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.

 
  1. ABBEVILLE, Claude d’.

    Histoire de la mission des peres Capucins en l’isle de Maragnan et terres circonvoisines ou est traicte...

    Paris, François Huby, 1614.

    Second edition, enlarged and revised from the first edition published earlier the same year, a handsome copy, of the first written account of the Capuchin mission to Maranhão, an island on the coast of Brazil, of which, Sabin notes, this is the earliest mention. In 1612 the mission, composed...

    £30000

  2. ACETI DE’ PORTI, Serafino. 

    Novo paradiso di delitie spirituali, nel quale si contiene la vita del salvator nostro Giesu Christo. ...

    Bologna, Giovanni Rossi, 1563. 

    Rare first edition of this devotional work by Serafino Aceti de’ Porti (1496–1540), a Canon Regular of the Lateran, encompassing episodes from the life of Christ, passages on love for God and on charity, prayers to the Virgin Mary, and spiritual advice by St Bridget. 

    £850

  3. AESOP, et al. [George STEWART, editor].

    Selectiores Aesopi Phrygis fabulae, et Luciani Samosatensis dialogi. Isocratis...

    Edinburgh, Tho. Ruddiman for George Stewart, 1723.

    First edition thus, scarce, a Scottish school textbook comprising selections in Greek and Latin from Aesop’s Fables, Lucian’s Dialogues, the orations of Isocrates, and the Tablet of Cebes.

    £375

  4. ALBERTI, Leon Battista.

    El Momo. La moral e muy graciosa historia del Momo; compuesta en Latin por el docto varon Leon Bapista...

    Alcalá de Henares, Joan Mey Flandro, 1553.

    First edition in Spanish of Alberti’s Momus [or De principe], translated by Augustín de Almaçan and with an introductory 8-page Exposición by the Toledo ascetic writer and scholar Alejo Venegas (1495?–1554?).

    £3800

  5. ALCIONIO, Pietro.

    Petri Alcyonii Medices legatus de exsilio.

    [Venice, in the house of Aldus Manutius and Andrea Torresano, November 1522.]

    First edition of Alcionio’s dialogue on exile, an intensely annotated copy from a family of French humanists and Reformers. Pietro Alcionio (or Petrus Alcyonius, fl. 1487–1527) was a Venetian humanist, scholar and Aristotelian translator who began his career as a proofreader for Aldus Manutius....

    £5750

  6. [ALMANACK.]

    Calendarium Tyrnaviense ad annum Jesu Chris[ti] M. DCC. XXXI[.] …

    [Tyrnau (Trnava), 1731.]

    A remarkable almanack binding of part-printed, part-manuscript vellum, prepared for presentation at the Habsburg court in Vienna to the Genoese diplomat Clemente Doria.

    £1850

  7. [ALMANACK.]

    L’Esprit des chansonniers, extrain [sic?] des meilleurs poëtes.

    Paris, Le Fuel, [1826?].

    A very rare enamelled metal binding with an enchanting design of birds and squirrels, from the collection of the bookbinder, collector, and bibliographer Léon Gruel.

    £2750

  8. [ALMANACK.]

    Les étrennes à la rose, ou le rosier d’amour.

    Paris, Janet, [1804?].

    A charming literary almanack, or ‘rosebush of love’, collecting amatory poems using the motif of the rose, here bound in red silk strikingly embroidered in silver and dated with the French Revolutionary year ‘An XII’ (1804).

    £2500

  9. [ALMANACK.]

    Étrennes mignones [sic], curieuses et utiles, avec plusieurs augmentations & corrections, pour l’année mil sept...

    Paris, Claude-Jacques-Charles [Durand] and Pierre-François Durand, 1775.

    A very rare Parisian almanack for 1775, our copy in a handsome binding embroidered in gold and silver threads and with emblematic mottoes and charming illustrations depicting putti fanning smoke from a burning candle and holding a flaming heart.

    £1500

  10. [ALMANACK.]

    London Almanack for the Year of Christ 1785.

    [London,] Printed for the Company of Stationers, [1785].

    A very attractive miniature London Almanack in its elaborate original binding of gilt white calf and matching étui, with an engraving of the soon-to-be-finished Somerset House.

    £950

  11. [ALMANACK.]

    étrennes mignones [sic], curieuses et utiles, pour l’année mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix.

    Paris, [Jean-François-Hubert] Guillot, 1790.

    Very rare almanack for 1790, in a handsome contemporary binding of silk and sequins featuring lyres surmounted by hearts and torches, issued on the eve of the French Revolution with much material on the storming of the Bastille and revolts throughout France.

    £1950

  12. [ALMANACK.]

    Les perfidies supposées ou les médisances pardonables. Almanach orné des jolies gravures.

    Paris, Janet, ‘Successeur du Sr Jubert’, 1800.

    A seemingly unrecorded almanack for 1800, issued by the prolific publisher of almanacks Pierre-étienne Janet (1746–1830), with suggestive engravings accompanied by explanatory poems, songs, and music, our copy in a handsome binding of contemporary painted white sheep with designs of hearts, garlands,...

    £1450

  13. [ALMANACK.]

    Le triomphe de la vertu. Sujets tirés de la Sainte Bible.

    Paris, Janet, [1814].

    A very rare biblical almanack for 1814 by Janet, attractively illustrated with engraved plates depicting episodes from the Old Testament.

    £300

  14. [ALTAR CARDS.]

    Two altar cards with Latin text and images of Christ and St John.

    ‘A Paris, chez I. Baudemont’, second half of seventeenth century.

    Two seemingly unrecorded hand-coloured prompt cards for priests, bearing readings and prayers, and devotional images of Jesus and St John, comprising separately printed images, text and borders arranged together in collage fashion.

    £2750

  15. ANACREON.

    Ανακρεοντος τηιου μελη praefixo commentario quo poëtae genus traditur et bibliotheca Anacreonteia...

    Parma, [Bodoni] ‘in aedibus Palatinis’, 1791.

    Thick paper copy, apparently one of 12 copies from an edition of 212. This attractive edition of Anacreon’s Odaria was edited by G.C. Amaduzzi and printed by Bodoni. ‘The editions of 1785 and 1791 are printed in capital letters, and more elegant and exquisitely finished productions...

    £650

  16. ANGLÉS, José. 

    Flores theologicarum quaestionum, in quartum librum sententiarum.  Collecti, iterumq. selecti …  Pars prima...

    Rome, Giuseppe de Angelis, 1578. 

    Scarce second edition (first Cagliari, 1575–6) of an exhaustive compendium of theological questions compiled by the Spanish Franciscan Anglés (d. 1586), bishop of Bosa in Sardinia. 

    £750

  17. ANTIPHONAL,

    with neumes, containing antiphons, responses and versicles for Trinity Sunday, the Octave of Pentecost, Sundays after...

    Germany, 1st half of 12th century. 

    Two bifolia from a notably early antiphonal. 

    £5000

  18. [ANTIPHONAL.]

    Very large historiated initial ‘H’ (probably for the antiphon Hodie nata est beata virgo Maria for the...

    Italy (Siena), c. 1300.

    A very fine large initial painted in a style associated with the Master of the Gradual of Cortona, an artist named for a Franciscan gradual produced c. 1290 for the church of San Francesco in Cortona (now Vatican City, BAV, MS Ross. 612).

    £6750

  19. [ANTIPHONAL.]

    Antiphonal, with neumes, containing music for the blessing of the Paschal Candle on Holy Saturday.

    Southern Germany or Bohemia, mid-fifteenth century.

    An unusual and striking antiphonal leaf written entirely in red and notated entirely in burnished gold, signalling the importance of the text for Holy Saturday.

    £3500

  20. ANTONIUS de Vercellis. 

    Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus Christianae fidei excellentiis [with additions by Ludovicus...

    Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, [for Alexander Calcedonius], 16 February 1492/93. 

    A remarkable copy of the first edition of Antonius de Vercellis’ sermons, owned and annotated by three contemporary Franciscans, one of whom, Andrea Alamanni, may be the confessor who administered Machiavelli’s last rites. 

    £8500