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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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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[ANTIPHONAL.]
Very large historiated initial ‘H’, probably for the antiphon Hodie nata est beata virgo Maria for the Nativity...
Italy (Siena), c. 1300.
A very fine large initial painted in a style associated with the Master of the Gradual of Cortona, an artist named for a Franciscan gradual produced c. 1290 for the church of San Francesco in Cortona (now Vatican City, BAV, MS Ross. 612).
£6750
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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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[ANTIPHONAL.]
Antiphonal, with neumes, containing music for the blessing of the Paschal Candle on Holy Saturday.
Southern Germany or Bohemia, mid-fifteenth 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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[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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CORRADO III TRINCI, Lord of Foligno.
Letter in his name in Italian to Cipriano, ‘lieutenant of the territory of Trevi’,...
Foligno, 9 February, no year but c. 1430s.
The family of the Trinci ruled over Foligno, first as independent princes and then as vicars of the church from 1305 to 1439. The sender of the present letter is probably the third Corrado, last of the dynasty, ‘detested for his cruelty’ (Litta, Celebri famiglie Italiane vol. I fasc. 6,...
£600
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[MISSAL.]
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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BORSO D’ESTE, Duke of Modena, Duke of Ferrara.
Letter in his name in Italian, addressed to Feltrino Boiardo.
Modena, 3 July 1453.
A letter from early in Borso d’Este’s rule as first Duke of Modena. It is addressed to the condottiero Feltrino Boiardo, instructing him to raise taxes from the territories of Casalgrande, Dinazzano and Montebabbio for the support of a brigade of men-at-arms.
£750
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[HOSPICE SAINT-NICOLAS, METZ.]
Deed granting land to the hospice.
Metz, 5 May 1464.
A significant document recording the grant of agricultural land in 1464 to the Hospice of Saint-Nicolas, the oldest hospital in Metz, in northeast France, issued during the reign of Louis XI and in the final year of the papacy of Pius II.
£450
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LACTANTIUS.
Opera.
[Venice,] Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.
Magnificent incunable edition of the works of Lactantius, a fine product of the first Venetian press, established in 1469 by Johannes de Spira and continued by his brother Vindelinus from 1470 until 1473. This was the fifth impression of the works of Lactantius, the hugely successful North African...
£25000
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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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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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[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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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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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
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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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[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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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
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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, from the library of Christian VI (1699–1746), King of Denmark and Norway, and containing an early yet intriguing reference to the New World.
£4500