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  1. SCALVO, Bartolomeo.

    Rosariae preces ad gloriosam Dei genitricem Mariam Virginem meditationibus auctae ad vitae Christi eiusdemq[ue]...

    Milan, Pacificus Pontius, 1569.

    First edition of this Marian book of prayers for the use of Rosary societies, lavishly illustrated reusing late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century woodcuts.

    £3500

  2. ZECEÑA, Basilio.

    Oracion pronunciada en la santa iglesia catedral en el XXX aniversario de la Independencia … Se imprime de...

    [Guatemala], imprenta de La Paz, 1851.

    A pair of contemporary works commemorating the creation of modern Guatemala and El Salvador, one of which is unrecorded.

    £450

  3. LUCIAN of Samosata; Étienne MOQUOT, editor.

    Luciani Samosatensis dialogi selecti. Cum nova versione et notis. Ab uno e...

    Lyons, Claude Obert, 1636.

    Uncommon parallel Greek and Latin edition of selected dialogues by the second-century satirist Lucian, edited by the French Jesuit Étienne Moquot (1570–1625?) for use in Jesuit schools.

    £375

  4. FREEMAN, Arthur.

    Historical Forgery in Romanophobe Britain: Robert Ware’s Irish Fictions revisited.

    London, 2021.

    A new and particular account of the anti-Catholic and anti-separatist forgeries of Robert Ware, the seventeenth-century Irish antiquary, who has been called ‘the most audacious fabricator of historical documents who ever lived’. Ware’s formidable output of lively if malicious fictions has...

    £20

  5. MARKHAM, Sheila.

    A second Book of Booksellers: Conversations with the Antiquarian Book Trade, with an Introduction by Nicolas Barker.

    London, 2014.

    First edition, limited to five hundred copies, of the second collection of Markham’s interviews with antiquarian booksellers.

    £35

  6. BOTTO, Giuseppe Domenico.

    Observations microscopiques sur les mouvements des globules végétaux suspendus dans un menstrue.

    [Turin], Imprimerie Royale, [1840].

    An extremely rare offprint from the Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino on Brownian Movement and a contribution to the ‘heated controversy with the best known botanists of the world [started by the] discovery that made [Amici] famous ... that of the fertilization of phanerogams, particularly...

    £675

  7. [BENDISCIOLI, Faustino.]

    Quadro ossia saggio epilogato del Sistema di liberta’ proclamato dai Francesi.

    Milan, Stamperia [dei Patrioti d’Italia] di Strada Nuova, [1799].

    An impassioned tract attacking the claims of a new life of liberty promoted in Europe after the French Revolution, very rarely to be found in any of the three editions published in the same year.

    £200

  8. ARCHIMEDES.

    Τα μεχρι νυν σωζομενα, απαντα … Opera, quae quidem extant, omnia, multis iam seculis desiderata...

    Basel, Johannes Herwagen, [(colophon): March] 1544.

    Editio princeps of the works of Archimedes, ‘the greatest mathematician and engineer of antiquity’ (PMM). Prior to this edition only a small tract in Latin translation, published in 1503, and a partial translation by Tartaglia, published in 1543, had appeared.

    £45000

  9. [CARTHUSIANS. GUIGO DE CASTRO, compiler.]

    Repertorium statutoru[m] ordinis cartusiensis per ordinem alphabeti.

    Basel, Johann Amerbach, 1510.

    First printed edition of the Statutes of the Carthusian Order, printed at the expense of the editor, Gregor Reisch (c. 1467–1525), author of the Margarita philosophica, for distribution to members of the Order only.

    £7500

  10. [CHOIRBOOK.]

    Large historiated initial ‘I’.

    Italy (Umbria), c. 1300.

    A very elegant initial in a style characteristic of Umbrian illumination of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It can be compared to the oeuvres of the First Master of the Gubbio Choir Books and the Master of the Deruta-Salerno Missals, the latter named after two Missals made...

    £4500

  11. COLONNA, Fabio.

    Φυτοβασανος, sive Plantarum aliquot historia …

    Naples, Orazio Salviani, 1592.

    First edition, a landmark in botanical illustration, ‘the first strictly botanical book with intaglio prints’ (Blunt).

    £4000

  12. DU HALDE, Jean-Baptiste.

    A Description of the Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary, together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet,...

    London, T. Gardner for Edward Cave, 1738 [–1741].

    The first complete English translation of Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s Description géographique … de l’Empire de la Chine (1735), the ‘Bible of European sinophilia’ (Löwendahl). Based on the reports of major Jesuit missionaries, and shaped by the earlier Historia of Martini...

    £15000

  13. EUCLID.

    Στοιχειων βιβλ. ιε εκ των θεωνος συνουσιων. Εις του αυτου του πρωτον,...

    Basel, Johannes Herwagen, September 1533.

    Editio princeps of Euclid, the ‘oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today’ (PMM), a work which ‘has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible’ (DSB).

    £18000

  14. EUSEBIUS CAESARIENSIS; RUFINUS AQUILEIENSIS, translator.

    Historia ecclesiastica.

    Rome, Johannes Philippus de Lignamine, 15 May 1476.

    The Syston Park copy of the earliest history of the Christian Church, written in the early fourth century; this is probably the third edition. It was translated into Latin in the early fifth century by Rufinus of Aquileia, who extended the text down to the time of Theodosius at the end of the...

    £4500

  15. HAKLUYT, Richard.

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

    London, ‘George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, Deputies to Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie’, 1589.

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

    £350000

  16. HAKLUYT, Richard.

    The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over-Land,...

    London, George Bishop, Ralph Newberie, and Robert Barker, 1598 [–1600].

    Second edition, first issue of ‘Hakluyt’s monumental masterpiece, and the great prose epic of the Elizabethan period’ (Penrose), complete with the section on the conquest of Cadiz by Essex (vol. I, pp. 607-619) ordered suppressed by Elizabeth I in 1599 (in ESTC state 1a).

    £20000

  17. HUGO, Victor.

    Notre-Dame de Paris. Par Victor Hugo. Troisième edition … Tome premier [– deuxième].

    Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.

    First edition, third issue, of Victor Hugo’s great historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of 275 copies printed.

    £7500

  18. [AGRICULTURE.] BEIJING MUNICIPAL BUREAU FOR AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY.

    农业机械安全生产挂图 [Nongye jixie anquan shengchan...

    [Beijing], China Agriculture Press for Xinhua Bookshop, [late 1970s].

    Very rare complete set of posters promoting the modernisation of agriculture at the outset of China’s economic reform.

    £1750

  19. [CHINA.]

    Notes of a Journey from Canton to Wu-chow-fu.

    S.l., [c. 1862].

    Extremely rare account of an early journey by a Westerner into the interior regions of China, navigating the Xi river upstream from Guangzhou to Wuzhou.

    £450

  20. [GO Keitai 吳啓太 and TEI Eihō 鄭永邦.]

    官話指南 [Guanhua zhinan; ‘A Guide to Mandarin’].

    Kiukiang [Jiujiang], Central China Press, 1893.

    Very rare edition of this guide to Mandarin printed by a Methodist missionary press in Kiukiang (Jiujiang).

    £1750