Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Pettit
Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.
We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia. Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.
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LA VIGNE, André de.
Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime a paris. De lentreprinse et voyage de Naples. Auquel est comprins...
[(Colophon:) Paris, Philippe le Noir], [1521–22].
George Dunn’s copy of a rare early edition of the Vergier d’honneur, a reprint of the 1512 edition by Jean Petit and Jean Frellon.
£9500
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[LA VIGNE, André de, and Octavien de SAINT-GELAIS.]
Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime a Paris. De lentreprise et...
[Paris, Pierre le Dru and Jean Petit, 1503.]
Extremely rare first edition of the Vergier d’Honneur, a celebration of the expedition of Charles VIII to Italy; a remarkable copy preceded by three leaves of illuminated manuscript containing unrecorded verse and a spectacular miniature of a knight on horseback.
£120000
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LELAND, John.
The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the Years 1535-1543. Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, with a Foreword by Thomas...
London, Centaur Press Ltd, 1964.
The authoritative edition of Leland’s Itinerary, a monument of English bibliography and antiquarian research. The Itinerary comprises the notes of the antiquary John Leland (c. 1503–1552) on his journeys through England and Wales during the dissolution of the monasteries. According...
£50
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LUIGINI, Francesco.
In librum Q. Horatii Flacci de arte poetica commentarius.
Venice, [(colophon:) sons of] Aldus, 1554.
First and only edition of Luigini’s commentary on Horace’s Art of Poetry, with a preface praising Paolo Manuzio.
£850
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[MAILLES, Jacques de.]
La tresioyeuse plaisante & recreative hystoire composee par le loyal serviteur des faiz gestes triumphes...
Paris, [(colophon:) Nicolas Cousteau for] Galliot du Pré, [18 September 1527].
First edition of Jacques de Mailles’ account of the Chevalier de Bayard, ‘le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche’, one of France’s most celebrated knights considered the epitome of chivalric virtues, written shortly after his death, with contemporary annotations in an English hand.
£12500
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MAUGIN, Jean.
Histoire du noble Tristan, prince de Leonnois, chevalier de la Table Ronde, et d’Yseulte, princesse d’Yrlande,...
Paris, Nicolas Bonfons, 1586.
A scarce edition of the New Tristan, reworking the tale of Tristan and Isolde for the Renaissance reader; bound in eighteenth-century French green morocco.
£4750
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MIRANDULA (or MIRANDOLA), Ottaviano.
Illustrium poetarum flores.
Antwerp, Joannes Bellerus, 1563.
A remarkable copy, with numerous and eloquent contemporary annotations and additions in a French hand, of a scarce edition of an extremely popular collection of quotes and passages from classics of poetry, published by the renowned Flemish printer and composer Joannes Bellerus (Jean Bellère, 1526–1595). ...
£1950
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MORI, Ascanio de’.
Giuoco piacevole.
Mantua, Giacomo Ruffinello, 1575.
First edition of an uncommon Renaissance collection of tales in prose and verse, set in the Lombard city of Brescia during the Carnival of the ‘prosperous and peaceful’ year 1566, employing the narrative frame canonised by Boccaccio in the Decameron, though with pointedly opposed features.
£950
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PETRONIUS.
Satyricon, eiusdemque fragmenta, illustrata hac nova editione I. Bourdelotii notis criticis, et glossario petroniano...
Leiden, Justus Livius, 1645.
Third edition of the Satyricon as edited by the French scholar Jean Bourdelot (first published in 1618), accompanied by a glossary, an editorial preface and an extract of Justus Lipsius’ Epistolicis Quaestionibus (lib. III, epist. 2) with an appraisal of the literary value of the Satyricon.
£950
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PIUS II, Pope (Enea Silvio PICCOLOMINI); Nicolaus DE WYLE, editor.
[Epistolae familiares; De duobus amantibus Euryalo...
[Reutlingen, Michael Greyff, not after 1478.]
First combined edition of Pius II’s personal correspondence, his best-selling epistolary erotic novel the Tale of Two Lovers, and his Description of the City of Vienna, which appears here in print for the first time.
£12500
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PLATO; [Marsilio FICINO].
Platonis opera.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Filippo Pinzi, 22 April 1517.]
Third edition of Marsilio Ficino’s important and influential Latin translations of and commentaries on Plato’s works, with numerous early annotations.
£5000
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[QUARITCH.]
Guillaume Postel (1510–1581).
Quaritch, 2006.
A catalogue of a collection of the works of the Renaissance scholar and Arabist, Guillaume Postel. ‘Not only does it include editions of quite exceptional rarity, to be found in few libraries on either side of the Atlantic, but it illustrates every moment of Postel’s extraordinary career and gives...
£60
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ROSSI, Ottavio, and Bartolomeo FONTANA, compiler.
Lettere del Sig. Ottavio Rossi. Raccolte da Bartolomeo Fontana ...
Brescia, Bartolomeo Fontana, 1621.
First edition of over 150 letters by the poet and scholar Ottavio Rossi (1570–1630), printed in his native city of Brescia and including a letter to the painter Palma Giovane, our copy with a contemporary manuscript note on the artist’s final moments written mere days after his death.
£1250
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[SAVONAROLA, Girolamo.] Ambrogio Caterino POLITI.
Discorso … contra la dottrina, et le profetie di Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
Venice, Giolito, 1548.
First edition of a condemnation of Savonarola’s theology, doctrine and prophecies by the former Savonarola acolyte Politi (1484–1553), ‘one of the most fiery Catholic polemicists of his times’ (Bongi, trans.), who four years earlier had published a confutation of Luther’s theology.
£1500
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SIMEONI, Gabriele.
Le III parti del campo de primi studii di Gabriel Symeoni Fiorentino.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Comin da Trino], 1546.
First edition of this early work by Simeoni, a wide-ranging compilation of juvenile poetry and prose dedicated to Cosimo de’ Medici, Duke of Florence.
£950
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SIMONETTA, Bonifacio.
De Christiane Fidei et Romanorum Pontificum Persecutionibus.
[(Colophon:) Basel, Nicolaus Kesler, 1509.]
A beautiful copy of the second edition of Simonetta’s principal work, containing an early and intriguing reference to the New World, our copy from the library of Christian VI (1699–1746), King of Denmark and Norway, under whom the kingdom expanded its possessions in the Americas.
£4500
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TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.
Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546.]
First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations.
£6750
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THUCYDIDES; Lorenzo VALLA, translator; Henri ESTIENNE, editor.
Περι του Πελοποννησιακου πολεμου...
[Geneva, Henri II Estienne for] Frankfurt, heirs of Andreas Wechel, Claude Marne, and Jean Aubry, 1594.
A richly annotated and extra-illustrated copy of Thucydides, edited and printed by perhaps the greatest Greek scholar of the sixteenth century; a bilingual edition with multilingual annotations, providing evidence of the keen interest in Thucydides demonstrated by German Protestant humanist scholars.
£2250
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URCEO, Antonio [or Codro].
Hoc Codri volumine haec continentur. Orationes, seu sermones ut ipse appellabat. Epistolae. ...
Bologna, Giovanni Antonio Benedetti, 7 March 1502.
First edition of a quintessential piece of Italian humanism, annotated by a sixteenth-century reader particularly interested in the philology of the texts.
£3000