HERMES TRISMEGISTUS; Marsilio FICINO, translator.

Liber de potestate et sapientia Dei …

[(Colophon:) Venice, Damianus de Mediolano, de Gorgonzola, 10 May 1493.]

An attractive Venetian edition of the first Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (sometimes known as Pimander, from the name of just the first of fourteen chapters), the foundation of Hermetic Philosophy and a fundamental text of early alchemy.

£7500

PFEFFER DE WYDENBERG, Johannes.

[Directorium sacerdotale.]

[Basel, Johann Besicken, after 20 December 1482.]

First and only incunable edition, very rare, of a guide for priests written by the first theology professor at the University of Freiburg, provided with a helpful system for locating passages in the text.

£6500

[BOIS-SEIGNEUR-ISAAC.]

Histoire memorable et digne de foy, du sainct sang de miracle, advenue au Bois Seigneur Isaac diocese de...

Mons, Charles Michel, 1593.

First and only edition, very rare, of an account of a medieval miracle at the Augustinian abbey of Bois-Seigneur-Isaac, to the northeast of Mons in Belgium, published not long after the abbey had been all but destroyed during the French Wars of Religion.

£1250

BELLARMINO, Roberto.

Dichiarazione della dottrina cristiana ... Revista ed approvata. 

Brescia, Bendiscioli, 1815.

Very rare vernacular Brescia edition of Cardinal Bellarmino’s so-called ‘small catechism’ (Doctrina Christiana), composed in dialogue format for the education of children and ‘simple souls’, this copy an unusual example of a patterned paper used to cover a longstitch carta rustica...

£350

[ATHANASIUS, Pseudo-.]

Գիրք պատասխանական Ս[ր]բ[ո]յն Աթանասի. Հարցմանց Ս[ր]բ[ո]յն...

Constantinople, Chnchin Hovhannes, [1749].

Rare theological and moral treatise in Armenian, framed as a dialogue between St Cyril of Jerusalem and St Athanasius of Alexandria, printed and almost certainly bound in Constantinople, and illustrated with three woodcuts. 

£2000

[ADVENT.]

Praeparatio ad nativitatem Domini Nostri Jesu Christi ad excitandos animi affectus ex missali Romano, et breviario collecta...

Turin, Ignazio Soffietti, [c. 1790].

An extremely rare short liturgical text to be used in the festive season from 16 to 24 December, complete with music, with a hand-coloured title-page and in decorative wrappers.

£475

BROWNE, Thomas.

Religio Medici, Urn Burial, Christian Morals, and other Essays.

[Printed by the Ballantyne Press, and sold by Hacon and Ricketts, The Vale Press, London, and John Lane, New York, 1902.]

One of 310 unnumbered copies plus 10 on vellum (the limitation not here stated), one of Ricketts’s most attractive productions at the Vale Press, from the library of T. E. Lawrence.

£2000

THICKNESSE, Philip.

A Year’s Journey through the Paix Bâs and Austrian Netherlands … Vol. I [all published].

London, 1784.

First edition, rare, and possibly suppressed, of a typically idiosyncratic account of a ‘quarrel-ridden tour’ of the Netherlands and Belgium by ‘the most irascible individual within the arena of late eighteenth-century print culture’ (ODNB), with a graphic depiction of the 1762 execution...

£1850

[HÖSS,] Maria Crescentia, Saint.

‘Wahre Abbildung der From[m]en Schwester Maria Crescentia des Heilige[n] Ordens S. Francisci,...

Mindelheim, Lingauer, 1744.

Extremely rare devotional engraving of Maria Crescentia Höss, a mystic and sister of the Third Order Regular of St Francis at the Franciscan convent in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, issued shortly after her death at the nearby town of Mindelheim.

£750

TERTULLIAN.

Opera … per Beatum Rhenanum Seletstadiensem e tenebris eruta, atque a situ pro virili vindicata, adiectis singulorum...

Basel, [(colophon:) Hieronymus] Froben [and Nikolaus Episcopius], March 1539.

Third Froben edition of Tertullian’s extant writings, studiously edited and re-revised by Beatus Rhenanus, with extensive annotations showing considerable engagement with the text by early readers seeking to contextualise Tertullian.

£1750

RICHARD of Wendover.

Correctorium alchymiae … Das is reformierte Alchimy, oder Alchimeibesserung, und Straffung der Alchimistischen...

Strasbourg, Bernard Jobin, 1581.

First edition of ‘a very rare collection’ (Duveen) of five alchemical treatises, comprising Richard of Wendover’s Correctorium and Reformierte Alchimei, Lull’s Apertorium et accuratio vegetabilium and Vom philosophischen Stein, and Geber’s Secretum.

£4500

MYLIUS, Georg, and Michael HOPF.

De visitatione ecclesiastica.

Jena, Tobias Steinmann, 1593.

First edition, rare, of an early work on the nature, scope, limits and jurisdiction of canonical visitations, the visitationes ecclesiasticae, a key element in the outline of jurisdiction, responsibility and control established by the Catholic Reformation in the last decades of the sixteenth century.

£200

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

HOFFMEISTER, Johann.

Loci communes rerum theologicarum, quae hodie in controversia agitantur, ad regulam, et consensum verae, catholicaeque...

[(Colophon:) Ingolstadt, Alexander Weissenhorn, 1547.]

First edition. In the dedication to the present work, Hoffmeister (1509–1547), one of Luther’s resolute adversaries, and Vicar General of the Augustinians in Germany, explains that there are people who wish, bono fortasse zelo, to find the truth for themselves and who hope that it may be possible...

£500

[BIBLE – OLD TESTAMENT.]

Los cinco libros de la ley divina. De nuevo corregidos y bueltos à imprimir [– Aphtaroth de todo...

Amsterdam, ‘en casa, y a costa de Selomoh Proops’, ‘año 5478’ [i.e. 1717/1718].

An uncommon and handsomely produced Pentateuch with haftarot, printed for the use of the Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam, our copy in an attractive binding incorporating menorahs and with richly gauffered edges featuring birds and floral motifs.

£1850

BEBEL, Heinrich.

In hoc libro contine[n]tur haec Bebeliana opuscula nova. Epistola ad cancellarium de laudibus et philosophia veterum...

Strasbourg, Johann Grüninger, 1508.

First edition of a compendium of works by the noted Swabian humanist Heinrich Bebel (1472–1518), including his Facetiae, Proverbia Germanica, and selected verse.

£3500

[LE NOBLE, Pierre, and Eustache LE NOBLE (attributed).] 

Les Amours d’Anne d’Austriche, Epouse de Louis 13.  Avec le Cardinal...

‘A Cologne, Chez Pierre Marteau, 1696’ [France, early eighteenth century]. 

An early manuscript copy of a salacious – and treasonous – history arguing that Louis XIV was the illegitimate child of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Richelieu, bound with four engravings. 

£850

MILLER, Philip.

The Gardeners Kalendar, directing what works are necessary to be performed every month in the kitchen, fruit, and...

London, John Rivington, H. Woodfall, A. Millar, J. Whiston and B. White, G. Hawkins, J. Hinton, R. Baldwin, L. Hawes and W. Clarke and R....

A very attractive copy of the most popular work of Philip Miller (1691−1771), the foremost British gardener of the eighteenth century, with five folding plates of botanical illustrations.

£165

HIBBERD, James Shirley.

The Garden Oracle and floricultural Year Book … 24^th annual issue.

London, Gardener’s Magazine Office, 1882.

Edited by James Shirley Hibberd (1825–1890), one of the most successful Victorian gardening writers, founder of the Amateur Gardener and editor of the Gardener’s Magazine, the Vegetarian Advocate, and the Floral World and Garden Guide.

£100

MARTIAL.

Epigrammaton libri XIII. Ex fide vetustissimorum exemplarium, quanta fieri potuit cura vigilantiaque emendati.

Paris, Jean Libert, 1612 [(colophon:) 1613].

An uncommon small-format edition of Martial’s Epigrams, with early annotations marking passages used by the humanist poet Marot.

£650