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  1. [MARY I.] VISDOMINI, Francesco.

    Oratione funebre fatta in Napoli nell’hon. essequie della serenissima regina d’Ingliterra...

    [Naples, Raimondo Amato, 1559.]

    First edition, extremely rare, of this Italian sermon on the death of Mary I of England. Our copy appears to be an unrecorded issue, omitting from the title-page the imprint recorded by EDIT16 (‘se vendeno ala porta piccola de s. Laurentio appresso à Raymondo Amato’).

    £1800

  2. MOUSSON, Pierre.

    Tragoediae seu diversarum gentium et imperiorum magni principes. Dati in theatrum collegii regii Henrici magni ...

    La Flèche, George Griveau, 1621.

    First edition, provincially-printed, of four Neo-Latin tragedies by the French Jesuit professor and playwright Pierre Mousson (c. 1560–1637) inspired by four great figures from the classical world.

    £725

  3. BACON, Francis.

    Historia vitae et mortis.

    Amsterdam, Johannes van Ravesteyn, 1663.

    Pocket-sized Amsterdam editions of three works by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), uncut and unopened and bound, exceptionally, in the original drab boards.

    £975

  4. [BIBLE.]

    Biblia sacra vulgatae editionis … [with:] Novum Jesu Christi Testamentum, vulgatae editionis, Sixti V pont. max. jussu...

    Paris, Jacques Vincent, 1741/1740.

    An attractively bound copy of the Old and New Testament in the Vulgate version, issued by the noted Parisian printer Jacques Vincent (1671–1760).

    £975

  5. BORBONI, Domenico.

    Architectura Dominici Borbonii celeberrimi architecti, et pictoris Bononiensis.

    [Bassano,] ‘ex typographio Remondiniano Veneto’, [c. 1670?].

    Only known edition of this very rare collection of superb architectural plates by the Bolognese architect and painter Domenico Borboni, published by Giovanni Antonio Remondini, our copy used as a draughtsman’s pattern book.

    £3750

  6. GELLIUS, Aulus.

    Auli Gellii luculentissimi scriptoris Noctes Atticae.

    Lyon, Sebastian Gryphius, 1555.

    Gryphius edition of Aulus Gellius’ famous Attic Nights, issued the year before Gryphius’ death.

    £650

  7. HARRIS, James.

    Three Treatises the first concerning Art the second concerning music painting and poetry the third concerning happiness...

    London, John Nourse and Paul Vaillant, 1765.

    Presentation copies, inscribed ‘From the Author’, of the revised second editions of these two works on art and language by the philosopher and latterly politician James Harris.

    £600

  8. JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus; Cornelius NEPOS.

    Trogi Pompei externae historiae in compendium ab Justino redactae. Externorum imperatorum...

    Venice, ‘in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Asulani soceri’, January 1522.

    First Aldine edition of Justinus’ abridgement of the lost Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus, and of Nepos’ De viris illustribus, with a decorated initial to the opening of the text, likely executed in the early nineteenth century when the work was bound in Rome.

    £1850

  9. KECHT, Johann Sigismund.

    Der verbesserte praktische Weinbau in Gärten und vorzüglich auf Weinbergen … dritte, vermehrte, und...

    Berlin, [Trowitzsch and Son for] the author, 1823.

    Third, expanded edition (first 1813) of J.S. Kecht’s influential treatise describing his innovative methods of pruning grapevines to maximise harvest, first developed in his garden in Berlin and later praised by Goethe.

    £450

  10. [LILY, William.]

    A short introduction of grammar compiled and set forth for the bringing up of all those that intend to attain...

    London, S. Buckley and T. Longman, 1738.

    Two beautifully printed eighteenth-century Latin grammars ascribed to the great grammarian and schoolmaster William Lily (1468?–1522/1523).

    £550

  11. [LORD LEYCESTER HOSPITAL, WARWICK.]

    Account of the Charity of Leicester’s Hospital. Its Foundation & Endowment, Government, Former...

    Warwick, mid-nineteenth century.

    A manuscript copy of the sixteenth-century statues of the Lord Leycester Hospital, an almshouse founded by Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, for impoverished or ageing former soldiers wounded in service.

    £350

  12. MILLER, Philip.

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

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

    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

  13. PIRANI, Giovanni.

    Le donne belle del secolo XVIII. Inferme nello spedale della voluttà visitate dalla ragione. Opera filosofico-critico-morale...

    Rimini, Paolo Albertini, 1791.

    Scarce first edition of this ‘libro bizarro’ printed in Rimini, in which the personification of Reason takes the narrator on an imaginary journey to a ‘hospital’ in order to heal young women corrupted by the decadence of the eighteenth century.

    £950

  14. BEAUMONT, Joseph.

    Psyche: or Loves Mysterie in XX. Canto’s: displaying the Intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soule …

    London, Printed by John Dawson for George Boddington … 1648.

    First edition of this lengthy religious epic representing the journey of the personified Soul from England to the Holy Land and back, written by Beaumont, one of the royalist fellows ejected from Cambridge in 1644.

    £1250

  15. BLANCHON, Jacques.

    Iacobi Blanchoni Ucessiensis adversus Ludovicum Beneventanum abbatem Selestensem defensionum liber.

    Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1550.

    First edition of a very rare work of sixteenth-century Lyonnese Neoplatonism, an elegantly printed de Tournes edition.

    £950

  16. [BOUCHET, Jean.]

    Les triu[m]phes de la noble et amoureuse dame, et l’art de honnestement aymer, compose par le Traverseur des...

    Paris, Estienne Caveiller for Pierre Sergent, 6 June 1539.

    Unrecorded issue of Jean Bouchet’s contemplative vernacular work of moral theology in prose and verse explicitly intended for a female readership, following the personified Soul in dialogue with several virtues as she attempts to combat the forces of earthly temptation with the power of divine grace....

    £4500

  17. [ALMANACK.]

    The royal Kalendar; or complete and correct annual Register for England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, for the Year...

    London, John Debrett et al., [1792].

    An attractive volume containing these two contrasting English almanacks from the time of the French Revolution, bound one within the other with splendid gilt brocade pocket-endpapers by the renowned Nuremberg papermaker Paul Reimund (d. 1815).

    £1200

  18. [BARBERS.]

    Statuts des maitres barbiers-perruquiers, baigneurs-étuvistes, royaux et héréditaires de la ville de Marseille, confirmés...

    Marseille, Antoine Favet, 1777.

    Very rare collection of statutes, regulations, and decrees governing the community of master barbers, wigmakers, and bathhouse workers, both men and women, of Marseille, with annotations referencing female guild members.

    £1250

  19. [CHINA.]

    A collection of 46 Chinese watercolour miniatures on pith.

    [Canton?, c. 1870].

    A series of delicate portraits – the colours beautifully preserved – of a wide range of figures from late-Qing China. The persons portrayed include tradesmen and -women, labourers, dignitaries, scholars, actors, soldiers, figures in ceremonial dress, monks, musicians, and gentlefolk attended by servants...

    £1850

  20. [DEFOE, Daniel.]

    A Letter to Dissenters.

    London, Printed for John Morphew … 1713.

    First edition, the state with the final page misnumbered. This tract is an admonition to Defoe’s fellow Dissenters, ‘saying that they enjoy great privileges at present, the Queen having undertaken to maintain the Toleration Act and even having for long resisted the Act against Occasional Conformity....

    £600