Recent Acquisitions
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BALLARIN, Vincenzo.
Dimostrazione sintetica della quadratura del circolo di Don Vincenzo Ballarin, piovano di S. Pietro della...
Venice, Fracasso, 1828.
First and only edition of this confident but mistaken attempt at squaring the circle – drawing a square with the same area as a given circle using a compass and straightedge – later proven to be impossible.
£900
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‘MAWE, Thomas’ [but John ABERCROMBIE].
Every Man his own Gardener. Being a new, and much more complete Gardener’s...
London: Printed for W. Griffith … 1767.
Second edition, published in the same year as the first, of an immensely popular work, which went through at least twenty-five editions. ‘Abercrombie was the son of a market gardener near Edinburgh who went on to be a gardener at Kew and Leicester House, as well as for a number of noblemen...
£225
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[MURAT, J.-B. de.]
La destinée d’une jolie femme, poème érotique, en six chants, par J.B… de M…
Paris, Langlois for Mongie, An XI (1803).
First and only edition, very scarce, of this humorous moralising tale of love and loss in verse, intended for a female readership and hidden under the ‘transparent veil’ of erotic poetry.
£650
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[GOLD and SILVER.]
Bando generale per gli orefici, argentieri, ed altri che comprano, vendono, ed in qualsivoglia modo...
Rome, ‘nella stamperia della Rev. Camera Apostolica’, 1815.
Rare edict governing goldsmiths, silversmiths, and traders in gold and silver operating in Rome and the Papal States, issued by Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca (1756–1844) in January 1815 as Camerlengo to Pope Pius VII.
£475
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[SEX-WORK.]
Arrêtés des 3 et 4 Juin 1833, concernant les femmes et filles livrées à la prostitution publique.
Toulon, ‘de l’imprimerie d’Aug. Aurel’, 1833.
An apparently unrecorded set of decrees intended to regulate sex-work in the French port of Toulon on the Mediterranean coast, ‘for the maintenance of good morals and public health’.
£475
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ASTRUC, Jean.
Tractatus de motus fermentativi causa novam et mechanicam hypothesim conteniens, authore Joanne Astruc artium liberalium...
Montpellier, Honoratus Pech, 1702.
A dissertation on fermentation published by the physician Jean Astruc (1684–1766), aged eighteen; he later taught anatomy at Toulouse and the Collège Royal in Paris, and served as consultant to Louis XV and as chief physician of August II of Poland.
£500
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APIANUS, Peter, and Gemma FRISIUS.
Cosmographia, sive Descriptio universi Orbis, Petri Apiani & Gemmae Frisij, Mathematicorum...
Antwerp, ‘Ex officina Ioannis Withagij’, 1584.
The expanded 1584 edition of Apianus’s highly important Cosmographia, printed by the most prolific printer of the work in Antwerp, with volvelles utilising waste from his press.
£3750
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RICCI, Matteo, and Nicolas TRIGAULT.
De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu. Ex P. Matthaei Ricii eiusdem...
Augsburg, Christoph Mang, 1615.
First edition. The ‘most influential description of China to appear during the first half of the seventeenth century. Trigault, the procurator of the Jesuits’ China mission, translated and augmented the pioneer missionary Matteo Ricci’s journal, aiming to elicit support for the mission....
£7500
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ROSSINI, Giovanni.
Alla memoria di Maria Antinori vedova del Marchese Consalvi di Macerata morta improvvisamente la sera del...
Pisa, Niccolo Capurro, 1852.
Scarce first and only edition of this poem in memory of Maria Antinori, widow of the Marchese Consalvi, on her death at the age of thirty-five, penned by the poet, playwright, historical novelist, and art historian Giovanni Rossini (1776–1855).
£275
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PAZZI, Antonio de, and Torquato TASSO.
Stanze inedite di Antonio de Pazzi e di Torquato Tasso in biasimo ed in lode delle...
Venice, Picotti, 1810.
Scarce first edition of verses ‘in blame and in praise of women’ by Antonio de Pazzi and Torquato Tasso, edited by the eminent antiquary and librarian Jacopo Morelli (1745–1819) from a previously unpublished manuscript in the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, and dedicated to Baron Antonio Mulazzani...
£200
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[VITTORIO EMANUELE II.]
Alla gloriosa memoria di Vittoria Emanuele primo re d’Italia, gli Italiani residenti in New York convenuti...
New York, Tipografia della scuola italiana, 1878.
First edition of a commemorative tribute to the late Vittorio Emanuele II, first king of Italy, by the Italian community of New York.
£500
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AUDEN, Wystan Hugh.
Louis MacNeice, a memorial Address, delivered at All Souls, Langham Place on 17 October, 1963.
Privately printed for Faber & Faber, [1963].
First edition, one of 250 copies.
£150
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AUDEN, Wystan Hugh, and Chester KALLMAN.
The Magic Flute.
London, Faber & Faber, [1957].
First UK edition.
£125
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GRAVES, Robert.
Collected Poems.
Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1961.
First edition, inscribed ‘Yours ever, Robert Graves, 1962’.
£300
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AUDEN, Wystan Hugh, and Louis MACNEICE.
Letters from Iceland.
London, Faber & Faber, [1937].
First edition. Was it perhaps Auden and MacNeice’s journey to Iceland that inspired Bridson’s own visit to the country in 1939?
£150
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‘RUFIANDER, Fabius Jocosus’ [pseud. Friedrich Julius ROTTMANN].
Curiöse Inaugural Disputation von dem Recht / Natur...
‘Teutschland, Gedruckt in denen Hundes-Tagen, 1716.’
First edition, very rare, of this satirical academic disputation on melancholy, dedicated to the author’s ‘unpleasant and universally despised’ peers in the hope of cheering them up (p. [4] trans.).
£675
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[PRIMER.]
Abbecedario per imparar facilmente a sillabicare, coll’aggiunta di varie orazioni ad uso delle scuole.
Turin, Giacinto Marietti, [c. 1840?].
A seemingly unrecorded Torino-printed primer, with a series of syllabised phrases on devotion and morality.
£400
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BRASSICANUS, Joannes Alexander.
Hymnus in Apollinem, studiorum pariter ac studiosorum omnium exemplar, ordine conscriptus alphabetico...
Strasbourg, Johann [I] Knoblauch, 1523.
First and only edition, rare, of this close analysis of a Greek hymn to Apollo, by Johannes Alexander Brassicanus (1500–1539), professor, precocious poet, and friend of Erasmus.
£1450
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LUCRETIUS.
Titi Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libri VI. Ad optimorum exemplarium veritatem exacti. Quae praeterea in hac...
Padua, Giuseppe Comino [for Volpi], 2 January 1721.
First Volpi–Comino edition of Lucretius’s famous materialist and Epicurean poem, the most notable Italian edition of the eighteenth century. The present work is the product of the long-running and fruitful collaboration between the printer Giuseppe Comino and the scholars Giovanni Antonio...
£450
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PIEROTTI, A.
Il cervello e la difesa delle donne sestine giocose ... precedute da indirizzo, e dedica in vario metro.
Florence, N. Fabbrini, 1842.
First and only edition, very rare, of this misogynistic poem by the Florentine poet Pierotti, in which he pretends to explore the female brain with reference to Galen, accusing women of, for example, greed, theft, cunning, vanity, and irascibility. The second part is a somewhat patronising defense...
£375