Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison or Sally Deegan
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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HOMILIARY,
in Latin, with parts of Augustine’s Sermones de Scripturis (Migne, Patrologia Latina 38, cols. 963–4)
Germany, 11th century.
The first leaf here contains parts of sermon 178 from Augustine’s Sermones de Scripturis. Chapter six of the sermon is based on Ecclesiasticus 31,8 and part of 31,10: ‘Blessed is the rich that is found without blemish, and hath not gone after gold’, and ‘Who might offend, and hath not...
£1750
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ANTIPHONAL,
with neumes, containing antiphons, responses and versicles for Trinity Sunday, the Octave of Pentecost, Sundays after...
Germany, 1st half of 12th century.
Two bifolia from a notably early antiphonal.
£5000
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BIBLE,
in Latin, Jeremiah 30, 6–32,19 and 44,21–48,24
Germany or perhaps Switzerland, mid-12th century.
From a folio German romanesque Bible.
£3750
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ANTIPHONAL,
with neumes, containing music for the blessing of the Paschal Candle on Holy Saturday.
Southern Germany or Bohemia, mid-15th century.
An unusual and striking antiphonal leaf written entirely in red and notated entirely in burnished gold, signalling the importance of the text for Holy Saturday.
£4250
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BOOK OF HOURS,
in Latin, from the Hours of the Virgin and including the beginning of Psalm 97.
Flanders or northern France, early 14th century.
An exquisite leaf from an exceptionally early Book of Hours. The defective parent manuscript, which also contained a Vie de sainte Marguerite in French rhyming verse, was lot 76 in Sotheby’s sale ‘Western Manuscripts and Miniatures’ of 17 December 1991, subsequent to which the leaves were...
£2250
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[MIRACLE STORIES.]
Miracle stories of the Virgin, in Latin
Germany, first half of 14th century.
Two fragments containing rare fourteenth-century miracle stories.
£2250
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JOHN DE BURGH.
Pupilla oculi.
England, c. 1400.
John de Burgh’s Pupilla oculi was a handbook of canon law and pastoral theology for parish priests. It was mainly derived from the Oculus sacerdotis by William of Paull (or Pagula), written in 1320–28, and was probably composed c. 1380–85, when for part of that time John de Burgh...
£1750
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ITALY – MONTEPULCIANO.
Notarial register of Mei, notary public of Montepulciano.
Italy (Montepulciano), September – November 1345.
Fragments from a notarial register of Montepulciano compiled shortly before the Black Death.
£2000
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SARUM MISSAL,
in Latin, with readings and music for the feast of the Nativity
England, late 14th century.
A richly illuminated leaf from a Sarum Missal, the decoration probably of provincial rather than London production.
£3250
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SARUM BREVIARY,
in Latin.
England, 1st quarter of 15th century.
A fragment of 21 leaves from a portable Sarum Breviary, with nineteenth-century Staffordshire provenance.
£4250
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[HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR.]
Royal order in French authorising payment to various officials engaged in raising a levy (‘aide’) at...
Paris, 30 March 1415.
A royal order to pay officials involved in raising a levy at Avranches, issued a few months before the battle of Agincourt.
£1750
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MISSAL,
in Latin, with readings for the first Sunday in Advent.
Southern Netherlands or northern France (Arras?), c. 1425.
A remnant of what must have been an exceptionally grand missal, with illumination of considerable finesse. We have been unable to trace any other leaves from the same manuscript.
£3250
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PIUS II (Nicolaus von WYLE, editor).
Epistolae familiares.
Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 17 July 1486.
Second Koberger edition of the Epistolae familiares of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405–1464), the great Renaissance humanist who became Pope Pius II in 1458, a handsome copy enhanced with manuscript additions comprising epistolary models, a German-Latin wordlist, and medical recipes.
£7500
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ANTONIUS de Vercellis.
Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus Christianae fidei excellentiis [with additions by Ludovicus...
Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, [for Alexander Calcedonius], 16 February 1492/93.
A remarkable copy of the first edition of Antonius de Vercellis’ sermons, owned and annotated by three contemporary Franciscans, one of whom, Andrea Alamanni, may be the confessor who administered Machiavelli’s last rites.
£8500
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[PROCESSIONAL, Dominican use.]
Processionarium ordinis fratrum praedicatorum.
Seville, Meinardus Ungut and Stanislaus Polonus, 3 April, 1494.
First edition of the first Spanish book to make extensive use of typeset music printing, one of the finest products of early Spanish typography.
£35000
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[INDULGENCE.]
Letter of Indulgence (in Catalan), incipit ‘A Honor …’, granted by Cardinal Luis de Milá,...
[Lerida, Heinrich Botel, c. 1498.]
Extremely rare incunable indulgence in Catalan granted by Luis de Milá, Bishop of Lérida, in favour of the living (as opposed to the dead, see below) to gather funds for the repair of the old cathedral of Lérida, printed at Lérida, the second city of Catalonia, about one hundred miles...
£34000
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URCEO, Antonio [or Codro].
Hoc Codri volumine haec continentur. Orationes, seu sermones ut ipse appellabat. Epistolae. Silvae....
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
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JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianius, and Lucius FLORUS.
[Epitome historiarum:] Justini historici clarissimi in Trogi Pompei historias...
[Venice, Bartolomeo Zani, 3 February 1503].
A thoroughly annotated copy of a greatly influential compendium of Trogus’s monumental forty-four-book Historia of the world from Babylon to the Augustan era.
£3800
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[JACOBUS DE GRUYTRODE, (attr.)].
Lavacrum conscientie [omnium sacerdotum].
[Colophon:] Cologne, Heinrich Quentell, 1504.
Rare edition of this popular late medieval treatise widely ascribed to the Carthusian monk Jacobus de Gruytrode (c. 1400–1475).
£750
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ZENO of Verona, Saint.
In presenti opusculo infrascripta continentur. Sermones luculentissimi … Omelie & admonitiones...
Venice, Giacomo Penzio for Benedetto Fontana, 24 January 1508.
Rare first edition of the sermons of Zeno of Verona, edited by Guarino and published here along with the sermons of Caesarius of Arles and Origen, and other homiletic material, especially Marian.
£1500