J. Hayhurst (mid 20.th. c.) was the head of a successful group of pharmacies and a prolific book collector.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ARISTOPHANES.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859631513935,"sku":"L3172","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-3_fdcf3743-ee9c-49ac-b50a-f2ae037759de.jpg?v=1781793793"},{"product_id":"veer-gerrit-de","title":"VEER, Gerrit de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe rare second edition of the French translation of De Veer‚Äôs account of three most important polar voyages in search of the Northeast Passage to China and the East Indies, commanded by Willem Barents, with exceptional provenance; from the library of the celebrated astronomer Joseph Jér√¥me de Lalande including his notes and side notes. The three expeditions recounted here took place in 1594, 1595, 1596-1597. The commander of the three voyages was the pilot Willem Barents of Amsterdam. Gerrit De Veer himself only took part in the last two expeditions and described the first expedition from Barents notes. The account of the third voyage, during which the Dutch sailors had to winter at Novaya Zemlya, occupies more than half of the work. The three accounts include de Veer‚Äôs eyewitness journal, as a crew-member, of Barents‚Äô disastrous final voyage in 1596-97: a tale of extreme hardship and danger and it describes in the form of a daily diary the crew‚Äôs winter in a hut built from ship‚Äôs timbers on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, after their ship had been crushed by ice. It is the earliest recorded wintering this far north.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e‚ÄúThese voyages proved Barents one of history‚Äôs greatest arctic navigators. The first foray began in 1594, when Barents directed his ships down the length of Nova Zembla. Blocked by seasonal ice from further passage, the Dutch retraced their course to Vaigatz and passed through the Kara Sea as far as the latitude of Ob. The relative success of this effort prompted another attempt the following year. This time, however, an unusually severe winter kept the straits between Vaigatz and the mainland packed with ice all summer, and the voyagers returned to Holland after little success. Accompanying Barents as supercargo on both of these expeditions was the famed Dutch traveler Jan Huyghen van Linschoten. It was the third voyage in 1596 that ranks among the ‚Äúhardiest achievements of all Polar exploration‚Äù. Barents began by attempting to sail directly across the Pole. Though he was blocked by pack ice, along the way he became the first European to make contact with the Spitsbergen Islands. Steering back for Nova Zembla, the Dutch passed the farthest point they had reached on their first voyage in 1594, and pressed on around the northern tip of the island. Here their ship was crushed in the ice, and the crew was forced to wait out the winter. It was a winter of great misery, during which a number of the crew froze to death and several were eaten by polar bears. When the summer ice failed to release his ship, Barents directed the remaining members of this crew in a difficult voyage in an open boat; he died before they safely reached Russian territory‚Äù K Hill. ‚ÄúThe Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages.‚Äù\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJoseph Jér√¥me Lefrançois de Lalande‚Äôs copy; his autograph on pastedown, with his notes concerning astronomical instruments and degrees of latitude and longitude taken from the  voyages on pastedown and ffep. It is not individually listed in the catalogue of the sale of his books in 1808 that took place a year after his death at the College de France. Lalande was a celebrated astronomer and at the centre of French intellectual circles during les Lumi√®res. He was close to Voltaire, Helvetius, and many others. He held the chair of astronomy in the Coll√®ge de France for forty-six years. His publications in connection with the transit of Venus of 1769 won him great fame. He was also a Freemason and founded the Lodge of ‚ÄúLes Trois Soeurs‚Äù in Paris, influential in the American war of independence: In 1778 Lalande arranged for Benjamin Franklin and John Paul Jones to join; Franklin became Master of the Lodge in 1779, and was re-elected in 1780. When Franklin, returned to America to participate in the writing of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, a non-Mason, took over as American Envoy. Lalande was a renowned atheist but still harboured priests fleeing the revolution at the College de France. It is possible that Lalande obtained this copy from his friend, another famous astronomer of the same period, Pierre Charles Lemonnier, from his note on rear pastedown ‚Äònotes de m. Lemonnier‚Äô.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA very rare edition of these important voyages with remarkable provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VEER, Gerrit de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859632398671,"sku":"L3549","price":10500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-1-1.jpg?v=1781793791"},{"product_id":"kyper-alberti-with-puteanus-eryci-with-pleier-cornelius-with-hering-honorius","title":"KYPER, Alberti [with] PUTEANUS, Eryci [with] PLEIER, Cornelius [with] HERING, Honorius.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Impressive collection of important and rare medical and cabbalistic works in one volume. The first is by the German physician, Albert Kyper (1614-1655). He studied at the University of K√∂nigsberg where he began in philosophy. However, conflict struck Germany during the Thirty Years War and he fled to the Netherlands. It was here that Kyper commenced his medical studies at the University of Leiden, eventually completing his PHD on venereal disease in 1640. Kyper was a humanist, and never lost touch with his philosophical roots, favouring the approaches of Aristotle and Galen in his research. Later in his life Kyper taught at both the Illustre Gymnasium in Breda and the University of Leiden. His illustrious career was cut short in 1655 when he died of plague. The first work informs the reader on the correct methods for practising medicine in a conversational and anecdotal manner, including discussion on the perfect doctor and the best locations to study.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The second work is by the humanist and philologist Erycius Puteanus (1574-1646) from Venlo in the Netherlands. Puteanus studied at Dordrecht and Cologne as well as following lectures on ancient history by the Flemish academic Justus Lipsius at Leuven. He travelled to Italy and was appointed professor of Latin at the Palatine School of Milan from 1600 to 1606. Following this, he took over Lipsius s position at Leuven and taught there for forty years. During this time Puteanus established himself as one of the pre-eminent professors. He produced encyclopaedic works on philology as well as more than ninety other topics including music and this work which includes a list of distinguished doctors. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The third work in this handsome volume is by the Franconian doctor Cornelius Pleier (1595-1646\/49). Pleier studied at Coburg, Jena, Wittenberg and Basel and received his doctorate in medicine in 1620. Pleier was appointed Coburg and Kitzingen City Physician and professor of medicine at the Casimirarnum High School. Around 1628 Pleier took the dramatic decision to convert from Protestantism to Catholicism and fled the city of Kitzingen. During the Thirty Years War he worked as a field doctor on the imperial side and for his efforts was appointed Count Palatine. Later in life Pelier moved to Prague and was professor of medicine at Charles University. Pleier is known for his part in the Malleus Judicum, a lawsuit which sought to oppose prevalent beliefs in witches. The pamphlet boldly stood against witch persecution and inhumane litigation practices. This work examines the connection between medicine and astrology, featuring an attractive woodcut of a rather ambiguous astrological man. It states illness is due to conflict between stars, and requires the physician to find plants and animals linked by Sympathia to the star under attack in order to accumulate positive energy and restore the health of both the star and the patient (Cantamessa 6201).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The fourth work is by the doctor Honorius Hering and examines in particular arthritis in the aged and gout, including the causes of gout and the ways to treat and prevent the disease. Hering was also known for his Schediasmata, which were short writings compiled on medical subjects, a genre originated by the great scholar Henry Estienne (Pomata, Gianna. Sharing Cases: the Observationes in Early Modern Medicine, 2010).  .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The cover has the arms of the Abbott of Lambach with the characteristic female figure in a boat, the arms of the city of Lambach. The Benedictine Monastery at Lambach dates back to 1040 and was the school of Adolf Hitler. He allegedly got the symbol of the swastika from the Hakenkreuz used in much of the decoration of the building.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .These works are all very rare and the first two are not found in the standard bibliographies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"KYPER, Alberti [with] PUTEANUS, Eryci [with] PLEIER, Cornelius [with] HERING, Honorius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859633152335,"sku":"L3647","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3647-1.jpg?v=1781793788"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-18_at_4.50.00_PM.png?v=1781797848","url":"https:\/\/www.sokol.co.uk\/collections\/interesting-provenance.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}