Continental

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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. ERASMUS, Desiderius.

    Collectanea adagiorum.

    [(Colophon:) Strasbourg, Matthias Schürer, 1519.]

    Intensely annotated copy of a lifetime edition of Erasmus’ repository of Greek and Latin proverbs. The first version of the Adagia, containing about eight hundred maxims, had been published in 1500. Erasmus continued to add to his thesaurus for over thirty years, the success of this...

    £5850

  2. [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

  3. 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

  4. TERENCE.

    Comediae sex. A M. Anto. Mureto locis prope innumeris suo nitore restitutae …

    Carmagnola, Marcantonio Bellone, 1590.

    A rare provincial printing of a school edition the plays of Terence, printed in the small town of Carmagnola in Piedmont, which had become part of the Duchy of Savoy only two years earlier, after almost half a century under French domination. The text is taken from earlier printings of Marc Antoine...

    £375

  5. CALMET, Antoine Augustin.

    Commentaire litteral sur tous les livres de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testament. Les deux livres d’Esdras,...

    Paris, Pierre Emery, 1712.

    First edition of the commentary on the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, and Esther by the French Benedictine Antoine Augustin Calmet (1672–1757), from the library of the last male descendant of the distinguished Colbert family.

    £450

  6. 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

  7. [CICERO, Marcus Tullius.]

    Commentarii Philippicarum Marci Ciceronis cum annotationibus Georgii Trapezuntii Philippi Beroaldi et...

    Paris, Thomas Caseus for Jean Petit, [1514].

    Rare edition, attractively printed and with occasional contemporary annotations, of Cicero’s Philippics, comprising Cicero’s text along with the commentaries of the Cretan humanist George of Trebizond (1396–1486), the Bolognese rhetorician Filippo Beroaldo (1453–1505), and the Perugia...

    £950

  8. HIEROCLES of Alexandria.

    Ύπομνηνα εις τα των Πυθαγορειων επη τα χρυσα … commentarius in...

    London, J. R. [John Redmayne] for J. Williams, and Henry Dickinson, Cambridge, 1673.

    London edition of the only complete work of Hierocles, his commentaries on the Golden Verses, a valuable epitome of Pythagorean ethical teachings, printed here in the original and in a Latin translation. According to tradition they were put into their present form by Lysis, one of the most...

    £500

  9. TERENTIUS Afer, Publius.

    Comoediae sex. Ex recensione Heinsiana, cum annotationibus Thomae Farnabii in quatuor priores et M.C.Is.F....

    Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1658.

    An intensely annotated copy of this rare pocket Jansson edition of Terence’s comedies. The edition itself was a successful production, uniting the text edited by Heinsius with the commentary of Thomas Farnaby to the first four comedies, and that of Méric Casaubon to the last two. Jansson had...

    £2250

  10. TERENCE Afer, Publius. 

    Comoediae sex, tum ex Donati commentariis … diligentius quam unquam antehac emendatae; Aelii Donati...

    Paris, Robert Estienne, 1529. 

    First folio edition of Terence’s comedies by Robert Estienne.  The printer had already produced a small, octavo edition of Terence’s works in 1526.  Confident in its success, and through access to an excellent and ancient manuscript of the fourth-century commentary by Aelius Donatus, ‘in...

    £1500

  11. QUINTILIAN, Marcus Fabius, and Jacques-Louis d’ESTREBAY (editor).

    Compendium libri secundi, tertii, et quinti institutionum...

    Paris, Thomas Richard, 1558.

    Very rare third edition of this compendium of Quintilian’s oratory by Jacques-Louis d’Estrebay (or Estrebee, 1481–1550?), humanist, translator, professor of Rhetoric at Rheims and subsequently at the College of Sante-Barbe in Paris, and a proof-reader for the Estiennes. The title-page indicates...

    £350

  12. [MASCHERANA, Girolamo.]

    Concordia tra la società e la religione ossia Difesa del culto cattolico contro chi lo calunnia in contrasto...

    Milan, Cesare Orena nella stamperia Malatesta, 1798.

    Rare second edition, printed in the same year as the equally rare first, of this curious defence of religion in the light of the constitution of the Cisalpine Republic, in which the author seeks to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism with the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution and...

    £375

  13. DARRÉ, G.G.

    ‘Conferences diaconales données par Mr l’abbé Darré, Vicaire Général au GrandSéminaire d’Auch. Année...

    Auch, 1864.

    An attractively written manuscript of Abbé Darré’s practical manual for the use of young priests entering pastoral ministry, the text remaining unprinted, according to OCLC, until 1872.

    £200

  14. BEAUVILLIERS, Marie de.

    Conférences spirituelles d’une supérieure à ses religieuses ... d’après un manuscrit revu et mis...

    Paris, Moquet et Cie for Toulouse, 1838.

    Scarce second edition (first 1837, also rare) of this spiritual guide by Marie de Beauvilliers (1574–1667), edited from a manuscript by the historian l'abbé Louis Gaudreau (1798–1872) and including a short biography of the author.

    £400

  15. [CHARTONNET, Antoine-François.] 

    Considerations sur les devoirs des personnes qui sont engagées par leur état à servir les...

    Paris, chez Edme Couterot, 1695. 

    Rare first edition of this religious manual of instruction aimed at those caring for the sick in hospitals, exhorting carers to look after the bodily and spiritual needs of their charges ‘with charity, gentleness, compassion, patience, diligence, zeal, respect and humility’. 

    £275

  16. SCHEFFER, Johannes Gerhard. 

    Constantini Opelii de fabrica triremium Meibomiana epistola perbrevis ad amicum. 

    ‘Eleuteropoli’ [Freistadt?], 1672. 

    First edition of this treatise on the ancient oar-driven warships known as triremes by the noted German philologist and archaeologist Johannes Scheffer (1621–1679), written as a critical response to the De fabrica triremium liber of Marcus Meibom, which had appeared in Amsterdam the previous...

    £875

  17. ‘SANCTA CLARA, Abraham a’, i.e. Johann Ulrich MEGERLE.

    Coraggio e viltà, l’uno nella virtù, l’altra nel vizio....

    Trento, Giovanni Parone, 1717.

    Scarce first and only Italian edition of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s emblematic moral treatise Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt, printed in Trento with one hundred striking – albeit somewhat provincial – woodcuts after the engravings in the first German edition of 1707.

    £2250

  18. 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

  19. [CHARITY.]

    Costituzioni della Congregazione della Carità di Parma sotti gli auspizi di San Filippo Neri rinnovate nell’anno...

    Parma, Stamperia Reale, [1778].

    Uncommon set of constitutions for the Congregazione della Carità of Parma, printed after its refoundation in 1777. After a brief introduction, the constitutions set out the procedures for the election of the confreres and their reception, the times and order for meetings, discipline within the...

    £300

  20. SALLUST.

    C. Sallustius Crispus cum veterum Historicorum fragmentis.

    Leiden, ex officina Elzeviriana, 1634.

    The first small format Elzevir printing of Sallust with a contemporary ink sketch of a Peeping Tom at the rear of the volume. The volume contains the two major works of Sallust, the Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Catiline, along with the surviving fragments of his annalistic history of his...

    £950