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.
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[NAUDÉ, Philippe, attr. author].
Histoire abrégée de la naissance & du progrez du Kouakerisme avec celle de ses dogmes.
Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1692.
First edition of the earliest work on the Quakers to be published in French. In his survey of English Quakerism the author gives voice to widespread contemporary English criticisms of the movement, radicalizing the charge of Socinianism into one of ‘pure deism’ and ultimately atheism.
£750
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NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández.
Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China. Descripcion...
Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676.
Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689).
£4750
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NEWTON, Isaac.
Opuscula Mathematica, philosophica et philologica. Collegit partimque Latine vertit ac recensuit Joh. Castillioneus...
Lausanne and Geneva, Bousquet & soc., 1744.
First edition of Newton’s collected works, a major tool in the dissemination of Newton’s science and a major publication in the history of science. The edition, edited and introduced by the Pisa alumnus Giovanni Salvemini da Castiglione, contains twenty-six works (which, while having appeared...
£3500
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[OFFICE OF THE DEAD.]
Uffizio de’ morti, ad uso delle confraternite e congregazioni.
Turin, Bernardino Barberis, 1805.
An apparently unrecorded Turin-printed Office of the Dead, with striking woodcut memento mori ornaments, printed for the use of religious congregations and confraternities. The Uffizio de’ morti, outlining the liturgy used in commemoration of the dead, is accompanied by a notice...
£225
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OWEN, John.
Epigrammatum Ioan Oweni Cambro-Britanni Oxoniensis. Editio postrema, correctissima, & posthumis quibusdam adaucta.
Breslau, Esaias Fellgiebel, 1658.
Scarce Breslau-printed edition of John Owen’s popular Latin epigrams, bound with the first edition of a rare German work providing guidance to princely and noble houses as well as military officials.
£875
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PALEY, William.
Caution recommended in the use and application of scripture language. A sermon preached July 15, 1777, in the Cathedral...
Cambridge, printed by J. Archdeacon for T. & J. Merrill (and others), 1777.
First edition. A sermon (on 2 Peter iii, vv. 15–16) preached by Paley, author of the celebrated Evidences of Christianity (1785), at the invitation of Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle. ‘Paley’s connection with the Law family greatly advanced his clerical career. He regularly spent vacations with...
£150
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[PALLAVICINO, Ferrante.]
La rettorica delle puttane. Composta conforme li precetti di Cipriano. Dedicata alla università delle...
‘Cambrai’ (but Venice), [no printer], 1642.
Extremely rare first edition, fourth variant (variant ‘V’), of a classic of seventeenth-century erotic literature, the masterpiece of the celebrated satirist Ferrante Pallavicino (1615–1644). Published anonymously in Venice with a fictitious Cambrai imprint, The rhetoric of whores...
£5500
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PIERTZ, Leonhard (Praes.) and Johann Ernst SCHLERETH (Resp.).
De sacramentis in specie, Eucharistia et Poenitentia quaestiones...
Würzburg, Johann Michael Kleyer, 1703.
A good copy of this rare Würzburg dissertation on the sacraments of the Euchasist and Penance, under the Jesuit professor Leonhard Piertz (1662–1741). The dissertation discusses when the Eucharist was instituted, what verbal formulae are necessary for consecration, whether the Eucharistic sacrifice...
£175
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PIUS II (Nicolaus von WYLE, editor).
Epistolae familiares.
Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 17 July 1486.
Second Koberger edition of the Epistolae familiares of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405–1464), the great Renaissance humanist who became Pope Pius II in 1458, a handsome copy enhanced with manuscript additions comprising epistolary models, a German-Latin wordlist, and medical recipes.
£7500
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POCKLINGTON, John.
Altare Christianum: or, the dead Vicar’s Plea. Wherein the Vicar of Gr. being dead, yet speaketh, and pleadeth...
London, Printed by Richard Badger. 1637.
First edition, from the library of Robert Southey, with an ownership inscription an eleven-line note in his distinctive diminutive hand.
£3750
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[PONTIFICAL.]
Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII. primum, nunc denuo Urbani Papae Octavi auctoritate recognitum.
Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1663.
An attractive Plantin-Moretus Pontifical, splendidly preserved in a richly baroque binding.
£4500
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PONTIFICAL-MISSAL,
Use of Luçon, in Latin, with readings for the Fourth Week of Lent and Holy Thursday in the Temporal;
France (Paris), late fourteenth century.
A rediscovered leaf from the Missal of Etienne de Loypeau, bishop of Luçon, with a miniature by the so-called Master of Death and border decoration attributable to the ‘A Master’ of the Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry.
£17500
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POSTEL, Guillaume.
De originibus, seu, de varia et potissimum orbi Latino ad hanc diem incognita, aut inconsyderata historia,...
Basel, Johannes Oporinus, [1553].
First edition of Postel’s investigations into the original language as a means to regain the primordial unity of mankind.
£3500
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[PRAYER-BOOK.]
The new and complete Family Prayer-Book, or Church of England Man’s Divine Library: being an universal Illustration,...
London: Printed for Alex. Hogg … [1784-5.]
First edition thus, rare, published in 36 weekly parts, each originally accompanied with an illustration, and now correctly bound according to the complicated ‘Directions to the Binder’ at the end. Wright’s exhaustive compilation, with notes and commentary on each page, assembled calendars,...
£950
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[PRAYERS.]
‘Orationes diversae pro temporum opportunitate dicendae’.
[Likely Lucca, late eighteenth century.]
A delightful manuscript prayerbook for use in communal worship, most likely for a rural community, with prayers for help in times of plagues and of animal diseases, prayers seeking protection from storms and alleviation of droughts, for times of earthquakes, for the sick, and against pagans. ...
£475
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[PRAYERS.]
Récueil de plusieurs prieres.
Vienna, ‘chez Georg Müllner libraire et relieur des livres’, [c. 1810].
Very rare and charming early nineteenth-century prayer book in an attractive binding by the Viennese ‘libraire et relieur’ Georg Müllner.
£450
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PRESENT FOR THE YOUNG (A).
London: Printed for The Religious Tract Society … and sold at their Depository … also by J. Nisbet...
[c. 1827]
First edition. A finely illustrated anthology of religious verse, contemplations, and prayers for children. Pieces include poems on the seasons and stories about a Welsh Shepherd, and ‘The Hill and the Valley’, all with heavily metaphorical content.
£175
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[PROCESSIONAL, Dominican use.]
Processionarium ordinis fratrum praedicatorum.
Seville, Meinardus Ungut and Stanislaus Polonus, 3 April, 1494.
First edition of the first Spanish book to make extensive use of typeset music printing, one of the finest products of early Spanish typography.
£35000
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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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PURSEY, Thomas.
The last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.
[Edinburgh, T. Pursey, 1900.]
A photographic tour-de-force, assembling many hundreds of individual photographic portraits neatly incorporated into a painted scenario, and then reproduced as a photogravure, depicting all the attendees of the last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, held in May 1900. Evidently a...
£2000