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

PAULUS de Sancta Maria.

Scrutinium scripturarum.

[(Colophon:) Mainz, Peter Schoeffer, 7 January 1478.]

Fifth edition (first Strasbourg, not after May 1470), the first published by Peter Schoeffer in Mainz, of this influential treatise of Christian Hebraism cited by Erasmus, Thomas More, Luther, and Reuchlin, among others, by the Spanish converso bishop Paulus de Sancta Maria (c. 1351–1435)....

£12500

PATRIZI, Francesco.

Egloga de Christi nativitate …

[Padua, Printer of Lucianus (H 10276), c. 1482.]

Extremely rare first edition of Patrizi’s pastoral poem on the birth of Christ, the first work of his to appear in print.

£4500

[LANSPERGER, Johannes Justus;] Serafino ACETI DE’ PORTI, translator.

Pharetra divini amoris, tradotto in volgare per Don...

Venice, Paolo Gherardo [(colophon:) Comin da Trino], 1549.

Third Italian edition, considerably enlarged, of this important devotional compendium, with a series of fine woodcuts illustrating Christ’s Passion.

£1500

LA VIGNE, André de.

Le vergier dhonneur nouvellement imprime a paris. De lentreprinse et voyage de Naples. Auquel est comprins...

[(Colophon:) Paris, Philippe le Noir], [1521–22].

George Dunn’s copy of a rare early edition of the Vergier d’honneur, a reprint of the 1512 edition by Jean Petit and Jean Frellon.

£9500

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

GAGUIN, Robert.

La mer des croniques et mirouer hystorial de France jadis compose en latin … et nouvellement traduict de latin...

Paris, [Bernard Aubry for] Jacques Nyverd, to be sold by Galiot du Pré, [(colophon:) 23 August 1530].

Very rare Paris vernacular edition (first 1518) of an illustrated history of the French monarchy, a seminal work of French historiography, devised as a scholarly account of France in the style of the classical historians.

£8500

[DEVOTION.]

Cy commence une petite instruction et maniere de vivre pour une femme seculiere. Comment elle se doibt conduire: en...

[Paris, Guillaume Merlin, c. 1553.]

A gathering of very rare three devotional works in French from the press of Guillaume Merlin, including a guide to spirituality and daily religious practices explicitly meant for laywomen.

£7500

[CHAMPIER, Symphorien.]

La vie & les gestes du preux chevalier Bayard. Contenant plusieurs victoires par luy faictes du Resgne...

Lyons, Olivier Arnoullet, [(colophon:) 8 April 1558].

A rare edition of Champier’s account of the preux chevalier Bayard’s life and achievements, from the renowned library of the duc de La Vallière.

£9500

[CATECHISM.]

Fundamentum eterne felicitatis omnibus hominibus utilissimum. Sedecim signa per que coniecturare possumus aliquem...

[(Colophon:) Cologne, [Retro minores (Martin von Werden?) for] Heinrich Quentell, [before September] 1498.]

Very rare first edition of this small-format catechism, with an unusually early example of printed pagination. This short catechetical text was popular with priests in the late fifteenth century, and again to the first generation of Reformers. It contains questions and answers regarding the Creed, the...

£5000

[BUTRIO, Antonius de, attributed; HUGH of Saint-Cher; Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo; DENIS the Carthusian.]

[Speculum de...

[(Colophon:) Louvain, Johannes de Westfalia,] [not before 1483–1485].

Rare third(?) edition, printed in Louvain, of a collection of devotional and moral works, with early Spanish provenance, later in the library at Syston Park.

£5750

ACQUAVIVA, Claudio.

Meditationes in Psalmum XLIV, & CXVIII.

Rome, Bartolomeo Zanetti, 1616.

First edition of these Jesuit meditations on two of the Psalms, a copy bound in the Soresini workshop for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

£1550

BELLARMINE, Robert.

De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis liber unus. Cum adiunctis indicibus undecim, et brevi chronologia ab orbe condito...

Rome, Bartolomeo Zannetti, 1613.

First edition of a remarkable biobibliography of ‘ecclesiastical writers’ by the great Jesuit theologian and controversialist, Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), one of the most important figures of the Counter-Reformation.

£350

PETRONIUS ARBITER, Titus.

Satyricon; et diversorum poëtarum lusus in Priapum, cum selectis variorum commentariis. Accedunt Pervigilium...

Utrecht, Gijsbert van Zijll and Dirck van Ackersdijck, 1654.

A volume of Silver Age satire and lewd lyrics with fourth-century Virgilian verses.

£350

KUZMIN, Mikhail Alekseevich.

Александрійскія Пѣсни [Aleksandriiskiia pesni; ‘Alexandrian songs’].

St Petersburg, “Prometei”, [1921].

First separate edition of Kuzmin’s Alexandrian Songs, originally published as part of his first collection, Nets, in 1908.

£400

FLEMING, Ian.

The Spy who loved me.

London, Jonathan Cape, 1962.

First edition, first impression, of the only Bond novel narrated in the first person by the twenty-three-year-old Canadian Vivienne Michel, a lover of Bond’s.

£1250

[EROTICA.]

Pencil drawing of a woman in eighteenth-century hunting dress.

[France, early nineteenth century?]

A fine erotically-charged figure study of a woman in rather masculine eighteenth-century French hunting dress, seemingly pleasuring herself for the gratification of the viewer.

£3750

SCOTT, Walter, Sir.

Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field.

Edinburgh, Archibald Constable; London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, and John Murray, 1821.

Tenth edition of Scott’s historical verse romance, this copy presented by Evelyn Waugh as an apologetic gift to the Hollywood publicist and Broadway songwriter Howard Dietz, then at work on an ill-fated film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited.

£1200

[PRAYERBOOK.]

Tägliche Andachts-Ubungen, zum Gebrauch Ihro kayserl. Majestät der Königin zu Hungarn und Böheim. Neueste Auflage,...

Steyr, Johann Ferdinand Holzmayr, 1773.

An attractive and very rare edition of this popular prayerbook for Maria Theresa of Austria, printed at Steyr in Upper Austria, in a handsome contemporary binding.

£850

POLLUX, Julius.

Ονομαστικον εν βιβλιοις δεκα … Onomasticum Graece & Latine. Post egregiam illam Wolfgangi...

Amsterdam, Wetstein, 1706.

A crisp copy of Pollux’s second-century encyclopaedia of Greek, from the library of the Scottish mathematician James Stirling.

£300