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MILL, John Stuart; Nakamura MASANAO, translator.
自由之理. On Liberty.
Suruga (i.e. Shizuoka), [Kihira Ken’ichiro,] 1871 [i.e. 1872].
First Japanese translation of Mill’s On Liberty, published twelve years after the first English edition, and very popular in Japan as a result of this translation by the philosopher and educator Nakamura Masanao (1832–1891).
£2500
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SMITH, Albert.
A large archive of printed and manuscript material, including drafts of shows and lectures, including portions of...
[1820s to 1860s.]
Albert Richard Smith (1816–1860) trained as a surgeon but shortly afterwards turned to the world of letters, becoming a regular contributor to Bentley’s Miscellany and Punch; he adapted works by his friend Dickens for the theatre and edited The Man in the Moon (1847–9). ‘During...
£15000
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BARCLAY, Alexander.
Part-printed commission as Comptroller of Customs in Philadelphia.
5 August, 1749.
After a dissolute youth and a period in the army, Alexander Barclay (1711–1771) had been made Comptroller of Customs at Philadelphia in 1749, a position almost certainly engineered by his father David Barclay (1682–1769) – it required a significant sum (£500) advanced in security. David Barclay,...
£850
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[GRADUAL.]
Vast historiated initial ‘A’ cut from a Gradual.
Italy (Umbria), end of thirteenth century.
A spectacular initial on the scale of a small panel painting. The verso includes the text ‘[neque] irrideant me inimici mei […] [un]iversi qui te expectant’ and the versicle ‘Vias tuas domine de[monstras]’, indicating that the initial would have introduced the introit ‘Ad te levavi...
£20000
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ANGELI, Alessandro degli.
In astrologos coniectores libri quinque … Nunc primum prodit [sic] in lucem. Cum indicibus pernecessariis,...
Lyons, Horace Cardon, 1615.
First edition of this thorough attack on astrology by degli Angeli (1542–1620), head of the Jesuit college at Rome, this copy with a presentation inscription by the Lyons publisher and printer Horace Cardon (1566–1641).
£1600
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AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona].
Summa de potestate ecclesiastica.
Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473.
First edition of this highly important and influential magnum opus of political theory, a defence of papal supremacy.
£22500
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BOETHIUS, Severinus.
[De consolatione] Duplex commentatio ex integro reposita atque recognita in Boetium.
[Lyons, Claude Davost for Simon Vincent, 1506.]
Annotated copy of a scarce edition of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae edited and commented on by Jocodus Badius Ascensius, with another commentary once attributed to Thomas Aquinas. The annotations, contemporary with the book, are carried out by two hands, one in brown and one...
£7000
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[BOUCHET, Jean.]
Les triu[m]phes de la noble et amoureuse dame, et l’art de honnestement aymer, compose par le Traverseur des...
Paris, Estienne Caveiller for Pierre Sergent, 6 June 1539.
Unrecorded issue of Jean Bouchet’s contemplative work of moral theology in prose and verse explicitly intended for a female readership, following the personified Soul in dialogue with several virtues as she attempts to combat the forces of earthly temptation with the power of divine grace.
£4500
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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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DEZA, Diego de.
In defensio[n]es Sancti Thomae ab impugnationibus magistri Nicholai Magistrique Mathie.
Seville, Meinardus Ungut and Stanislaus Polonus, 4 February 1491.
First edition, institutionally rare and the only copy to have appeared at auction for at least the last half century, of the influential main work of theologian Diego de Deza y Tavera (1444–1523), a towering figure in the Spanish Renaissance.
£50000
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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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DUNS SCOTUS, John.
Questiones quodlibetales ex quattuor Sententiarum voluminibus … nunc prime revise … a … Antonio de Fantis.
Pavia, Giacomo Pocatela, 1517.
Uncommon Pavia-printed edition of Duns Scotus’s Quaestiones on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, edited by the Padua-based theologian Antonio de Fantis and first published two years earlier.
£2500
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ISIDORE OF SEVILLE.
Etymologiae [and] De summo bono.
Venice, Peter Löslein, 1483.
Fourth edition of Isidore’s enormously influential Etymologiae, here with the third appearance in print of the De summo bono.
£4500
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[KASIC, Bartol, or Bartholomaeus CASSIUS.]
Rituale Romanum Urbani VIII Pont. max. Iussu editum illyrica lingua.
Rome, Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, 1640.
First edition, rare especially as complete with both parts as here, of the first Roman Missal in Croatian, an important association copy from the library of a Prefect of Studies of the Propaganda Fide.
£5000
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LANCINA, Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de.
Historia de las reboluciones del Senado de Messina, que ofrece al sacro, Catolico, real nombre...
Madrid, Por Julian de Paredes, impressor de libros, en la Plaçuela del Angel, 1692.
First and only edition of this rare account of the anti-Spanish revolt of Messina, in Sicily, which broke out in 1674 and lasted until 1678, by Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de Lancina (c. 1649–1703). Lancina, a judge of the Grand Court of the Vicaria, the highest criminal court of the Kingdom of...
£2500
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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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PATRICIUS, Franciscus (Croatian: Franjo Petriš or Frane Petrić, Italian: Francesco Patrizi).
Della poetica...
Ferrara, Vittorio Baldini, 1586.
First edition, a copy with contemporary provenance, of a major Renaissance rejection of Aristotelian literary aesthetics.
£1250
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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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SOONE, William, and Pomponius MELA.
Gulielmi Sooni Vantesdeni Auditor, sive Pomponius Mela disputator, De situ orbis.
Cologne, Johann Birckman, 1572.
First edition of English jurist and cartographer William Soone’s notes on Pomponius Mela’s geography, presented in the form of an imaginary dialogue between the two authors.
£1750
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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