[QUESNAY, François].

DU PONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre Samuel, editor. Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus...

First edition of the ‘Bible’ of the Physiocrats and one of the most important and original works on political economy to be published before the Wealth of Nations. The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...

£37500

AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona]. 

Summa de potestate ecclesiastica. 

Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473. 

First edition of this highly important and influential magnum opus of political theory, a defence of papal supremacy. 

£30000

[ROZIER.]

Le rozier historial de France contenant deux roziers. Le p[re]mier rozier contient plusieurs belles rozes e boutons de...

Paris, [Gilles Couteau for François Regnault], 26 February 1522 [i.e. 1523].

First edition, the very handsome Fairfax-Murray copy, of the Rozier historial de France. The first part, the Rozier des guerres, is a speculum principis for rulers in peace and war, and was originally published on its own in Lyons circa 1489 (only two copies known). The second...

£25000

ROUQUET, Jean-André. 

The present State of the Arts in England.  By M. Rouquet, member of the Royal Academy of Painting and...

London, for J. Nourse, 1755. 

First edition in English, published in the same year as the French original, from the library of the great Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790). 

£19500

GIBBON, Edward.

The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire.

London, printed for W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1776–88.

First editions of all six volumes of Gibbon’s ‘masterpiece of historical penetration and literary style’ (PMM). The first volume here is of the second variant (of two), with the errata corrected as far as p. 183 and X4 and a4 so signed.

£14000

DONNE, John. 

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and severall Steps in my Sicknes ... 

London, Printed for Thomas Jones … 1627.

Third (and last lifetime) edition of Donne’s most familiar prose work, composed during his convalescence in 1623–4 from the ‘spotted Feaver’ which nearly killed him.  It consists of twenty-three ‘Stationes, sive Periodi in Morbo’, each comprising a meditation, expostulation, and prayer. 

£13500

[ANDREAE, Johann Valentin.] 

Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio ... 

Strasburg, heirs of Lazarus Zetzner, 1619. 

A rare and influential Renaissance political utopia, in a fine sammelband of four first editions by the Lutheran humanist Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654). 

£12500

LIST, Friedrich. 

Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie … Erster Band: Der internationale Handel, die Handelspolitik...

Stuttgart, J.G. Cotta, 1841. 

First edition, the first work to articulate developing economies’ need for protective regulation, one of the earliest and most severe critiques of Adam Smith and his followers.

£12000

[LOO, Pieter van, (attributed).] 

156 watercolours of flowers, plants, and fruits. 

[Holland, c. 1760–80]. 

A truly stunning collection of over 150 original eighteenth-century botanical watercolours, attributed to the noted Dutch botanical artist Pieter van Loo (1731–1784). 

£110000

COPE, Walter, Sir.

‘Enchiridion. Certaine breife Remonstrances offered unto his Ma[jes]tie … Touching divers Inconveniences...

[London?], 1613.

A fine, unpublished manuscript treatise on the balance of trade, dedicated to James I, by the administrator, politician, and collector Sir Walter Cope (c. 1553–1614).

£11000

[RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH, CHINA.] 

东教宗史记 [Dongjiao Zongshi Ji; ‘Orthodox Ecclesiastical History’].

Hankou, 1893.

First edition of a summary of Russian Orthodox Church history for a Chinese audience, with a foreword by Archimandrite Innokenty (Ivan Figurovsky, 1863–1931), who was to be leader of the spiritual mission to Beijing from his arrival in 1897 until his death in 1931.

£9500

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

STACEY, George et al.

Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits of Stacey and members of his family.

London, 1850s.

A handsome set of photographs of the English Quaker and abolitionist George Stacey (1787-1857), his second wife Mary née Barclay (1797-1876) and members of their extended family, taken by some of the finest portraitists in England at that time.

£7500

THOMAS AQUINAS. 

Secunda secunde sancti Thome de Aq[ui]no ordinis predicato[rum] novissime recognita, q[uam]pluribusq[ue] utilissimis...

[Venice, printed by Giorgio Arrivabene for Ottaviano Scoto, 30 September 1513 (colophon).] 

Two very rare post-incunables: early Venetian editions, gathered together in their first binding, of the Secunda Secundae and the Tertia parts of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, arguably the most pervasively influential philosophico-theological work of the Middle Ages. 

£7000

BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.

Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de Pièces Académiques, concernant la Médicine, l’Anatomie...

Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes, F. Fournier, et al., 1754-86.

The scarce first collected edition of these scientific papers from all over Europe (lacking only the last five volumes of the Partie Française), including among its contributors such famous names as Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, Hevelius, De La Hire, Mariotte, Réaumur, La Condamine, Haller, Maupertuis, Boyle,...

£6000

WALRAS, Léon.

Théorie critique de l’impot …

Paris, Guillaumin et Cie, 1861.

First and only edition of Walras’ second published book on economics and an important early testimonial to his profound admiration for, and intellectual identification with, his father. In the lengthy preface, he reviews the ideas contained in the works of Auguste Walras, including the concept of ‘rarety’...

£5750

DOLCE, Lodovico.

Somma della filosofia a’Aristotele, e prima della dialettica. [with:] Somma di tutta la natural filosofia di...

Venice, Giovanni Battista, & Marchio Sessa, & fratelli, [1565].

First edition of this exposition of Aristotle’s dialaectics, moral, and natural philosophy by ‘one of the major transmitters of culture in cinquecento Italy’ (Ronnie H. Terpening, Lodovico Dolce: Renaissance Man of Letters, 1997).

£5500

[COYER; VOLTAIRE; WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION.]

‘Recueil des Pieces’.

France, 1744-1749.

An extraordinary sammelband of 75 pamphlets – 27 of which are recorded in only 3 or fewer libraries on OCLC – mostly relating to successful French exploits throughout Europe during the War of the Austrian Succession, including the Dutch and Italian campaigns and the conclusion of the war.

£5500

DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.

Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...

Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.

A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for males and females. ‘The first French work in the actuarial...

£5500

PAGNINI, Giovanni Francesco; Francesco BALDUCCI PEGOLOTTI; Giovanni da UZZANO.

Della decima e di varie altre gravezze imposte dal...

Lisbona e Lucca, (vols. 3-4: e si vende da Giuseppe Bouchard librajo francese in Firenze), 1765-66.

First edition, scarce on the market, of a highly important work in the history of economics and world trade. Pagnini (1714-89) worked in the financial department of the Tuscan government and published translations of several of Locke’s works. The Della decima is his most important work, giving ‘a...

£5500