Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller 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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NEPOS, Cornelius; Andreas SCHOTT, editor.
Opera quae quidem extant … Nunc denuo doctorum hominum accessionibus locupletata.
Frankfurt, Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, [1608–] 1609.
First edition thus, edited by Andreas Schott (1552–1629), with his extensive commentary alongside that of previous editors including Denys Lambin, from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun.
£850
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NEWTON, Isaac.
Opuscula Mathematica, philosophica et philologica. Collegit partimque Latine vertit ac recensuit Joh. Castillioneus...
Lausanne and Geneva, Bousquet & soc., 1744.
First edition of Newton’s collected works, a major tool in the dissemination of Newton’s science and a major publication in the history of science. The edition, edited and introduced by the Pisa alumnus Giovanni Salvemini da Castiglione, contains twenty-six works (which, while having appeared...
£3500
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NICOLAUS of Damascus, and Niels KRAG (editor).
Ex Nicolai Damasceni universali historia seu de moribus gentium...
[Geneva or Heidelberg,] Pierre de Saint-André, 1593.
First edition of Krag’s translation of Nicolaus of Damascus’s observations on the customs of the peoples of the ancient world. The observations on forty ancient peoples (among them the Iberians, Celts, Phrygians, Assyrians, and Ethiopians) are extracted from the Universal History...
£300
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NIXON, Howard M.
Broxbourne Library: Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth Century … with an...
London, Maggs Brothers for the Broxbourne Library, 1956.
First edition, one of three hundred copies, of Howard Nixon’s richly illustrated catalogue of the bindings in the library of Albert Ehrman.
£875
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[ORDE, John Powlett.]
A collection of 111 original compositions in Latin (and occasionally Greek) verse and prose.
Eton, 1818–1820.
A delightful insight into classical education at Eton, where until the mid-nineteenth century Greek and Latin were the only official classroom subjects, and Latin composition was considered a key accomplishment. Subjects covered here include ‘The Pigeon’ (5 May 1818), ‘Instruction’ (21...
£1750
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ORIBASIUS.
Commentaria in Aphorismos Hippocratis … Ioannis Guinterij Andernaciis medici industria velut e profundissimis tenebris...
Paris, Simon de Colines, 1533.
First edition of this commentary on Hippocrates, bound with a richly annotated copy of Galen’s works in the translation by Thomas Linacre.
£1750
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[ORPHIC POEMS.]
Ορφεως αργοναυτικα υμνοι και περι λιθων. Orphei Argonautica hymni et de lapidibus...
Utrecht, Willem van de Water, 1689.
First Eschenbach edition, presenting the ‘Argonautica Orphica’, an anonymous fourth-century Greek epic probably based on the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, which had been rediscovered in the fifteenth century by Constantine Lascaris, alongside the Orphic Hymns and the Lithica,...
£325
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OVID.
P. Ovidii Nasonis operum …
Leiden, [Bonaventure & Abraham] Elzevir, 1629.
First Elzevir edition, newly edited by Daniel Heinsius based on the Plantin edition of 1578.
£500
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OVIDIUS Naso, Publius, and Pedro Sánchez de VIANA, translator and commentator.
Las transformaciones.
Valladolid, Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1589.
First edition, a copy of notable provenance, of perhaps the most successful early Spanish translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, by Pedro Sánchez de Viana (c. 1545–1619), a physician by training, published along with his substantial commentary.
£6000
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OVID; [Philipp GUNDEL, editor].
Fastorum libri sex diligentissime recogniti. Addito calendario Romano venerandae vetustatis,...
[(Colophon:) Vienna, Hieronymus Vietor and Johann Singriener for Leonhard Alantsee, 3 October 1513.]
First and only editions, very rare, of two post-incunable Ovid recensions by Philipp Gundel, curiously bound in a strikingly archaic likely eighteenth-century binding.
£3500
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PACIFICUS, Sacerdos.
Two letters signed regarding religious paintings.
[?Hong Kong, 1846.]
Two interesting letters referring to paintings of St Anthony, St John the Baptist, and Mary, and their display in a chapel so that the congregation might admire them.
£1100
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PAPINI, Roberto.
Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.
Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.
First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, compiled by the Italian art historian Roberto Papini (1883–1957), director of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan and later...
£300
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PAULUS DE CASTRO.
Super primo, secundo et tertio libro Codicis.
Venice, [Andreas Torresanus, de Asula], 30 June 1487.
Rare second edition of Paulus de Castro’s commentary on the first three books of the Codex of Justinian, from the library of Dürer’s closest friend Willibald Pirckheimer.
£12500
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PEACOCK, Thomas Love.
Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian Spell. A Poem.
London, T. Hookham, Jun., and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1818.
First edition of Peacock’s last and most ambitious poem, inspired by his enthusiasm for Greek poetry in the company of Shelley. A mythological narrative set in ancient Thessaly, Rhododaphne tells the story of the shepherd boy Anthemion, in love with the mortal girl Calliroë, and of the...
£750
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PEPE, Stefano.
[Half-title: ‘Il Cappuccino d’Este del Padre Pepe’] ‘Historia Della Vita, e della Morte, et Attioni...
[Italy, second half of the seventeenth century.]
A seemingly unpublished life of Alfonso III d’Este, Duke of Modena, who renounced his title to become a Capuchin friar.
£1250
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PEROTTI, Niccolò.
In hoc volumine habentur haec. Cornucopiae, sive linguae latinae co[m]mentarii diligentissime recogniti, atq[ue]...
Toscolano, Alessandro Paganini, April 1522.
Handsome edition of the masterful Cornucopiae of the Italian humanist and grammarian Niccolò Perotti (1429–1480), printed in Alessandro Paganini’s distinctive small italic type.
£950
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PEROTTO, Niccolò, and Benedetto BRUGNOLO, editor.
Cornucopi[a]e nuper emendatum a domino Benedicto Brugnolo: ac...
[Milan], Giovanni Giacomo and brothers da Legnano [for Giovanni Angelo Scinzenzeler, 28 October 1510 (colophon)].
Scarce Milanese edition of Perotto’s Cornucopiae, an encyclopaedic commentary to the first book of Martial’s epigrams, here with a curious combination of woodcut initials and capital spaces with guide letters.
£1750
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PERSIUS; [Thomas BREWSTER, translator].
The Satires of Persius translated into English Verse; with some occasional Notes;...
London, Printed for A. Millar, 1751.
Second edition, with the addition of Bayle’s life of Persius, with manuscript corrections.
£375
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PERUCCI, Francesco.
Pompe funebri di tutte le nationi del mondo, raccolte dale storie sagre et profane.
Verona, Francesco Rossi, 1639.
First edition of Perucci’s account of the funeral practices of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, extensively illustrated with engravings copied in reverse from Porcacchi’s 1574 Funerali antichi di diversi popoli, et nationi, inscribed by a Scottish antiquary and documented book collector....
£975
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PETRINI, Giovanni.
Sixteen copper engravings depicting scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary.
[Rome, late eighteenth century.]
An attractive volume containing sixteen engravings by Giovanni Petrini of scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, including renderings of famous paintings by the likes of Correggio, Poussin, Titian, Raphael, and Rubens.
£1750