Recent Acquisitions
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[CANONS REGULAR OF THE LATERAN.]
Regula et constitutiones Canonicorum Regularium congregationis S. Salvatoris, Ordinis Sancti...
Rome, apud Paulum Bladum, 1592.
The most complete edition, rare, of the Rule and Constitutions of the Order of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine of the Congregation of the Most Holy Saviour, printed on vellum, with two seemingly unrecorded cancels, from the library of a former Abbot General of the Order.
£25000
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DU HALDE, Jean-Baptiste.
A Description of the Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary, together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet,...
London, T. Gardner for Edward Cave, 1738 [– 1741].
The first complete English translation of Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s Description géographique … de l’Empire de la Chine (1735), the ‘Bible of European sinophilia’ (Löwenstein).
£15000
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SICARDO, José.
Christiandad del Japon, y dilatada persecucion que padecio. Memorias sacras, de los martyres de las ilustres religiones...
Madrid, Francisco Sanz, 1698.
Rare first edition of this important and comprehensive account of Christian missions to Japan by the Spanish Augustinian José Sicardo (1643–1715).
£15000
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PONTANO, Giovanni.
De rebus coelestibus.
Naples, ‘ex officina Sigismundi Mayr Germani : summo ingenio artificis Ioannetto Salodio : Antonio Vuerengrundt : Evangelista Papiensi :...
First editions of three works on cosmology, ethics, and astrology by the Neapolitan humanist, poet, and polymath Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), an important sammelband from the celebrated library of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), professor of natural philosophy and natural history at the University...
£11000
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MACROBIUS, Ambrosius Theodosius.
Somnium Scipionis ex Ciceronis libro De republica excerptum; Macrobii … primi diei Saturnaliorum...
Venice, Filippo Pinzi, 29 October 1500.
Sixth and last incunable edition of Macrobius, illustrated with a world map, with extensive early marginalia.
£9500
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STRICKLAND, Hugh Edwin, and A.
G. MELVILLE. The Dodo and its Kindred; or, the History, Affinities and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire...
London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve … 1848.
A fine family copy of the first scientific monograph on the dodo, and a related flightless bird, the Rodrigues solitaire.
£7500
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[MONTEMAYOR, Jorge de, and Gaspar GIL POLO.]
The Troublesome and Hard Adventures in Love. Lively setting forth, the Feavers, the...
London, Printed by B. Alsop ... 1652 [but 1651].
The rare second edition of a text of 1594 known in a single imperfect copy (STC 153.3).
£7500
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TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.
Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.
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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GUIGNES, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de.
Voyages à Peking, Manille et l’Île de France, faits dans l’intervalle des années 1784...
Paris, l’Imprimerie Impériale, 1808.
First edition, the complete four-volume set, containing a survey of Chinese history and customs, a narrative of the author’s journey to Beijing as part of the Dutch East India embassy in 1794–5, and a magnificent folio atlas featuring 97 beautiful illustrations and intricate maps.
£6500
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MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.
Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. To...
London, T. Jefferys, 1764.
Second edition (first 1761) of this key work devoted to discoveries in northeastern Asia and northwestern America, including the Bering Strait, published by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to George III, ‘remembered in particular for some of the most important eighteenth-century maps of the Americas’...
£6500
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HELMAN, Isidore-Stanislas-Henri.
Faits mémorables des empereurs de la Chine, tirés des annales Chinoises, dédiés à Madame,...
Paris, chez l’auteur … et chez M. Ponce, [1788].
Two handsome engraved works by the French engraver and printseller Helman (1743–1806/9), here on uncut sheets, the first depicting scenes from Chinese history, the second episodes in the life of Confucius (Kong Fuzi).
£6000
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GELLIUS, Aulus.
Noctium Atticarum commentaria per Bonfinem Asculanum summa nuper diligentia et studio recognita.
Venice, Giovanni Tacuino, 1517.
Second edition of Gellius’s opus with the commentary of philologist Matteo Bonfini (1441–1517), annotated throughout by a contemporary reader whose corrections and comments include references to the lectures of Paolo Bombasi as cited by Erasmus in the 1508 edition of the Adagia.
£5500
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NIEUHOF, Jan, and Georg HORN (translator).
Legatio Batavica ad magnum Tartariae chamum Sungteium, modernum Sinae...
Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1668.
First edition in Latin, beautifully illustrated, of Nieuhof’s account of his travels in China between 1655 and 1657, one of the most important early modern non-Jesuit studies.
£5000
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SENECA, Lucius Annaeus.
L. Annei Senecae opera, et ad dicendi facultatem, et ad bene vivendu[m] utilissima, per Des. Erasmum Roterod....
Basel, ‘in officina Frobeniana’, 1529 [(colophon:) Basel, Johann Herwagen, March 1537].
Second Erasmus edition of the moral essays and letters of Seneca, owned and annotated by Ludovicus Carinus (d. 1569), friend and later foe of Erasmus himself.
£5000
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PLINY the Elder.
Historia mundi, multo quam antehac unquam prodiit emaculatius [...] annotationibus eruditorum hominum...
Basel, Johann Froben, March 1525.
First Froben edition of Pliny’s encyclopaedia, with a prologue by Erasmus and Hermolaus Barbarus’s commentary, given to Erasmus’s correspondent Bartholomaeus Latomus by his student and future patron, Johann Ludwig von Hagen.
£4800
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[WALLPAPER.]
A substantial album of printed wallpaper samples.
France, 1923–24.
A delightful sample album of French wallpapers printed by a variety of stencil, block and lithographic methods, on papers plain, coloured, textured, and silked.
£4750
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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.
£4500
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SOLVYNS, François Baltazard.
The Costume of Hindostan, elucidated by sixty coloured engravings; with descriptions in English and...
London, W. Bulmer and Co. for Edward Orme, 1804 [–1805].
First edition in book form (originally issued in parts) of this superb record of the people of Bengal by the Flemish painter and ethnographer Solvyns (1760–1824), issued by the engraver and publisher Edward Orme (1775–1848).
£4500
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[THOMAS À KEMPIS.]
Messer Giovanni Gerson. Utile & divota operetta della imitatione di Giesu Xpo …
Florence, Piero Pacini da Pescia, 16 April 1505.
Scarce edition of an anonymous Italian translation of the Imitatio Christi, with a striking woodcut of Christ to the title.
£4000
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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