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. LACTANTIUS, Lucius Caelius Firmianus, et alii.

    Opera perquam accurate castigata: Graeco integro adiuncto: quod in aliis...

    [(Colophons:) Venice, Giovanni Tacuino da Tridino, 3 January; 9 January 1502.]

    A closely read copy of Lactantius’s encyclopaedia of Christian apologetics, defending and explaining the Christian faith.

    £2750

  2. LALEMANT, [Pierre].

    Les saints desirs de la mort, ou recüeil de quelques pensées des peres de l’Eglise, pour montrer comment...

    Paris, Josse, 1710.

    A very rare later edition, in a contemporary binding of onlaid morocco, of Lalement’s French paraphrases of the Church Fathers’ thoughts on death.

    £850

  3. LANDSBERG, Johannes Justus.

    Iohannis Iusti Lanspergii Bavari Carthusiani omnium epistolarum ac evangeliorum dominicalium totius...

    Cologne, Melchior von Neuss, 1548.

    Later edition (first 1539) of paraphrases, exegeses, and sermons by the Carthusian ascetic and mystic Johannes Landsberg (c. 1490–1539).

    £950

  4. LA SERRE, Jean-Puget de.

    Grab-Statt der weltlichen Ergötzlichkeiten, einstens in Französischer Sprache zubereitet … anjetzt...

    Regensburg, Johann Conrad Peetz und Bader, 1738.

    First edition in German of Tombeau des délices du monde, by the French dramatist and historian Jean-Puget de la Serre (1594–1665).

    £375

  5. LE GROS, Nicolas.

    Meditations sur les epistres Catholiques de S. Jacques, S. Pierre, et St. Jean. Avec le texte Latin et François...

    Paris, chez Savoye, 1754.

    First edition of this extensive work of meditations by the Jansenist Nicolas Le Gros, presented in 1772 by the founder of the first free school for deaf children to Françoise Arnaud, a pupil at the school.

    £1250

  6. LIPPOMANO, Luigi. 

    Espositioni volgare del reveren. M. Luigi Lippomano vescovo di Modone, et coadiutore di Bergamo, sopra il...

    Venice, Girolamo Scoto, 1541.

    First edition of this treatise on the Credo, on the Pater Noster, and on Charity by Luigi Lippomano (1496–1559), dedicated to Pope Paul III and to ‘the venerable converted sisters’ of Rome and Bergamo. 

    £450

  7. [LITURGY.] Girolamo GIOVANNINI, editor.

    Officium hebdomadae sanctae, juxta formam missalis & breviarii romani, sub Urbano...

    Venice, ‘ex typographia Balleoniana’, 1742.

    Very rare small-format edition of the Offices for Holy Week, with a woodcut Man of Sorrows.

    £275

  8. LUDOPHUS of Saxony. 

    In Psal. David, diligentiss. Simul, & doctissima Enarratio ....Ad cuius ornamentum & collocupletatione[m]...

    [Lyons,] A. Vincent, [1542]. 

    Uncommon and significant edition of one of the most important fourteenth-century commentaries on the Psalms, hailed as excellent for its method and clarity and first put through the press in 1491. 

    £2000

  9. MAGGI, Lorenzo. 

    I sacri hinni, che si leggono in tutto l’anno nella santa chiesa Catholica, tradotti, et commentati in lingua...

    Venice, Francesco Rampazetto, 1567.

    Very rare first edition of this collection of hymns by the Milanese archpriest of Riva San Vitale, Lorenzo Maggi, dedicated to Pope Pius V and intended for members of the clergy with limited Latin. 

    £500

  10. MAGNON, Jean. 

    Les heures du Chrestien, divisées en trois journées; qui sont la journée de la penitence, la journée de la...

    Paris, se vendent chez l’autheur … et chez Sebastien Martin, 1654. 

    First edition of this handsomely illustrated collection of prayers and devotions in verse and prose by the French playwright and poet Jean Magnon (1620–1662).  The number of plates in individual copies varies, this copy containing at least two more than those described on OCLC. 

    £650

  11. MANCINI, Celso. 

    Il padrino Christiano … per formare i cavallieri di Christo nel duello della morte.  Diviso in tre parti … 

    Ferrara, Vittorio Baldini, 1592. 

    Rare first edition of a meditational work on this world and the next by Celso Mancini (1542–1612), canon regular of the Lateran, philosopher, and bishop of Alessano. 

    £950

  12. [MAPS.]

    ‘Carte du Vicariat Apost. de Péking & Tche-ly Nord’.

    [China], 1896.

    Two handsome maps providing a snapshot of the region around modern Beijing and the Bohai Sea encompassed within the Vicariate Apostolic of Northern Chi-Li and the Vicariate Apostolic of Southwestern Chi-Li in 1896, showing towns, missionary residences, roads, railways, rivers and lakes, and part...

    £1800

  13. [MARABOTTA, Cattaneo.] 

    Vita della serafica S. Caterina da Genova. 

    Genoa, Tipografia Frugoni, 1832. 

    Rare first edition thus, an attractive nineteenth-century reprint of Marabotta’s biography of Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510), first published in 1737, the date of her canonisation.  Catherine was known for her writings on mysticism and for her work with the poor and sick, notably during...

    £185

  14. MARKISH, Peretz Davidovich.

    Rubezh. Izbrannye stikhi [Threshold. Selected poems]. Moscow, Goslitizdat, 1933.

    [Selected poems]. Moscow, Goslitizdat, 1933.

    First edition in Russian of the first book by the Soviet Yiddish poet and novelist Peretz Markish (1895-1952), a collection of poems, Shveln (Threshold, Kiev, 1919) which established his reputation as one of the most important Yiddish poets of his time.

    £1800

  15. [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

  16. [MASS.]

    Cerimonie piu’ notabili della messa privata; Cavate dalle rubriche del Missale, ed altri autori da un Sacerdote D.C.D.M....

    Turin, Gianfranco Mairesse, 1739.

    An apparently unrecorded edition of this uncommon treatise on the celebration of the mass and its associated rituals.

    £300

  17. MAURIZI, Maria Luisa.

    Morali e divote riflessioni a tutti utilissime e specialmente alle persone claustrali scritte dalla serva...

    Rome, Tipografia della Pia Unione alle Terme, 1833.

    Uncommon first edition of this collection of meditations on the religious life, by the Roman nun Maria Luisa Maurizi (born Giacinta Gertrude Maurizi, 1770–1831), and published posthumously at the behest of her spiritual director, Agostino Romagnoli.

    £150

  18. MAXIMUS the Confessor; Jean PICOT, translator.

    Sanctissimi patris magistrique, Maximi, confessoris atque martyris, varia...

    [(Colophon:) Paris,] Guillaume Morel, [1560].

    First edition of Jean Picot’s Latin translation of this Byzantine compilation of extracts from the writings of Maximus the Confessor and others, our copy owned by a sixteenth-century monk at the Abbey of Saint-Denis.

    £850

  19. MEFFRET, Johann.

    Sermones Meffreth alias Ortulus regine de tempore. Pars hyemalis.

    [Basel, Nicolaus Kesler, not after 1485.]

    A volume of sermons with early English annotations, in a binding featuring tools attributed to an early Cambridge workshop known as the Unicorn Binder.

    £6500

  20. MELECRINIS, Maria Teresa. 

    Le voci del cuore a Maria Teresa Melecrinis dei baroni di Ioppolo e Coccorino che a di 6 luglio 1846...

    Naples, stamperia dell' Iride, 1846. 

    Very rare collection of odes and sonnets composed to mark the entry of Maria Teresa Melecrinis into the Benedictine monastery of San Paolo at Sorrento. 

    £175