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

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 The excessively rare ‘Pékin’ imprint was printed in very small numbers and swiftly withdrawn because of a statement on page 104...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

[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

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

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

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

LACTANTIUS.

Opera.

[Venice], Vindelinus de Spira, 1472.

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 early Christian writer.

£30000

VIGNES, Louis (photographer), NEGRE, Charles (printer)

Voyage d’exploration à la mer Morte, à Petra et sur la rive gauche du...

Printed 1874-76.

A fine set of the photogravures for which Nègre was justly celebrated, from the collection of Marie-Thérèse and André Jammes. The titles and plate numbers are added in pencil, likely by the author or publisher (Arthus Bertrand, Paris, 1874-76). The albumen prints, from the original negatives from...

£27500

[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

[CANONS REGULAR OF THE LATERAN.]

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

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

MELA, Pomponius.

Cosmographia, sive De situ orbis.

[Venice, printer of Pomponius Mela, 1477].

Second edition, very rare. This is the variant issue without date or place of printing, and is one of only five books known to have produced by the anonymous printer who has been named after the present edition. Mela’s description of the world, also known under the title Chorographia,...

£25000

[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

[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 book 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

GALILEI, Galileo.

Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze attenenti alla mecanica & i movimenti locali…con...

Leiden, Elzevier, 1638.

First edition of the first modern textbook of physics and the foundation of the science of mechanics; a very important copy, owned and annotated by Pierre Varignon, intimate friend of Newton, Leibniz, and the Bernoullis.

£195000

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

PANTHEO, Giovanni Agostino.

Voarchadumia contra alchimiam: ars distincta ab archimia, et sophia: cum additionibus, proportionibus,...

Venice, [Giovanni Tacuino], 1530.

First edition, first issue, of this rare alchemical work, highly unusual for its early use of four-colour printing.

£18000

GALILEI, Galileo. 

Dialogo … sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano. 

Florence, G.B. Landini, 1632. 

First edition of one of the most famous works in the history of scientific thought, Galileo’s defence of Copernican heliocentrism, which led to his trial and imprisonment for heresy. 

£160000

[BIBLICAL MEDITATIONS – CHINESE.] 

聖經廣益 [Sheng Jing Guang Yi]. 

Beijing, Shou shan tang, c. 1734. 

First edition, very rare, a translation into Chinese of meditations on Gospel readings, by Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla (1669–1748).  De Mailla, a Jesuit missionary who had arrived in China around 1703, is now best known for his translation of the Chinese annals, published posthumously...

£15000

BISSON, Louis-Auguste. 

‘Wildfire’. 

Paris, c. 1844. 

An extraordinary equine portrait, testimony to the improvements made in the daguerreotype process made by Louis-August Bisson which allowed greater spontaneity through shorter exposure times. 

£14500