Quarto: 20.4 x 14.3 cm. [23] lvs., lacking final blank.
An invaluable record of the Ethiopian embassy to Europe in 1527. Printed here for the first time are four letters from the Ethiopian Negus (Emperor) Lebna Dengal, who reigned as Dawit II (reg. 1508-1540). Two of the letters are addressed to the Portuguese kings Manuel I (reg. 1495-1521) and João III (reg. 1521-1557). The other two are addressed to Pope Clement VII (1478-1534). There is an additional letter, from King João to the pope.
EDIT16 CNCE 64221; Gay 2603; Not in Göllner and Atabey; Paulitschke, Die Afrika-Literatur in der Zeit von 1500 bis 1750, 1022; Ofosu-Appiah 96. North American holdings: I. Latin Edition: Newberry, Minnesota, Cleveland Public, Harvard (2), NYPL; II. German language edition “Bot(t)schafft des großmechtigsten Konigs Dauid”: Brown; III. Italian language edition “L'Ambasciaria di David, re dell' Etiopia”: NYPL
A Complete Set of Aldrovandi’s Natural History Works – With Noble Provenance and all Volumes in First Edition
Over the course of the second half of the sixteenth-century, the brilliant Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi’s sought to carry out an encyclopedic description of the natural world. Given the limits of the science of his day and the difficulty of obtaining accurate descriptions and specimens of animals, plants, and minerals from the four corners of the world, it is staggering how close he came to achieving this objective.
Francofurti ad Moenum: Typis Ioannis Feyrabend, impensis Theodori de Bry., Anno M. D. LXXXXIIII. 1594
$38,000.00
Folio: 35 x 23 cm. [8], 145, [3] p.(-[2] blank lvs.), XXIIII lvs (minus final blank.) With an added double-page map. Collation: ):():(⁴, ):():(⁴, A-Q4, R6, Aa-Ee4, Ff6 (lacking blanks R6 and Ff6). Complete.
This book constitutes the fourth part of the first Latin edition of Theodor de Bry's “Grand Voyages” (“America”), the most famous collection of travel narratives from the Americas, printed in fourteen parts from 1590 to 1634.
This volume contains book one of Girolamo Benzoni’s influential “Historia del Mondo Nuovo”, in which the Milanese merchant-adventurer narrates his experiences in the Caribbean and the Yucatan.
Octavo: 14.2 x 9.5 cm. Two parts in one: [24], 455, [3] pp. Collation: †8, †4, A-Z8, Aa-Ee8, Ff4. (In signature †4 the first leaf is signed “†5” and the 4th leaf has the orphaned catchword “histria”, an error of the compositor, explained by the re-setting of the type from Combi’s 1627 edition to correct omissions in his 1634 edition.)
The first edition of Isabella Andreini's collection of letters appeared in 1607, four years after the author's death, edited by her husband, Francesco. In 1617, with the assistance of Flaminio Scala, Francesco published the "Fragmenti". For a discussion of both works, see below.
"Born in Padua to Venetian parents in 1562, Isabella Andreini (née Canali) would become the most celebrated commedia dell'arte actress of her century by the time of her death in 1604.
Folio: 39.5 x 30 cm. 5 folding lvs. (1 letterpress leaf, 4 engraved lvs. (title, dedication, frontis., and portrait), 50 engraved plates divided into 5 series of 10 plates each.
First edition of this important architectural work, richly illustrated, by Giuseppe Galli da Bibiena. First edition of this richly illustrated work on architecture and perspective. The finely engraved plates show brilliant baroque compositions for catafalques, theatrical scenes, a series for the Passion of Christ in elaborate architectural settings, and the decoration of the Riding School at Vienna for the marriage of the Archduchess Mariana with Prince Charles of Lorraine.
Antwerp, Nuremberg, and elsewhere: Various printers, 1557-1604
$75,000.00
1. Vredeman de Vries, Jan (1527- ca. 1607)
Architectura [Ou art de bastir des Antiques, tiré de Vitruve: qui sont cincq ordres de colonnes, don’t l’on peut tirer toutes sortes de bastimens, selon l’usance et coustume de chascun pays: utile à tous Architects, Massons, Tailleurs de pierre, Menuisiers, et à tous amateurs de l’Architecture.
Quarto: 20.3 x 14.7 cm. 93 pp. A-M4 (H1 is a cancel, -L4), π1. With an added portrait-frontispiece of the author, 1 folding table, and 5 folding plates.
Very rare first edition of this treatise on perspective by Guglielmo Gargiolli, the renowned mathematician of the Medici courts of Siena and Florence, and a correspondent of Galileo. The work is dedicated to Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Riccardi, VII, p. 40, «è de noverarsi fra i primi tentativi di distanziometria», Riccardi mistakenly records an earlier edition of 1619 relying on Targioni, Atti, I, p. 334, but the date is obviously incorrect in respect of Gargiolli’s rather obscure biography. See ‘Le opere dei discepoli di G. Galilei, Carteggio (1642–48)’, vol. I, a cura di P. Galluzzi e M. Torrini, Firenze 1975, no. 11
“Thirty days hath September…” A Very Rare 16th c. Compotus
Small octavo: 13.1 x 8.6 cm. [176] unnumbered p. Collation: A-L8
Illustrated with numerous woodcuts of computing hands, and two diagrams for calculating the golden number and Dominical letters. Bound in 17th c. mottled French calf, ruled in blind, restoration to spine and board edges. Contents fine though cropped a bit close, occ. shaving the outer margin of the woodcuts.
A mid-16th c. edition of the first printed computus (the first edition was printed at Paris in 1483.
Brunet II, 208. See Honeyman I, 97-98; Pettegree, French Books, 53366
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.
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)
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”.
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.
Oxford: Printed by Leon: Lichfield, Printer to the University, for Rob: Young, & Ed: Forrest, 1640
$15,500.00
Folio: 28.2 x 19 cm. [32], 38, [14], 322, [22] p. Collation: [*]2, ¶4, ¶¶2, ¶¶¶1, A2, B-C4, aa-gg4, hh2, †4, ††2, †1, A-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Qqq4, Rrr2. The first bifolium comprises the engraved portrait and engraved title page.
This is the important English translation, by Isaac Watts, of Bacon’s “De augmentis scientiarum” (“Partitions of the Sciences”), a greatly expanded version of Bacon’s “Of Proficience and Advancement of Learning Divine and Human”(1605). The work forms part one of Bacon’s “Instauratio Magna”, a foundational work of Early Modern science.
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
The Corruption and Illegitimacy of the Church - Bale’s salty and scandalous exposé of the Papacy and Monasticism
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.
Adams, B-133; Index Aureliensis 112.015; Universal STC, no. 210
Continuing the work of Pacioli and Leonardo - A Fundamental Work on Perspective and the Graphic Representation of Architecture - A Book that Directly Influenced Palladio’s Representation of Buildings in his “Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura”(1570)
Folio: 29 x 22 cm. 195 pp., (6) ff. Collation: A-O4, P6, Q-Z4, Aa4, Bb6
First edition of the first systematic treatise on the practical applications of perspective, “La Practica della Perspectiva”, written by the distinguished Venetian patron of Palladio, Daniele Barbaro. Barbaro produced his own edition of Vitruvius in 1567, for which Palladio had furnished illustrations.
Fowler 36; Millard, Italian Architecture, p. 38-40; Mortimer 39; Vagnetti EIIb23; Wiebenson III-B-7; Berlin Katalog 4694; Kemp, Science of Art, p. 189. Adams B-171; Riccardi I/1°, col. 76; Vagnetti, Prospettiva, EIIb23; Gernsheim, History of Photography, pp. 7-8.
The Monuments of Ancient Rome Engraved by Piranesi’s Collaborator & Rival
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.
Strasbourg: Printer of the 1481 Legenda aurea, 22 March 1482
$35,000.00
Folio: 29.2 x 21.8 cm. 274 unsigned leaves. [A-C]8, [D]10; [a-m]8, [n]6,[o-z]8, [aa-ff]8, [gg]10. Complete with the initial and final blanks.
The arrival of printed books is so often regarded as one of the inaugural moments of the renaissance that it is sometimes forgotten that the first years of print also represented the last great flowering of the Middle Ages. The “Lumen Anime” (Light of the Soul), is testament to that. Formerly attributed to the Carmelite friar Mathias Farinator of Vienna (who compiled the index), the “Lumen Anime” is now known to be Berenger of Landorra, General of the Dominican order and archbishop of Campostella from 1317 to 1325.
BMC I, 97; Hain-Copinger 10333*; Goff L-396; Proctor 413; Polain 1468; Wellcome I, 2175; Klebs 631.3; Thorndyke III, 546ff. Sources: Mary A. and Richard H. Rouse, ‘The Texts called Lumen Anime,’ Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 41 (Rome, 1971), 5-113; N.R. Ker, Records of All Soul’s College Library. 1437-1600 (Oxford, 1971), 27.
