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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CORRADO III TRINCI, Lord of Foligno.
Letter in his name in Italian to Cipriano, ‘lieutenant of the territory of Trevi’,...
Foligno, 9 February, no year but c. 1430s.
The family of the Trinci ruled over Foligno, first as independent princes and then as vicars of the church from 1305 to 1439. The sender of the present letter is probably the third Corrado, last of the dynasty, ‘detested for his cruelty’ (Litta, Celebri famiglie Italiane vol. I fasc. 6,...
£600
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CORTÈS, Gioacchino.
Dissertazione anti-Bolgeniana sopra la carità difesa dal suo autore l’abate Gioacchino Cortes contro...
Rome, Salomoni, 1793.
First edition of this response to and attempted refutation of Bolgeni’s Della carità o amor di Dio by the Spanish Jesuit Joachim Cortès. Della carità was the best-known work of the Jesuit theologian and controversialist Gianvincenzo Bolgeni, in which he had argued, against...
£450
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COSTER, François.
Piarum et Christ. institutionum libri tres, in usum sodalitatis B. Mariae Virginis primum conscripti, nunc...
Douai, Jean Bogard, 1582.
Very rare Douai edition of this devotional work by the Belgian Jesuit François Coster (1532–1619), first published at Cologne in 1578, illustrated with woodcuts of the Crucifixion and Our Lady of Sorrows.
£675
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CURTIUS Rufus, Quintus.
De rebus Alexandri Magni, cum commentario perpetuo & indice absolutissimo Samuelis Pitisci, quibus accedunt...
Utrecht, Franciscus Halma, 1685.
First Halma edition of Curtius’s history of Alexander the Great, with a series of accomplished etched illustrations by Jan van den Aveelen.
£375
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CURTIUS RUFUS, Quintus.
De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni regis Macedonum opus … Accesserunt enim antehac nunquam visa … Omnia...
Basel, Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1545.
Handsome folio edition of Curtius Rufus’ history of Alexander the Great, edited by the German humanist Christoph Bruno (fl. 1541–1566), with extensive sixteenth-century marginal annotations.
£2000
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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
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DASSIER, Jean and Jacques-Antoine.
‘An Explanation of Dassier’s Medals being a Representation of a Series of Events taken...
London, c. 1795–1800.
An exceptionally fine illustrated manuscript, with drawings after the series of sixty medals of Roman history from Romulus to the Age of Augustus produced by Jean Dassier and his son in 1740-1743. The drawings are executed with considerable finesse, adding detailed elements not clearly visible...
£6500
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DE LUCA, Giovanni Battista.
Il Cardinale della S.R. Chiesa pratico di Gio. Battista de Luca nell’ozio Tusculano della Primavera...
Rome, nella stamperia della Reverenda Camera Apostolica, 1680.
Scarce first edition of this thorough work on the cardinalate by the Italian jurist and cardinal De Luca (1614–1683). De Luca studied and practiced law at Naples before moving to Rome in 1645, where he established his reputation as one of Italy’s pre-eminent jurists and worked closely with...
£300
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[DEVOTION.]
Meditation et preire du jeusne, seigneur ouvre me levres, & ma bouche announcer ta loüange. Ps. 51.v.17.
Se vend à Charenton, par Pierre Auvray, demeurant à Paris … [1670s?]
First edition, extremely rare, of a prayer in preparation for a fast, published for sale in Charenton, the first Protestant centre in the Paris region.
£850
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DIO CASSIUS.
Dione historico delle guerre et fatti de Romani. Tradotto di Greco in lingua vulgare per M. Nicolo Leoniceno. Con...
Venice, Niccolò Zoppino, March 1533.
First edition of Dio Cassius’s Roman History in any language, translated into Italian from the original Greek by Niccolò Leoniceno and preceding the Greek editio princeps, printed by Robert Estienne in 1548, by some fifteen years.
£2500
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DIODORUS Siculus.
Bibliothecae historicae libri XV. Hoc est, quotquot Graece extant de quadraginta quorum quinque nunc primum Latine...
Basel, Heinrich Petri, August 1559.
Important edition, the first to be overseen by Sébastien Castellion, of Diodorus’s influential ‘Historical library’.
£2500
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DIOGENES LAERTIUS, [and Henri ESTIENNE (editor)].
Περι βίων, δογμάτων και αποφθεγμων...
[Geneva,] Henri Estienne, 1570.
First Estienne edition of The Lives of the Philosophers, a very important edition in the original Greek, ‘in which appear for the first time many passages discovered in manuscripts by Estienne’. ‘The volume also contains thirty-six pages of important textual annotations by Henri Estienne,...
£1400
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DIONYSIUS [Periegetes].
Διονυσιου οικουμενης περιηγησις μετα των Ευσταθιου ‘υπομνηματων...
London, M. Clark for R. Littlebury, R. Scott, T. Sawbridge & G. Wells, 1688.
An attractive illustrated edition of Dionysius’s verse geography. Dionysius Periegetes, likely of Alexandria, is thought to have written his description of the world during the reign of Hadrian in the early second century. It was widely read both in the ancient world and subsequently, and is...
£500
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[DOMINICAN NUNS.]
Regola e costituzioni delle suore di S. Domenico riviste e ristampate d’ordine del rmo p. vicario generale...
Rome, Bernardo Morini, 1853.
Very rare first edition thus of the regulations governing Dominican nuns, published by order of Alexandre Vincent Jandel (1810–1872), who served as Master of the Order of Preachers from 1850 until his death.
£250
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DOMINICUS DE FLANDRIA.
Dominici de Flandria ordinis predicator[um] artium et theologie doctoris in divi Thome de Aq[ui]no co[m]mentaria...
Venice, Giorgio Arrivabene for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 25 January 1514.
Scarce early editions of two Aristotelian commentaries. The first, by the Dominican philosopher Dominic of Flanders (c. 1425–1479), analyses two works by Thomas Aquinas: his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (on the nature of scientific axioms), and his De fallaciis...
£3000
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DRYDEN, John.
Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …
London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.
First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...
£400
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ECKARTSHAUSEN, Karl von.
Dieu est l’amour le plus pur, ma prière et ma contemplation. Par Eckartshausen. Paris, chez L.
Duprat-Duverger, rue des Grands-Augustins, no. 21, [1805-1813].
Scarce edition of a French translation of Gott ist die reinste Liebe by the German Catholic mystic Karl von Eckartshausen (1752–1803), this copy formerly in the possession of the long-term lover of Queen Victoria’s father.
£475
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[EDWARD VII – COMMON PRAYER.]
[Cover title: ‘Prayer Book of Edward VII’] The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration...
[Norwood (MA), Plimpton Press for] New York, M. Walter Dunne, [1904].
Authorised American edition of the Essex House Press Book of Common Prayer, published in celebration of the accession of Edward VII.
£500
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EPICTETUS.
Το του Επικτητου εγχειριδιον. Ex editione Joannis Upton accurate expressum.
Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.
The first miniature Foulis edition of Epictetus in Greek, and the first Foulis Epictetus in Greek only. A 1765 reissue was, according to ESTC, reset.
£650
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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