Large Folio: 35 x 24.5 cm. Two volumes in one: I. †4 (including engraved t.p.), A-Z6, Aa-Zz6, Aaa-Ppp6, Qqq8, Rrr6, Sss8; II. A-O6 (final signature O has 5 leaves, as in all copies examined. See note at end of description.)
Aldrovandi’s “Monstrorum historia” was the first treatise on teratology, the study of deformities and monsters. The subjects are drawn from across the spectrum of living creatures: animal (humans, other mammals, fishes, insects) and botanical. Aldrovandi also considers celestial monstra, including such portents as comets. There are also descriptions and images of Native Americans “from the island of Florida” and West Indian “cannibals”, as well as the mythical blemmyae or “headless men”, rumored to live in Africa, the West Indies, and other remote parts of the world.
NISSEN ZBI 74.R. As regards the 5-leaf final signature O in the “Paralipomena”, I have left the quire as “O6” in my collation since it is unclear if there was a cancelland leaf O5, or if final O6 was a blank. Either way, the final quire is consistent with all copies examined.
“A collection of the flowers of antiquities and histories” for the Elizabethan Reader
Octavo: 12.4 x 7.8 cm. [iv], 269, [7] lvs. Collation: A4, B-2M8, 2N4
“Wits Theater” was produced as part of a publishing project conceived by John Bodenham. The “series” began with Nicholas Ling’s “Politeuphuia: Wits Commonwealth” in 1597, and also included the poetic miscellany “Englands Parnassus” of 1600.
“Wits Theater”
Like the later “Englands Parnassus”, “Wits Theater” was compiled by Robert Allott and may be regarded as the prose equivalent of the poetical “Parnassus”.
Octavo: 19 x 11 cm. viii, 1-176, (169)-(176), 177-190, [ii], 79, [v], 68 pp. Collation: A4, B-M8, *M4, N-Y8, 2Y4. Illustrated with two folding engraved maps.
FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of the narratives of the first Europeans to traverse these regions. Part I of this collected work is "Voyages and Discoveries... up the River of Amazon to Quito in Peru, and back again to Brazil by Acuña;" Part II is "An Account of a Voyage up the River de la Plata, and thence over Land to Peru" by Acarete du Biscay; Part III is "A Journal of the Travels of John Grillet and Francis Bechamel into Guiana, in the Year 1674.
Quarto: 21.5 x 15.5 cm. [4], 8 pp., 9-10 ll., 11-127, [1] pp. Collation: π2 A4 B4 (±B1.2) C-Q4
FIRST EDITION of one of the most important eyewitness accounts of 17th-century Canada devoted primarily to the Huron Indians, but also with accounts of other groups, including the Jesuit author’s captivity and mutilation under the Iroquois. He also devotes 25 pages to a 1643 letter written by his Jesuit colleague Isaac Jogues (1607-1646), who was killed by the Mohawks.
Bressani (1612-1672), an Italian Jesuit, travelled to Canada as a missionary in 1642.
Alden & Landis 653/15; De Backer & Sommervogel II, col. 133; Walter, Jesuit relations, 43; Church 524; James Ford Bell Lib. B-407; JCB II, p. 428; Lande, Canadiana 57; McCoy, Jesuit relations 82; Sabin 7734; not in Eberstadt; Streeter.
An Invaluable, Eyewitness Account of the Jesuit Reductions of South America
Quarto: 18.7 x 13.2 cm. [4], 103, [1] leaves. Collation: [dagger]4, A-N8.
EXTREMELY RARE. An indispensible –and unique- firsthand account of twenty-five years in the Jesuit reductions of South America by a Peruvian-born Jesuit who participated in the founding of many of those reductions, mastered the language of those whom he evangelized, and -as ambassador to the Spanish court- worked tirelessly for indigenous rights and an end to the slave trade in South America.
Quarto: 23 x 17 cm. [12], 206, [1] lvs. Collation: [a]-c4, A-Ddd4, Eee8 (lacks blank leaf Eeee8)
First edition of this important history: "Paradise in the West, planted and cultivated by the liberal and beneficent hand of the most Catholic and powerful Kings of Spain, Our Lords, in their magnificent Real Convento de Jesús María of Mexico City: of whose foundation and progress, and prodigious marvels and virtues, with which the Venerable Madre Marina de la Cruz and other exemplary religious women, giving off sweet smells of perfection, flowered in its cloister, don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Mexican Presbyter, gives notice in this volume.
Folio: 32 x 22.5 cm. [6], 143, [1] leaves. Collation: [dagger]6, A-L6, M8, N-P6, Q10, R-Z6
A very appealing example of the first Italian edition, first issue, of Albrecht Dürer’s (1471-1528) renowned and copiously illustrated work on human proportion, here in a copy owned by the Milanese architect-theorist Pietro Antonio Barca (d. after 1639) and annotated by him in preparation for his unusual illustrated treatise Avvertimenti e Regole circa L’Architettura Civile, Scultura, Pittura, Prospettiva et Architettura Militare (Milan, P.
Mortimer 169; Bohatta, Bibliographie… Albrecht Dürers, no. 28; Meder, Dürer-Katalog, p. 289; Adams D 1055; Brunet II. 914; Erwin Panofsky, "The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer", Vol I, Princeton, 1945, pp. 260-284
Printed on the English Secret Press at Birchley Hall, Lancashire
"Printed at Colen": [i.e. Birchley Hall Press, Lancashire: Roger Anderton?], 1620
$4,800.00
Quarto: [6], 9-463, 462-468 Collation: [par.]⁴(-[par.]3) A-V⁴ W⁴ X-2V⁴ 2W⁴ 2X-3K⁴ [3L]² (Complete with blank leaves G1 and [3L]².)
A good, complete specimen of a book printed on a secret Catholic press. The press was located at the Anderton family’s own Birchley Hall in Lancashire and was likely operated by James Anderton’s brother, Roger Anderton, after the former’s death. The press produced books, including three by James Anderton himself, from 1613 to 1621, when the press was seized by the English authorities.
"With Vittoria Colonna’s disappearance in 1547, the world of Italian publishing was bereft of its figurehead female author, and the search for a successor appears to have been intense. The first secular poetic collection by a woman other than Colonna to be published was brought out by Gabriele Giolito in Venice, under the title Rime della signora Tullia di Aragona; et di diversi a lei(1547).
Brunet I, 373: "assez rare"; Salvatore Bongi, “Annali di Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari da Trino di Monferrato stampatore in Venezia.” (Roma: 1890-95) p. 150 ff. (with a long essay on Aragona)
A series of beautifully rendered emblems, engraved by Abraham de Bruyn (ca. 1539-1587), Pieter Huys (1520-1577), Jan Wierix (ca. 1549-1615) and his brother Hieronymus Wierix (ca. 1553-1619). The decorative borders of flowers, fruits, butterflies, birds and animals, engraved by Pieter Huys (ca. 1520- after 1577) and Jan Sadeler (1550-1600), add to the beauty of the book. "The richness of the illustrations.
Two of the most important literary works of the English Renaissance, Together with Ascham’s Essay on Historiography - With Manuscript waste from a 15th c. Breviary with several lines in Middle English
London: Printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling ouer Aldersgate, [1571], London: In Fletestreate neare to Saint Dunstones Churche by Thomas Marshe, 1571, London, Printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling ouer Aldersgate, ca. 1570
$45,000.00
Quarto: Three volumes bound as one: 19.5 x 14.2 cm. I. [manicule]2, B-T4. II. *4, A-H8, III. A-I4
I. “The Schoolmaster”:
“The indispensable link between the earlier Tudor writers and the great Elizabethan and Jacobean writers of English prose”(Ryan, 292)
The Cambridge-educated Ascham, one of the best known of the English humanists, produced two works that had a great influence on the use of English as a literary language as well as on the education of children and the conduct of English gentlemen.
Venice: Impressum a Joan. Anto. de Sabbio & fratribus, 1528
$12,000.00
Folio: 30 x 21 cm. [56] p. Collation: A-G4
First editions of three works by the Dalmatian physician-scientist Federico Grisogono of Zara, who became professor of mathematics and astrology at Padua in 1499. The works concern: 1. Determining a treatment course for curing fevers with the aid of astrological prognostication. 2. A philosophical treatise on human happiness. 3. An influential theory of tides. The first work includes a full-page iatromathematical instrument, outfitted with three functioning volvelles, for making astrological (and other celestial) observations, medical forecasting, and creating horoscopes.
Venice: Ex officina litteraria Petri Liechtenstein, 1521
$7,200.00
Quarto: 21.5 x 15.8 cm. 120 lvs. Collation: A-C8, D-E4, F-Q8
These astronomical tables, computing the positions of the sun, moon and planets in relation to the fixed stars, are based on the tables calculated by order of Alfonso X, "el Sabio", King of Castile and Leon (1221-1284), which became known as the Alfonsine Tables. This collection was first printed in 1483.
Edit16 1132; Tomash & Williams A60; USTC 808746. Literature: Dryer, On the Original Form of the Alfonsine Tables, in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 80, p.243-262.
Jena: bey Samuel Krebsen, in Verlegung Thomas Matthias Götzen, 1661
$5,800.00
Quarto: 19.8 x 16 cm. [128] p. π1, ):(4, A-M4, a-c4
A rare astronomical work by the astronomer Erhard Weigel, a teacher of Gottfried W. Leibniz. The engraved frontispiece shows a man holding a telescope, standing before the University of Jena, with other astronomical instruments (quadrants, sextants, a globe, etc.
Zinner p. 582; Poggendorff II, 1283; Kenney 20; Brüning 1061; Pogg. II, 1283; Struve 17; Bircher A1193; FdF 1506-07; not in Hou-zeau-L.; Lit.: Klaus-Dieter Herbst (ed.). Erhard Weigel (1625–1699) und die Wissenschaften. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang 2013
The Controversy over the use of Telescopic Sights. Hevelius observes the Skies with Edmond Halley Two Months Before his Observatory is Lost to Fire
Folio: 34.8 x 22.5 cm. [6] lvs. 24, 196 pp. Collation: )( 6, )(4, )()(4, )()()(4, A-Z4, AA6. With engraved title page vignette and 7 (1 double-page) engraved plates.
“Annus Climactericus” was the last of Hevelius’ works published in the author’s lifetime. The book comprises observations of the planets, sun, moon, and fixed stars, many of which were made alongside the English astronomer Edmond Halley. The observations were made from 8 January until 25 September 1679, subsequent to the publication of the second volume of Hevelius’ “Machina Coelestis”, almost the entire press run of which was lost in the fire that destroyed Hevelius’ observatory on 26 September 1679.
VD17 39:125045B; DSB 6, 363; Honeyman 1675. For a thorough discussion of the Hevelius-Hooke controversy, see Saridakis, “Converging Elements in the Development of Late Seventeenth-Century Disciplinary Astronomy: Instrumentation, Education, and the Hevelius-Hooke Controversy”, p. 129 ff.; For an assessment of the relative accuracy of Halley’s and Hevelius’ computations at Danzig, see Cook, “Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas”, p. 93 ff.; For Hevelius’ work on the binary star Mira Ceti, see Hatch, “Hevelius- History and Identity”, in “Change and Continuity in Early Modern Cosmology”, p 158 ff.; For D. Capellus’ contemporary account of the fire and a detailed inventory of Hevelius’ losses, see MacPike, “Hevelius, Flamsteed, Halley”, Appendix I. (London, 1937)
Folio: 32.3 x 21.5 cm. ¶4, A-Z6, Aa-Zz6, Aaa-Zzz6, Aaaa-Dddd6 (lacks blank ¶1).
This second edition was revised by William Crashaw (1572-1626), father of the poet Richard Crashaw, and includes the commentary of Juan Luis Vives (first published in Basle, 1522), which Vives wrote at the suggestion of Erasmus.
"Fifteen years after Augustine wrote the Confessions, at a time when he was bringing to a close (and invoking government power to do so) his long struggle with the Donatists but before he had worked himself up to action against the Pelagians, the Roman world was shaken by news of a military action in Italy.
Theo Gerardy in Gutenberg Jahrbuch articles of 1971, 1973 and 1980 showed that the Galliziani and Tower/Crown paper stocks in the Catholicon did not exist in 1460 and therefore suggested a date in the late 1460s for the edition as a whole. This dating of all three issues to c. 1469 was later taken up by Lotte Hellinga, who added numerous details and arguments to support it in a wide-ranging investigation of typographical evidence in the Catholicon and textual evidence in the 4° Aquinas (see Gutenberg Jahrbuch1989, 1990, 1991, Bulletin du Bibliophile 1991, The Book Collector 1992, Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 1993).
HC *2254; GW 3182(3); BMC I, 39 (IC. 303); Goff B-20; CIBN B-13 (II); De Ricci, Mayence 90.71 (one of two "exemplaires disparus"). BMC assigns letters to the collation: a-f10, g4, h-t10, v4+1, A-S10, T4. On the Polling provenance, see Richard van Dülmen, “Aufklärung und Reform in Bayern, I. Das Tagebuch des Pollinger Prälaten Franz Töpsl (1744–1752) und seine Korrespondenz mit Gerhoh Steigenberger (1763–1768),” in Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte(ZBLG, 1969) 32 (1969), p. 733, letter of 7 January 1766 to Steigenberger [attached]; and Aretin, Neunter Brief, in Beyträge zur Geschichte und Literatur, vorzüglich aus den Schätzen der Königl. Hof- und Centralbibliothek zu München. I (Munich: Lindauer, 1803), 89
One of the First Attempts to Write a “Protestant” History of the English Church
London: [S. Mierdman] for A Vele and [S. Mierdman], for Iohan Bale, 1550 and 1551
$15,000.00
Octavo: 15.4 x 9.5 cm. [4], 79 lvs; cxx, [4] lvs. Collation: I. *4, A-K8 (with blank K8 present); II. A-P8, Q4
This book consists of two volumes, the first (STC 1273) printed by S. Mierdman for A. Vele, the second (STC 1273.5) by Mierdman for John Bale. As bound, the first four leaves of STC 1273.5, consisting of a general title page ("The first two partes of the Actes..") and the dedicatory epistle, precede the whole of STC 1273, which comprises the first book. The bulk of STC 1273.5 (beginning "The Second Part…" and concluding with the errata) is bound last, as intended by the printer.
Rome: Chez Bouchard et Gravier Libraires François rüe du Cours près de Saint Marcel, de l 1761
$16,000.00
Large Folio: 51 x 35.5 cm. VIII, 90 pp. Collation: [π]1, [a]-[c]1, A-Z, Aa-Yy1. With 73 added plates. Complete.
The French artist Jean Barbault arrived in Rome in 1747 and quickly became involved with the circle of Piranesi, with whom he worked on the “Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna” and for whose “Antichità Romane” he contributed figures for 14 plates “thus becoming one of the few official collaborators” of Piranesi. Barbault’s own views appeared 7 years after his collaboration with Piranesi.
Rome: Chez Bouchard et Gravier Libraires françois rüe du Cours près l’Eglise de S. Marcel, de l 1763
$22,000.00
Large Folio: 53.5 x 38 cm. [vi], 72 pp. Collation: [π]3, A-Z1, Aa-.Nn1. With 44 double-paged plates. Complete.
The French artist Jean Barbault arrived in Rome in 1747 and quickly became involved with the circle of Piranesi, with whom he worked on the “Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna” and for whose “Antichità Romane” he contributed figures for 14 plates “thus becoming one of the few official collaborators” of Piranesi. Barbault’s own views of the ancient city appeared 7 years after his collaboration with Piranesi; the present work on “Rome Moderne” appeared two years later, the year that Barbault died.
