Search results
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MERCURIALE, Girolamo.
De arte gymnastica libri sex, in quibus exercitationum omnium vetustarum genera, loca, modi, facultates,...
Venice, [Lucantonio II] Giunta, 1587.
Third edition of ‘the first illustrated book on gymnastics’ (Morton). A physician occupying senior posts in the medical faculties of Padua, Bologna, Rome, and Pisa, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) draws heavily on accounts of ancient exercise to argue for its medical benefits, being the...
£2750
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FLORUS, Lucius.
Lucii Flori rerum ab urbe condita liber primus [– quartus].
[Venice, in aedibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri, March 1521.]
Florus’s epitome of Roman history, extracted from the Aldine edition of March 1521 which comprised an epitome of Livy, Florus, and Niccolò Perotti’s translation of Polybius.
£750
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SACCHI, Giovenale.
Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze. Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...
Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761.
First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics.
£850
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[TANGIER.]
A Description of Tangier, the Country and People adjoyning. With an account of the person and government of Gayland,...
London, for Samuel Speed, 1664.
Scarce first edition of this entertaining account of Tangier, in north-western Morocco, during the English occupation of the city, which had begun in 1661 following Charles II’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza, and which would come to an end in 1684.
£2750
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[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
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HATHORN, James George.
A hand-book of Darjeeling; with brief notes on the culture and manufacture of tea, and rules for the sale...
Calcutta, R.C. Lepage & Co., 1863.
Scarce first edition of this guide to Darjeeling by Hathorn (1826–1868), a Captain in the Bengal and then Royal Artillery.
£2750
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LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth.
Autograph letter, signed ‘Henry W. Longfellow’, to ‘Lady Emily’.
Ouchy, 16 September 1868.
Addressed to ‘Lady Emily’, Longfellow here expresses his regret at not being able to see her at Sécheron while he was staying at Geneva, and apologises also for not being able to return to Geneva ‘to accept your hospitable invitation. We go tomorrow to Yverdon, and thence through Neuchâtel, and...
£450
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PAPINI, Roberto.
Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.
Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.
First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, compiled by the Italian art historian Roberto Papini (1883–1957), director of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan and later...
£300
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[PFORZHEIMER, Carl H.]
The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library: English Literature, 1475–1700.
New York, Privately Printed [at the Morrill Press], 1940.
First edition, limited, numbered 17 of 150 copies and signed by Pforzheimer on the frontispiece portrait, from the library of the pre-eminent collector of English literature Robert S. Pirie.
£3500
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POUND, Ezra.
Quia Pauper amavi.
London, The Egoist Ltd, [1919].
First edition, one of 500 ordinary copies (there were also 100 signed copies on handmade paper’, inscribed ‘Bridson’s copy / 11 Ap ’59 / Ezra Pound’. This work contained the first English publication of Cantos I–III, not printed in that order.
£1750
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DAVENANT, William, Sir.
Two excellent Plays: the Wits, a Comedie: the Platonick Lovers, a Tragi-Comedie. Both presented...
London, Printed for G. Bedel, and T. Collins … 1665
First collected edition of two plays first published in 1636, probably published to fill the revenue gap after the temporary closure of the theatres in 1665 because of the Plague.
£950
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SHEPHERD, Richard Herne.
Forgotten Books worth remembering … No. I. Studies of Sensation and Event by Ebenezer Jones …
London, Pickering & Co … 1878.
An interesting collection of ‘rare tracts’, from the library of the Scottish lawyer and journalist John Skelton, who wrote for Blackwood’s under the pseudonym ‘Shirley’.
£950
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BLANKENBURG, Quirinus Gerbrandszoon van.
Elementa musica of niew licht tot het welverstaan van de musiec en de bas-continuo. Door...
The Hague, Laurens Berkoske, 1739.
First edition, very scarce.
£1500
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CLARI, Giovanni Carlo Maria.
Manuscript score ‘VI Duetti Madrigaleschi’.
[Italian, late eighteenth century?]
A collection of six madrigals for two voices, comprising ‘La Moglie gelosa’, ‘Il Pellegrino’, ‘Il Vanegio’, ‘L’ambizio indigente’, ‘Il Pazzo inamorato’, ‘Il Maestro di Cappella che compone alla Mosaica’.
£850
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FABRIZI, Pietro.
Regole generali di canto fermo raccolte da diversi autori … in questa quarta impresione corrette, & ampliate.
Rome, Mascardi, 1708.
‘Fourth’ edition of a small practical manual of plain-chant, with examples, first published in 1651. Fabrizi, a Florentine about whom little is known, was maestro di capella at Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome. The treatise was referred to by Bononcini in his Musico pratico; a ‘third...
£500
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[FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.]
Psalms, Hymns & Anthems used in the Chapel of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of exposed &...
[London], 1774 [but c. 1780?]
The Foundling Hospital was established by Thomas Coram in 1739 as Britain’s first charity for the care of orphaned or abandoned children. ‘The Hospital chapel, in use by 1749 and officially opened in 1753, soon became well known for its music as well as for its elegant architecture and adornments’...
£750
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FREZZA DALLE GROTTE, Gioseppe.
Il Cantore ecclesiastico breve, facile, ed essatta notizia del canto fermo per istruzzione de’...
Padua, Stamperia del Seminario (Giovanni Manetti), 1698.
First edition of an uncommon plainchant manual published for the use of the Minorites (Conventual Franciscans). The two striking woodcuts depict a book of plainchant on a cantor’s lectern, and the famous Guidonian hand, a medieval mnemonic device to assist with sight-singing.
£1250
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GREENE, Maurice.
Forty select Anthems in Score composed for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 Voices … Volume first [– second].
London. J. Walsh, 1743.
First edition. Greene was organist and composer to the Chapels Royal, and an admirer and sometime friend of Handel (their friendship expiring on the occasion of Handel’s quarrel with Buononcini). Forty Select Anthems, setting Psalms and other Biblical texts, is ‘the work on which his...
£850
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[MAGDALEN CHAPEL.]
The Hymns, Anthems & Tunes with the Ode used at the Magdalen Chapel set for the Organ, Harpsichord, Voice, German-Flute,...
London, Printed for C. and S. Thompson … [1770?]
First edition thus, very rare, of this Magdalen Chapel Hymnbook, with a total of thirty-eight tunes: twenty-four hymns, three anthems, nine psalms, ‘The Wish’ and ‘The Ode’.
£1750
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MALCOLM, Alexander.
A Treatise of Musick, speculative, practical and historical. Containing an explication of the philosophical...
London, J. Osborn and T. Longman, F. Fayram, and E. Symon, 1730.
First London edition of the first history of music in English by a British author; it is a reissue of the Edinburgh-printed first edition of 1721 with a cancel title-page and the dedication removed.
£1100