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. 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

  2. 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

  3. [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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. [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

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. KERKHERDERE, Jan Gerard.

    De situ Paradisi Terrestris ... Praecedit... conatus novus de Cepha reprehenso ex Galatarum secundo capite.

    Leuven, Martin van Overbeke, 1729.

    First edition. Kerkherdere addresses the question of the location of the Garden of Eden, the earthly Paradise, accompanying his conjecture with a map engraved by P.E. Boultats of Antwerp; the perusal of various sources, geographical studies and toponymic considerations lead the author, an Imperial...

    £550

  11. 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

  12. LANGEAC, Charlotte-Christine-Antoinette de Lénoncourt, Marquise de.

    A collection of letters relating to her business and...

    France, September 1783 - September 1784.

    A remarkable and revealing collection of letters providing a window onto the business and personal affairs of Charlotte-Christine-Antoinette de Lénoncourt, Marquise de Langeac, many dictated by her to a Dominican nun named Sister Eleonore.

    £1250

  13. LA SERRE, Jean-Puget de.

    Grab-Statt der weltlichen Ergötzlichkeiten, einstens in Französischer Sprache zubereitet … anjetzt...

    Regensburg, Johann Conrad Peetz und Bader, 1738.

    First edition in German of Tombeau des délices du monde, by the French dramatist and historian Jean-Puget de la Serre (1594–1665).

    £375

  14. LE CLERC, Sébastien, the Elder. 

    Figures de la passion D. N. S. Iesus Christ presentées à Madame Madame de Maintenon, par...

    Paris, chez G. Audran graveur ordinaire du Roy, [early 1700s]. 

    Scarce later issue of this wonderful suite of engravings depicting the Passion of Christ by the noted engraver Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714), running from Christ’s arrival in the Garden of Olives to the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles. 

    £675

  15. LE GROS, Nicolas.

    Meditations sur les epistres Catholiques de S. Jacques, S. Pierre, et St. Jean. Avec le texte Latin et François...

    Paris, chez Savoye, 1754.

    First edition of this extensive work of meditations by the Jansenist Nicolas Le Gros (1675–1751), who had been a canon of Rheims Cathedral but became an exile in Holland and a member of the schismatic Church of Utrecht. A set of meditations just on the epistles of St. Peter had been published in 1736....

    £1250

  16. LELAND, John.

    The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the Years 1535-1543. Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, with a Foreword by Thomas...

    London, Centaur Press Ltd, 1964.

    The authoritative edition of Leland’s Itinerary, a monument of English bibliography and antiquarian research. The Itinerary comprises the notes of the antiquary John Leland (c. 1503–1552) on his journeys through England and Wales during the dissolution of the monasteries. According...

    £75

  17. LELAND, John.

    The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the Years 1535-1543. Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, with a Foreword by Thomas...

    London, Centaur Press Ltd, 1964.

    The authoritative edition of Leland’s Itinerary, a monument of English bibliography and antiquarian research. The Itinerary comprises the notes of the antiquary John Leland (c. 1503–1552) on his journeys through England and Wales during the dissolution of the monasteries. According...

    £50

  18. LEO I, Pope. 

    Opera D. Leonis magni, romani pontificis, eius nominis primi.  Per canonicos regulares sancti Martini oppidi et...

    Antwerp, Philippus Nutius, 1583. 

    An attractive sammelband collecting the sermons and correspondence of Pope Leo I and a very rare work on the Mass by the Italian jurist Michele Timoteo (d. 1614), from the celebrated library of Buxheim Charterhouse. 

    £750

  19. LIPPOMANO, Luigi. 

    Espositioni volgare del reveren. M. Luigi Lippomano vescovo di Modone, et coadiutore di Bergamo, sopra il...

    Venice, Girolamo Scoto, 1541.

    First edition of this treatise on the Credo, on the Pater Noster, and on Charity by Luigi Lippomano (1496–1559), dedicated to Pope Paul III and to ‘the venerable converted sisters’ of Rome and Bergamo. 

    £450

  20. LIVY, Titus. 

    T. Livii Patauini […] ex XIIII Decadibus Historiae Romanae ab Urbe condita, Decades, prima, tertia, quarta,...

    Paris, [Michel Vascosan for] Oudin Petit, 1543 [– Michel Vascosan for himself and Oudin Petit, 1542]. 

    A much-praised edition of Livy’s History, reprinting Vascosan’s 1535 edition and including the philological corpus on Livy by the most established humanists of the time: Rhenanus, Gelenius, Grynaeus, Glareanus, Badius Ascensius, Valla, and Sabellico. 

    £3800