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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[OXFORD UNIVERSITY.]
Pietas Universitatis Oxoniensis in obitum serenissimi Regis Georgii II. et gratulatio in augustissimi Regis...
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1761.
First edition, one of fifty copies on large paper, an exceptional survival in the most luxurious (and fragile) of presentation bindings: full purple velvet with gold-fringed purple silk ties, typically reserved for a handful or fewer of royal copies.
£10000
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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, preceded by the idea of a utopian town, ‘Universa’, where the futuristic ideal for a new society can be achieved and craftsmanship...
£300
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PLINY the Elder.
Historiae mundi libri XXXVII, cum castigationibus et adnotationibus doctiss. & variis praeterea lectionibus ex...
Frankfurt, Claude de Marne and heirs of Jean Aubry, 1608.
First Frankfurt edition of Pliny’s Natural History, here bound as an enormous single volume with strikingly decorated edges featuring acorns and scrolls.
£1400
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[PRIMER.]
Preces privatae, in studiosorum gratia[m] collectae & Regia authoritate approbatae …
London, William Seres, 1568.
Second edition of this rare ‘private’ prayer book, first printed in 1564, with a calendar, a Latin catechism for children, selected psalms, and a Latin–English list of English islands, counties, cathedral cities, bishoprics, rivers, and ports.
£4250
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[PSALMS.]
Les Pseaumes de David, mis en Vers François, revus et approuvez par le Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies. Nouvelle Edition.
Amsterdam, ‘aux dépens de l’Eglise Françoise de Londres’, 1729’.
New edition of the metrical Psalms of the Pléiade poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze, extensively revised, with a new version of 149 Psalms, printed for the use of Huguenot émigrés.
£950
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[PSALMS.]
Psalmi Davidis regis et vatis inclyti, a M. Antonio Flaminio & P. Francisco Spinula pietis elegantissimis, Latinis...
Antwerp, [(colophon:) Jan Verwithagen for Joannes Steelsius], 1559.
A collection of verse paraphrases of the Psalms, by the poets and humanist scholars Marcantonio Flaminio (1498–1550) and Publio Francesco Spinola (c. 1520–1567), bound for Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553–1617).
£975
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RICCI, Giovanni and PORTA, Ercolano.
Storia della missione francescana e del Vicariato Apostolico del Hunan meridionale dalle sue...
Bologna, Stabilimenti tipografici riuniti, 1925.
First and only edition of this history of the Franciscan Mission in South Hunan from its establishment to 1924, with particular attention to the persecution of the Christians during the Boxer Rebellion and the following years of restoration and progress of the mission. The appendix comprises letters,...
£450
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STRABO.
Strabonis geographicorum lib. XVII ... iam denuo a Conrado Heresbachio … ad fidem Graeci exemplaris, authorumque …...
Basel, Johann Walder, 1539.
Second edition of Strabo’s masterful Geographica in the Latin translation of the German Humanist and friend of Erasmus, Konrad Heresbach (1496–1576), here found with the first Latin translation of an epitome of Strabo’s work by the Basel professor of physic and logic, Hieronymus Gemusaeus...
£2500
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THEOCRITUS et al.
Theocriti aliorumque poetarum Idyllia. Eiusdem Epigrammata …
[Geneva], Henri Estienne, 1579.
An outstanding volume uniting the Estienne Greek bucolic poets (Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus) and the Estienne Greek Psalms in an Henri Estienne presentation binding.
£9000
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[WALLET.]
Wallet with manuscript and printed waste.
France, c. 1790.
An attractive late eighteenth-century wallet in the guise of a wallet-bound book, possibly re-using an earlier eighteenth-century binding, the interior compartments composed of manuscript and printed waste.
£950
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[WALLPAPER BINDING.]
‘Chassereau des Biens et Rentes deves a joseph Paul Roegier et marie margu te [sic] Bourdeau son espouse,...
Hainaut, 1750–1773.
A manuscript account book compiled by Joseph Paul Roegier and his son, recording receipts over a quarter-century, in an attractive and unusual binding reusing a large fragment of gilt leather wallpaper.
£3500
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ZACHARIÄ, Just Friedrich Wilhelm.
Les quatre parties du jour, poëme traduit de l’allemand de M. Zacharie.
Paris, J. B. G. Musier fils, 1769.
First edition in French of this proto-Romantic poem on the times of day, splendidly bound with the arms of its dedicatee, the mentally ill Christian VII of Denmark and Norway.
£1500