Recent Acquisitions
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TAYLOR, Alfred Swaine.
Notes for lectures on heat.
[London,] c. 1844.
An extensive set of lecture notes, with numerous corrections and additions, on the subject of heat, by the eminent medical jurist and toxicologist Alfred Swaine Taylor (1806–1880).
£3750
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BACON, Francis.
Francisci Baconi, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, operum moralium et civilium tomus … cura...
London, Edward Griffin [and John Haviland] for Richard Whitaker [and John Norton], 1638.
First edition, first issue, a copy from the celebrated Albani library: tangible witness to the early and fecund reception of Bacon’s thought in the circles of Galilean science in Italy.
£3500
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HUMBLOT, F.
Journal de voyage ...
France, June-September 1866.
A handsome manuscript on mining engineering, apparently unpublished, recording visits undertaken by the engineer F. Humblot to coal mines and iron works in eastern and southern France in 1866, containing well over one hundred beautifully executed technical drawings.
£3500
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[MONTANUS, Arnoldus.]
Ambassades mémorables de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales des Provinces Unies, vers les empereurs du Japon....
Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1680.
First edition in French of an important and influential study of Japan by the Dutch theologian and historian Arnoldus Montanus, based on eyewitness accounts from two Dutch East India Company (VOC) missions to Japan in 1649 and 1661.
£3500
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IRENICUS, Franciscus.
Germaniae exegeseos volumina duodecima a Francisco Irenico Ettelingiacensi exarata, eiusdem oratio protreptica,...
[(Colophon:) Hagenau, Thomas Anshelm for Johann Koberger, August 1518.]
First editions of a pair of sixteenth-century German antiquarian works in a contemporary binding by Konrad Kühneof Stuttgart from the library of the Elector of Bavaria.
£3500
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[DENNIS, John, and George DUCKETT?]
Pope Alexander’s Supremacy and Infallibility examin’d, and the Errors of Scriblerus...
London, J. Roberts, 1729.
First edition, very scarce in commerce, of an exhilaratingly spiteful attack on Pope in the wake of the publication of the Dunciad variorum, comprising seven different satirical texts, three in verse, issued in quarto to match ‘the least pompous Edition of the Dunciad’.
£3250
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GIOVIO, Paolo.
Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita. Quae in musaeo Ioviano Comi spectantur. Addita in calce...
Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1546.
First edition of Giovio’s biographies of illustrious men, with several marginal corrections, remarks, and comments by a contemporary reader, whose knowledge of biographies of the past encompassed several authors, including Erasmus.
£3000
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APPIAN of Alexandria.
Civili. Appiano Alessandrino delle guerre civili de Romani tradotto da M. Alessandro Braccio secretario...
Venice, [Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio for Federico Torresano, April] 1538.
A much-annotated copy of these late Aldine Press productions, the two complementary works on the history of Rome’s wars by Appianus in the Italian translation of Alessandro Braccio (or Braccesi), which had first appeared in 1519 – the first vernacular versions.
£3000
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TYRE, William, Archbishop of, and Giuseppe OROLOGGI (translator).
Historia della guerra sacra di Gierusalemme,...
Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562.
First Italian edition of William of Tyre’s (1130–1186) important account of the first two crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with the addition of a seventeenth-century manuscript detailing a uniquely Italian rendition of the tale of the Wandering Jew.
£2800
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RIDOLFI, Luca Antonio.
Aretefila, dialogo, nel quale da una parte sono quelle ragioni allegate, le quali affermano, lo amore...
Lyons, Guillaume Rouillé, 1562.
The third edition (first 1557) of a remarkable Renaissance philosophical dialogue on the nature of love which marked the culmination of the divisive questione d’amore hotly debated in sixteenth-century literature, our copy extensively annotated by a seventeenth-century collector of musical...
£2800
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[ALMANACK.]
L’Esprit des chansonniers, extrain [sic?] des meilleurs poëtes.
Paris, Le Fuel, [1826?].
A very rare enamelled metal binding with an enchanting design of birds and squirrels, from the collection of the bookbinder, collector, and bibliographer Léon Gruel.
£2750
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VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.
Historiae Romanae duo volumina, ad M. Vinicium Cos. progenerum Tiberii Caesaris, per Beatum Rhenanum Selestadiensem...
[(Colophon:) Basel, Johann Froben, November 1520.]
Editio princeps of a summary history of Rome to AD 29 by the soldier-turned-historian Velleius Paterculus, edited from a now lost manuscript by the German humanist Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547), with tipped-in notes by a contemporary student of Roman history displaying a remarkable concern...
£2750
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ARISTIDES, Aelius.
Orationum tomi tres, nunc primum latine versi a Gulielmo Cantero Ultraiectino. Huc accessit orationum tomus...
Basel, Peter Perna and Heinrich Petrus, 1566.
First edition in Latin, a remarkable copy once owned by one of the preeminent music theorists and composers of Renaissance Italy, Gioseffo Zarlino.
£2750
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[LE GUERCHOIS, Madeleine d’Aguesseau, Madame.]
Avis d’une mere a son fils.
Paris, Desaint & Saillant, 1743.
A popular work of maternal advice, in a simple vellum binding richly decorated by the master calligrapher Francois Nicolas Bédigis (1738–1814).
£2750
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LOCATELLI, Lodovico.
Theatro d’Arcani … nel quale si tratta dell’arte chimica, et suoi arcani, con gli afforismi d’Ippocrate...
Milan, Gio. Pietro Ramellati, 1644.
First edition of Locatelli’s alchemical tract, which includes the first Italian translation of Paracelsus.
£2500
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DIODORUS Siculus.
Bibliothecae historicae libri XV. Hoc est, quotquot Graece extant de quadraginta quorum quinque nunc primum Latine...
Basel, Heinrich Petri, August 1559.
Important edition, the first to be overseen by Sébastien Castellion, of Diodorus’s influential ‘Historical library’.
£2500
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CASAL, Gaspar do.
Axiomata christiana ex divinis scripturis & sanctis patribus.
Coimbra, João da Barreira and João Alvares, 1550.
First edition of Gaspar do Casal’s major work of theology, which informed his participation in the Council of Trent, from the library of another participant in the Council.
£2500
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DOLCE, Lodovico.
Somma della filosofia d’Aristotele, e prima della dialettica.
Venice, Giovanni Battista, & Marchio Sessa, & fratelli, [1565].
First edition of this exposition of Aristotle’s dialectics, moral, and natural philosophy by one of the most significant poligrafi and artistic theorists of the cinquecento, intended for a non-specialist readership.
£2500
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[ALMANACK.]
Les etrennes a la rose, ou le rosier d’amour.
Paris, Janet, [1804?].
A charming literary almanack, or ‘rosebush of love’, collecting amatory poems using the motif of the rose, here bound in red silk strikingly embroidered in silver and dated with the French Revolutionary year ‘An XII’ (1804).
£2500
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CLÜVER, Philipp.
Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem, quam novam …
Wolfenbüttel, Caspar Johann Bismarck for Conrad Buno, 1686.
The 1686 edition of perhaps the most important geographical textbook of the early modern period, an introduction to global geography by the German antiquarian and geographical pioneer Philipp Clüver, enlarged and supplemented by the German geographer Johann Buno.
£2500