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.

 
  1. TOMPSON, John, editor.

    English Miscellanies consisting of various Pieces of Divinity, Morals, Politicks, Philosophy and History;...

    Gottingen by Abram. Vandenhoeck, Printer and Bookseller to the University 1746.

    Second edition, revised, of John Tompson’s important English Miscellanies, expanded to almost twice the size of the first edition, including up-to-date content published since 1737.

    £800

  2. TUCKER, Josiah.

    Betydande frågor om handelen, wid tilfålle af de motsäjelser, som skedde emot den sista billen, om utlänningars...

    Stockholm, Jon. G. Langes [colophon: N. v. Oelreich], 1763.

    First Swedish edition, scarce, of this history on the treatment of foreign residents in Britain, Reflections on the Expediency of a Law for the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants (1751–1752). This book comprises only the main body of Part II (1752), ‘Important Queries occasioned by The Rejection...

    £250

  3. TURNER, Sharon.

    The sacred history of the world, as displayed in the creation and subsequent events to the deluge. Attempted to...

    London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1832 [– 1834; – 1837].

    First edition, each volume with a presentation letter from the author (dated 1 March 1832, 12 December 1834, and 27 March 1837 respectively) to the classical scholar Thomas Gaisford.

    £500

  4. 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

  5. VALERIUS Maximus; Stephanus PIGHIUS and Justus LIPSIUS (editors). 

    Dictorum factorumque memorabilium libri IX, infinitis...

    Leiden, Franciscus Raphelengius ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1594. 

    Fourth Plantin edition of Valerius Maximus’s compendium of anecdotes, one of the most popular Classical texts and an insightful source on Roman life.  Compiled in the early first century, the nine books of Facta et dicta memorabilia (‘Memorable deeds and sayings’) comprise anecdotes...

    £350

  6. VIRGIL Maro, Publius, and Giovanni Andrea dell’ANGUILLARA (trans.). 

    Il primo libro della Eneida di Vergilio,...

    Padua, Gratioso Perchacino, 1564. 

    First edition of the first book of Anguillara’s verse translation of the Aeneid, a copy printed on strong paper and inscribed by the author.  The humanist, poet, and successful translator of Ovid Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara (1517–1572) undertook to translate into Italian ottava...

    £2500

  7. [VIRGIL.]  RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE). 

    ...

    Paris, André Wechel, 1564. 

    Second editions of Ramus’s extensive commentaries on Virgil’s two poems on country life, written in reaction to the dry doctrines of several French schools who based their teaching of nature on Aristotle’s Physics.  Ramus wanted to keep in contact with the concrete realities of nature...

    £950

  8. VITRUVIUS Pollio, and Sextus Julius FRONTINUS. 

    M. Vitruvii de architectura libri decem nuper maxima diligentia castigati...

    Florence, heirs of Filippo Giunta, 27 October 1522. 

    Attractive pocket-sized Giunta edition of Vitruvius’s De Architectura, illustrated with numerous woodcuts, together with Frontinus’ work on the aqueducts of Rome, the latter annotated by the Trevisan bibliophile Giovanni Antonio Oliva (1515–1590). 

    £5500

  9. WATTS, Isaac. 

    Psalms of David imitated in the Language of the New Testament … 

    Birmingham, Printed & sold by Knott and Lloyd. 1806. 

    Unrecorded Birmingham editions of Watts’s Hymns (first 1707) and Psalms (first 1719), both many times reprinted, especially in America.  The portrait of Watts was printed especially for this edition and is dated 10 October 1806. 

    £300

  10. [WESLEY, John (editor).]

    Excerpta ex Ovidio, Virgilio, Horatio, Juvenali, Persio, et Martiali: in Usum Juventutis Christianæ....

    Bristoliæ: Typis F. Farley … 1749.

    First edition of one of the textbooks that Wesley compiled for the school that he founded at Kingswood, Bristol, in 1748. Finding contemporary textbooks inadequate, he published an astonishing number of works for his pupils – grammars, editions of classics, and other introductions to learning....

    £1100

  11. WILSON, David (editor).

    A Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, &c. in three Parts … 

    [Edinburgh:] Sold by the Editor at his House … and by J. Hamilton, Music Seller … [c.1800?].

    Second(?), expanded edition of this collection of (mostly) hymn tunes scored for treble, tenor, and bass. Though for most hymns the tunes only are printed, there are words for Cowper’s ‘Hark, my Soul!’ and one other, and at the end are the words and tunes for seven secular catches (in three...

    £500

  12. [WITTENBERG, University of]. 

    Tomus primus disputationum theologicarum, in academia Wittebergensi ab anno 1600 usq[ue] ad 1606...

    Wittenberg, Kaspar Heyden, 1625.

    A collection of twenty-eight disputations held at the University of Wittenberg by Lutheran theologians and their students between 1600 and 1611.  The disputations cover much ground, including the Eucharist, Church councils, canonical scripture, predestination, original sin, Christ’s ascension,...

    £950

  13. XENOPHON.

    De Cyri regis Persarum vita atque disciplina, libri VIII.

    Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1572.

    First edition of Joachim Camerarius’ Latin translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a partly fictional work on the life and education of Cyrus the Great which served as a model for medieval and renaissance mirrors of princes, including Machiavelli’s Il Principe. A beautiful...

    £875

  14. XENOPHON, and Lodovico DOMENICHI (translator). 

    L’opere morali di Xenophonte tradotte per M. Lodovico Domenichi. 

    Venice, Gabriel Giolito de Ferrari, 1547. 

    First edition of the translation of the moral works of Xenophon by the Italian poet and writer Lodovico Domenichi (1515–1564), containing the first Italian versions of the Spartan Polity and Agesilaus, and of the Socratic dialogues, the Memorabilia, Apologia, Hiero,...

    £500

  15. ZAMPELIOS, Spiridion.

    Βυζαντιναι Μελεται [Byzantine Studies]...

    Athens, Christos Nikolaidos, 1857.

    First edition. Spyros Zampelios was a champion of the continuity theory in the history of the Greek nation in the crucial decades of the mid nineteenth century, and the first Greek historian to adopt a tripartite examination of historical periods, divided into ancient, medieval and modern Hellenism....

    £350

  16. 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.

    £2000

  17. ZOSIMUS. 

    Ιστοριας νεας βιβλοι ἑξ …  Historiae novae libri sex, notis illustrate. 

    Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre, 1679. 

    First Oxford edition of this history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to the year 410, by the fifth-century Greek historian Zosimus.  The work is an important source particularly for the period 395-410 and its pagan author attributes Rome’s decline to its embrace of Christianity and rejection...

    £400