Octavo: 15 x 10 cm. I. a-h8; A-Z8, Aa4 (lacking blank Aa4). II. A-L8 (with blank L8)
Bound in contemporary alum-tawed pigskin over wooden boards, one clasp defective, binding soiled and mildly worn and with small defects. The boards are ruled and tooled in blind, signed and dated “IPN 1556”. The contents are in excellent, crisp condition (one leaf working loose, marginal tear in margin of leaf E5, no loss). With a historiated woodcut title border to the “Apologia”.
Octavo: 17 x 11 cm. (56), 705, (63) pp. Collation: *-***8, ****4, a-z8, A-Z8, aa-bb8
FIRST EDITION of Conrad Badius’ French translation of John Bale’s “Acta Romanorum Pontificum”(1558). In his “Acts of the Roman Pontiffs” Bale sought to prove that the popes are not the successors of Peter and expressed the belief that it was the Antichrist himself who controlled the papacy. He devotes considerable space to demonstrate that Peter never was a bishop of Rome and that there was considerable doubt among chroniclers about the identity of Peter’s immediate successors.
16 mo. 2 volumes. 12.1 x 7.8 cm. I : 528 p. (Collation: a-z8, A-K8), II : 361 p., [1] f. (Collation: aa-yy8, zz6)
Robert Estienne’s second Greek New Testament, printed in the celebrated “grecs du roi” Greek types of Claude Garamond. With the iconic device of the French king’s printer on the title pages and the Estienne device at the end of the second volume.
London: By Iohn Day, dwelling ouer Aldersgate, beneath Saint Martines, 1564
$18,000.00
Quarto: 18 x 13.5 cm. [8], 46, 49-689, [5] p. Collation: A4, B-C8, D8(-D8), E-I8, K8(-K6), L-Y8 2A-2X8, 2Y8 + [hand]Y4 (Leaves D8 and K6 are canceled, as intended.)
An important collection of writings by English Protestants, many of whom had been martyred, compiled and with a preface by Miles Coverdale. There are letters by Lady Jane Gray (1536/7-1554) (a letter written “to her syster the Ladye Katheryne, immediately before she suffered”), John Bradford (1510?-1555) (including a partial reprint of \"An exhortacion to the carienge of Chrystes crosse\", STC 3480.
1. No place, ? St. Alban 29 March, 1597 And, 2. "en este Collegio" ? St. Alban 1597
$16,000.00
Folio: 31 x 22.5 cm. I. [3] pp. II. [8] pp.
Two manuscript letters, apparently unpublished, by Joseph Creswell, S.J. advising Philip II, King of Spain, on the restoration of Catholicism in England, , apparently written at St. Alban's College, Valladolid, Spain in early 1597. The letters are addressed to an unnamed religious figure, apparently close to the king, who heeds his counsel. These letters are not found in Calendar of State Papers, Spanish (Simancas, Valladolid).
In the utopian vision “Wolfaria” (the Land of Welfare) Eberlin describes an idealized society under the leadership of a democratically elected nobility. The work occupies an intermediate position between reality-related pragmatism and a purely utopian program. It is significant for foreshadowing ideas that will be re-emerge in the Twelve Articles of the German Peasants in 1524 (Eberlin, himself the son of peasants, was born into poverty in Swabia.
London: Imprinted… in Povles Churcheyarde by Richard Iugge and Iohn Cavvood, Printers to the Quenes Maiestie, 1559
$22,000.00
Quarto: 18 x 13 cm. [14] pp. Collation: A-B4 (lacking blank leaf B4)
With the signature of the 16th c. book collector Humphrey Dyson (1582-1633) at the foot of the title page. The bookplate of Albert Ehrman's Broxbourne Library, with his motto “Pro Viribus Summis Contendo” is affixed to the front pastedown. This was lot 270 in the 1978 sale of Ehrman’s library. Very rare. ESTC locates 4 copies in the U.S.: Folger, Huntington, Harvard, Yale.
First edition of the first visitation articles established for the reformed church after Elizabeth’s accession.
Quarto: 19.8 x 14.5 cm. CXX leaves. Collation: a-p8
The rare 1524 Parisian “Praise of Folly”, printed by Erasmus’ friend, the scholar-printer Badius Ascensius, who printed the fourth edition in 1512. This edition differs markedly from the 1512 edition and contains all of the supplementary texts found in the Froben editions, including the dedicatory letter to Thomas More, whose name Erasmus plays upon cleverly in the title of the work; and the letter to Martin Dorp in which Erasmus explains his motives for writing the “Moria”: “My aim in the ‘Folly’ was exactly the same as in my other works.
Vander Haeghen I, 123; Kossmann 979; Bibl. Belgica E 866; (Not in Bezzel, De Reuck, or BM STC French); Renouard, Badius II, 424; Adams E 397. Inventaire chronologique des editions Parisiennes du XVIe siecle III, no. 669; Renouard, Imprimeurs Parisiens du XVIe siècle II, no. 539
Folio: 31.2 x 20 cm. [88], 3-874, [1] pp. A-d6, e8, f-g6, A-Z6, Aa-Zz6, Aaa-Zzz6, Aaaa-Dddd6 (last leaf is blank.)
A very rare Cologne edition of Erasmus’ beloved and extraordinarily influential “Adages”, first conceived as a collection of proverbial sayings drawn from the Latin authors of antiquity elucidated for the use of those who aspired to write an elegant Latin style. In its first incarnation, the “Adagia” consisted of about eight hundred proverbs. The present version, Erasmus' "Adagia Chiliades" (“Thousands of Adages”) is more than just a vastly expanded edition of that first enterprise: "
A glance at its composition reveals that the ‘Adagia Chiliades’ was in fact -as well as in name- a new book, and that Greek scholarship was largely responsible for the difference.
Basel: and Strasbourg: and Paris: Io. Froben, and Excusum per Renatu[m] Beck in aedibus zum Thiergarten, and Jean Petit, In vico Sancti Iacobi, 1515 and 1515 and 1513
$20,500.00
Large Quarto: 3 works bound in one volume: I. Piccolomini: i-iv, A-B4, C8, D-E4, F8, G-H4, I8, K-L4, M8, N-O4, P6. II. Lactantius: A6, B4, a-z8/4, A-D8/4, E6, F-N8/4, O6, P4. III. “Praise of Folly”: a-h4, a-z4, A-B4, C6
This edition includes the original dedicatory letter to Thomas More, whose name Erasmus plays upon cleverly in the title of the work; and the letter to Martin Dorp in which Erasmus explains his motives for writing the “Moria”: “My aim in the ‘Folly’ was exactly the same as in my other works. Only the presentation was different. In the ‘Enchiridion’ I simply outlined the pattern of a Christian life.
I. “Germania”: BM STC German p. 701 = Proctor 10307. Not in Adams. Panzer VI.75.410. Ritter 1878. Muller, Bibliographie Strasbourgeoise II, 228 no. 26. Schmidt (Beck) 21. II. Lactantius: Adams L-14; BSB-Ink L-13; HC 9819; Moreau, Inventaire chronologique II 637. III. “Praise of Folly”: Vander Haeghen I, 122; Kossmann 967; Bezzel 1304; Not in De Reuck; BM STC German p. 282; Adams E 392; VD, 16E 3184
“My yoke is sweet and my burden light.” A Vernacular Translation of Erasmus’ Annotation on Mathew 11:29-30
A German translation of Erasmus’ annotation on Mathew 11:29 (taken from his “In Novum Testamentum annotationes”) in which Erasmus differentiates between the divine order and human positive law. He laments that people ignore the commands of God and follow human law instead: ‘Christ’s law is inviting and easy, but it becomes onerous and difficult through the addition of human prescriptions and dogmas.
Hans Greiffenberger was a Nuremberg painter who ran afoul of the authorities for both his art and for his subversive religious activism. In October 1524 he was investigated on the charge of creating an unsuitable and offensive painting and "because he seduces the people to a new sect." The artwork was described as "a shameful painting that he made against papal sanctity."
While he lacked the literary skills of Hans Sachs, Greiffenberger's works had a similar immediacy.
A series of important Lenten sermons, preached before King Edward VI in 1550, by the Protestant reformer (and ex-Cistercian monk) John Hooper, who five years later would be burned at the stake (his death is illustrated in Foxe’s “Acts and Monuments”.) In these sermons Hooper presents his opposition to elements of Cranmer’s Edwardine Book of Common Prayer (1549) and the King’s Ordinal (1550), in particular his opposition to the oath by the saints required of clergy at their consecration and the wearing of vestments.
Quarto: 21.5 x 15.5 cm. 37, [1] lvs. (final leaf blank). Collation: A-H4, I6 (I6 blank and present)
Sole edition of these new satiric dialogues. In the “Bull or Bull Killer”, Hutten satirizes Leo X’s bull “Exsurge Domine”, which threatened Luther and his followers with excommunication.
Quarto: 20 x 14.5 cm. [144] p. Collation: A-B4, C6, D-N4, O6, P-R4.
First edition of this important collection. Only the first “Fever” poem had appeared previously (in 1519). The anonymous German satire "Trias Romana"(1519) is a different work than Hutten's satire of the same name.
Karlstadt’s controversial critique of monasticism and his condemnation of clerical celibacy. In many instances and on many important matters, Karlstadt’s work and actions anticipate those of Luther (although the political and theological positions that motivated both men often differed). Karlstadt was the first of the reformers to publish his stance on the central problem of clerical celibacy; he himself married in January of 1522.
Luther’s pivotal appeal to a church council, written on 28 November 1518, six weeks after his meeting at Augsburg with Cardinal Cajetan, who had instructions and authority from the pope to have Luther apprehended and brought to Rome for examination should he fail to recant his errors. Luther wrote the appeal in anticipation of his excommunication. The printed appeal opens and closes with the attestation of the notary to whom Luther presented the document.
A sermon for Lichtmeß (Candlemas), the feast of the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple and the purification of Mary (February 2). Jesus takes as his text Luke 2:22-39.
For the complexities of Luther’s evolving Mariology, see Thomas O'Meara, Mary in Protestant and Catholic Theology (1966). “Luther's attitude toward the theology of Mary and toward the devotion which a Christian should have to the Mother of God is a small-scale representation of his entire religious accomplishment.
Quarto: 21 x 15.5 cm. a-r4 (lacking final blank leaf r4) 115 pp.
Luther's response to Ambrosius Catharinus Politus' (1487-1552) "Defense of the True Catholic and Apostolic Faith and Doctrine against the Disease-spreading Dogma of Martin Luther" (Florence, 1520). In his defense of papal supremacy, Catharinus also defends the opinions of Sylvester Mazolinus de Prierio (Prierius, d. 1523), Pope Leo X's theologian and the first man to censor Luther's works.
First edition of Luther’s response to the growing danger posed by the radical preacher Thomas Münzer, who was ultimately executed the following year for leading the violent, open revolt that came to be known as the Peasants’ War.
In 1523, Thomas Münzer, formerly the leader of the radical “Zwickau Prophets” began to radicalize the area of Allstedt, where he was then pastor, preaching that the ungodly were to be eliminated and the elect would establish a kingdom of Christ on earth and threatening the political rulers of the area with rebellion.
