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. HORACE. 

    Opera omnia. 

    Paris, [Didot fils for] A. Mesnier, 1828. 

    A scarce miniature edition of Horace’s works, printed by Didot fils with type cut by Henri Didot. 

    £400

  2. HORACE.

    Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera cum novo commentario ad modum Joannis Bond.

    Paris, Didot, 1855.

    The deluxe issue of Didot’s Horace, a fine early photographically-illustrated work, complete with all the photographic plates, headpieces and maps, and printed on fine paper.

    £900

  3. HORACE; James TATE (editor). 

    Horatius restitutus: or the books of Horace arranged in chronological order according...

    Smith for J. & J.J. Deighton, 1832. 

    First edition of this attempt to arrange the books of Horace in chronological order by the classical scholar and master of Richmond School, James Tate (1771–1843), this copy presented by him to Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855), classicist, Dean of Christ Church Oxford, Regius Professor of Greek,...

    £150

  4. [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

  5. HOSPINIAN, Rudolf. 

    Historia Jesuitica.  Hoc est, de origine, regulis, constitutionibus, privilegiis, incrementis, progressu...

    Zurich, Johannes Rudolph Wolf, 1670. 

    Second edition of Hospinian’s vast and vitriolic attack on the Jesuits, first published in 1619 (also in Zurich by Wolf); both editions are scarce. 

    £800

  6. [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

  7. [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

  8. [INDULGENCES.] 

    Indulgencias concedidas a los congregantes de la inmaculada concepcion de Maria SS baxo el titulo de la corona...

    [Barcelona, 1793.] 

    Very rare broadside detailing the indulgences granted to members, of both sexes, of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception, established under the title of the Crown of the Seven Joys of the Virgin at the Franciscan convent in Barcelona.  In 1792, Pope Pius VI had formerly linked the Congregation...

    £175

  9. ISIDORUS A CRUCE. 

    Devoti admodum et consolatione pleni confessionales Psalmi septem in quibus peccator divinam pro criminibus...

    Dillingen, Johann Caspar Bencard, 1675. 

    Rare illustrated edition of this work devoted to confession and seeking forgiveness for sins by Isidorus a Cruce (d. 1681), abbot of St Charles the Great in Prague. 

    £450

  10. ISOCRATES.

    Orationes et epistolae gravitatis et suavitatis plenae de Greco in Latinum pridem conversae, nunc recognitae, per Hieronymu[m]...

    Paris, Michel de Vascosan, 1553.

    A handsome Latin edition of twenty-one works by the Athenian orator Isocrates whose work was highly influential on later education, oratory and writing. Isocrates (436–338 BC) studied under Socrates and the sophists, before establishing a famous school of rhetoric which attracted pupils from...

    £750

  11. [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

  12. JACOBUS MEDIOLANENSIS. 

    Stimulus divini amoris Sancti Bonaventurae. 

    Venice, Stefano Nicolini da Sabbio, April 1535. 

    Rare edition of the Stimulus divini amoris, a popular medieval devotional treatise long attributed to St Bonaventure but in fact composed by the thirteenth-century Franciscan Giacomo da Milano. 

    £550

  13. JEROME, Saint.

    Epistolae Sancti Hieronymi.

    Venice, Johannes Rubeus Vercellensis, 7 January and 12 July 1496.

    Venetian incunable edition of Jerome’s epistles, one of the most famous collections of letters in Latin literature, alongside those of Cicero, Seneca and Pliny, this copy with interesting marginal annotations.

    £3500

  14. JOHN OF FREIBURG.

    Summa confessorum [and] Tractatus de instructione confessorum, in Latin

    France, mid-fourteenth century.

    From a large and well-decorated manuscript containing the Dominican theologian John of Freiburg’s massive Summa confessorum (written in 1297–8) and his smaller Tractatus de instructione confessorum (also known as the Confessionale and written shortly after the Summa)....

    £1500

  15. 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

  16. JUVENAL.

    The Satires … translated: with explanatory and classical Notes, relating to the Laws and Customs of the Greeks and Romans …

    London: Printed for J. Nicholson, in Cambridge; and sold by S. Crowder … and J. and F. Rivington … 1777.

    Third edition of this parallel-text translation edited by Thomas Sheridan, first published 1739.

    £1250

  17. JUVENAL, Decimus Junius.

    Argumenta Satyrarum Iuvenalis per Antonimu [sic] Mancinellum. Cu[m] quattuor co[m]me[n]tariis … Sebastianus...

    [(Colophon:) Milan, Giovanni Angelo Scinzenzeler for Giovanni da Legnano, 17 August 1501.]

    Rare edition of Juvenal’s Satires with commentary by the Italian humanists Antonio Mancinelli, Domizio Calderini, Giorgio Merula, and Giorgio Valla, edited by the Greek scholar Sebastianus Ducius, with extensive early annotations and corrections to both the text and commentary.

    £5000

  18. [KAMES, Henry HOME, Lord].

    Grundsaetze der Kritik, aus dem Englischen übersetzt, von Joh. Nikolaus Meinhard.

    Vienna, Johann Thomas Edlen von Trattnern, 1785-6.

    A Viennese reprint of the first German translation of the Elements of criticism, by Meinhard with the approval of Lessing, first issued in 1763-66, instrumental in the dissemination and reception of Kames’s aesthetic theories in Germany and a seminal publication in the formation of pre-Romantic aesthetics.

    £250

  19. KARG, Stanislaus (pr.), Celso EISENMAN and Eccard HOCHENBAUM (resp.).

    Fur theologicè examinatus, & in judicio sacramentali ad...

    Munich, Johann Lucas Straub, 1712.

    Only edition, rare, of this dissertation on the theological and legal aspects of theft and restitution, presented to the distinguished canon lawyer, and author of the monumental Manuale theologico-canonico-legale practicum, Stanislaus Karg. Divided into four sections, the work examines the nature of...

    £275

  20. KELLER, Martialis.

    Neueröffnete Himmels-Schule, in welcher aus zwölf, als so vielen Theilen vorgesetzten Lehrpunkten verschiedene...

    Augsburg, Matthäus Riegers, 1793.

    Rare later edition of this educational and devotional work by the Bavarian Benedictine Martialis Keller, containing prayers, exercises, and points of doctrine, and illustrated with attractive engravings, this copy in a contemporary local binding.

    £500