FABERT, Abraham.

Voyage du roy a Metz, l’occasion d’iceluy: ensemble les signes de resiouyssance faits par ses habitans pour...

[Metz, Fabert,] 1610.

A splendid hand-coloured and gilt copy of the first edition of this handsome festival book commemorating Henri IV’s entry into Metz in March 1603, published seven years after the event and in the same year that Henri was assassinated by François Ravaillac.

£60000

GONZALES DE MENDOZA, Juan. 

The Historie of the Great and Mighty Kingdome of China, and the Situation thereof: together with the...

London, Printed by J. Wolfe for Edward White, 1588[/9]. 

First edition in English, rare, of the first significant European study of China, ‘one of the outstanding “best-sellers” of the sixteenth century’ (Boxer).  A publication of enormous influence on Elizabethan conceptions of China, it also contained much information on the Spanish Americas. ...

£50000

DEZA, Diego de.

In defensio[n]es Sancti Thomae ab impugnationibus magistri Nicholai Magistrique Mathie.

Seville, Meinardus Ungut and Stanislaus Polonus, 4 February 1491.

First edition, institutionally rare and the only copy to have appeared at auction for at least the last half century, of the influential main work of theologian Diego de Deza y Tavera (1444–1523), a towering figure in the Spanish Renaissance.

£50000

[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 The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...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

HAKLUYT, Richard.

The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land, to the most...

Imprinted at London by George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, Deputies to Christopher Barker … 1589.

First edition, a fine copy, with the world map, in a strictly contemporary London binding, of the first collection of English voyages.

£350000

[PROCESSIONAL, Dominican use.]

Processionarium ordinis fratrum praedicatorum.

Seville, Meinardus Ungut and Stanislaus Polonus, 3 April, 1494.

First edition of the first Spanish book to make extensive use of typeset music printing, one of the finest products of early Spanish typography.

£35000

[INDULGENCE.] 

Letter of Indulgence (in Catalan), incipit ‘A Honor …’, granted by Cardinal Luis de Milá,...

[Lerida, Heinrich Botel, c. 1498.] 

Extremely rare incunable indulgence in Catalan granted by Luis de Milá, Bishop of Lérida, in favour of the living (as opposed to the dead, see below) to gather funds for the repair of the old cathedral of Lérida, printed at Lérida, the second city of Catalonia, about one hundred miles...

£34000

FOREST, BISSON FRERES, &c. 

A collection of eight albumen prints (or salt and albumen collages) from mammoth-plate negatives...

France, 1864-5.

An exceptional series of oversize prints commissioned by the Compagnie de Chemins de Fer de l‘Ouest to commemorate the construction of a series of new bridges completed 1861–1864, including the metal bridge at Orival, later destroyed in the Franco-Prussian War, and the oblique stone bridge of...

£30000

ABBEVILLE, Claude d’.

Histoire de la mission des peres capucins en l’isle de Maragnan et terres circonvoisines ou est traicte...

Paris, François Huby, 1614.

Second edition, enlarged and revised from the first edition published earlier the same year, a handsome copy. The first written account of the Capuchin mission to Maranhão, an island on the coast of Brazil, of which, Sabin notes, this is the earliest mention. In 1612 the mission, composed of...

£30000

[MONTESQUIEU, Charles Louis de Secondat].

De l’esprit des loix, ou du rapport que les loix doivent avoir avec la constitution...

Geneva, Barrillot [sic], [1748].

First edition, first issue. Montesquieu’s masterpiece of political theory, the principles of which formed the ideological basis of the French and American revolutions and were the cornerstone of the United States Constitution. Montesquieu argues that culture cannot be abstracted from the climate...

£25750

[ROZIER.] 

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

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. 

£25000

[CANONS REGULAR OF THE LATERAN.]

Regula et constitutiones Canonicorum Regularium congregationis S. Salvatoris, Ordinis Sancti...

Rome, apud Paulum Bladum, 1592.

The most complete edition, rare, of the Rule and Constitutions of the Order of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine of the Congregation of the Most Holy Saviour, printed on vellum, with two seemingly unrecorded cancels, from the library of a former Abbot General of the Order. 

£25000

LACTANTIUS.

Opera.

[Venice,] Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.

Magnificent incunable edition of the works of Lactantius, a fine product of the first Venetian press, established in 1469 by Johannes de Spira and continued by his brother Vindelinus from 1470 until 1473. This was the fifth impression of the works of Lactantius, the hugely successful North African...

£25000

[COLONNA, Francesco.] 

Poliphili hypnerotomachia, ubi humana omnia non nisi somnium esse ostendit, atque obiter plurima scitu...

Venice, [heirs of Aldus], 1545. 

Second edition, scarcer than the first (also an Aldine, published in 1499), of the most beautiful illustrated books printed in Italy in the fifteenth century.  Known for its fine woodcut illustrations, mysterious meanings, and the cryptic inclusion of Colonna’s name, the Hypnerotomachia...

£24000

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.

£22500

[HAMILTON, Alexander, James MADISON, and John JAY].

The Federalist: A Collection of Essays written in Favor of the new Constitution,...

New York: Printed and sold by John and Andrew M’Lean … 1788.

First edition in book form of The Federalist Papers, the single most important work of American political philosophy, a normal paper copy, very rare in the original boards, uncut and largely unopened. Volume II is in a mixed state, with the error ‘Letter LXXX’ rather than ‘LXX’...

£220000

SPILBERGEN, Joris van, and Jacob LE MAIRE.

Speculum orientalis occidentalisque Indiae navigationum; quarum una Georgii a Spilbergen...

Leiden, Nicolaes van Geelkercken, 1619.

First Latin edition of one of the classic Dutch illustrated voyages, identical in format and illustration to the same publisher’s Dutch-language edition of the same year. ‘All first editions in oblong format are rare and much sought after’ (Borba de Moraes p. 828). The maps include the Straits...

£20000

[GRADUAL.]

Vast historiated initial ‘A’ cut from a Gradual.

Italy (Umbria), end of thirteenth century.

A spectacular initial on the scale of a small panel painting. The verso includes the text ‘[neque] irrideant me inimici mei […] [un]iversi qui te expectant’ and the versicle ‘Vias tuas domine de[monstras]’, indicating that the initial would have introduced the introit ‘Ad te levavi...

£20000

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

PONTIFICAL-MISSAL,

Use of Luçon, in Latin, with readings for the Fourth Week of Lent and Holy Thursday in the Temporal;

France (Paris), late fourteenth century.

A rediscovered leaf from the Missal of Etienne de Loypeau, bishop of Luçon, with a miniature by the so-called Master of Death and border decoration attributable to the ‘A Master’ of the Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry.

£17500