ARISTAENETUS.

Επιστολαι … Epistolae graecae. Cum Latina interpretatione & notis. Tertia editio emendatior & auctior.

Paris, Marc Orry, 1610.

A volume of fictional Greek amatory epistles, printed in parallel Greek and Latin, from the library of the Padua professor and printer Giovanni Antonio Volpi.

£1250

ARISTIDES, Aelius.

Orationum tomi tres, nunc primum latine versi a Gulielmo Cantero Ultraiectino. Huc accessit orationum tomus...

Basel, Peter Perna and Heinrich Petrus, 1566.

First edition in Latin, a remarkable copy once owned by one of the preeminent music theorists and composers of Renaissance Italy, Gioseffo Zarlino.

£2750

ARISTOPHANES.

The Frogs, a Comedy. Translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, by C[harles] Dunster, A.M …

Oxford, J. and J. Fletcher; London, Rivington, Payne, Faulder, Cadell; Cambridge, Merrill, [1785].

First edition in English, and the only separately published translation of The Frogs in the eighteenth century. ‘It is … somewhat surprising that in an age so studious of ancient literature as the present, and which so much abounds in translations of the Greek and Latin classics, we...

£500

ARISTOPHANES, and Henry Francis CARY, translator.

The Birds … with Notes.

London, Printed for Taylor and Hessey … 1824.

First edition of the first metrical translation of Aristophanes’ The Birds into English by Henry Francis Cary (1722–1844) – perhaps best known for his blank verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

£350

ARISTOTLE.

Αριστοτελους περι ποιητικης: Aristotelis de poetica liber ex versione Theodori Goulstoni. Lectionis...

Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1780.

Large-paper issue of the first Winstanley edition, handsomely bound. The first work published by the Oxford historian and classicist Thomas Winstanley (1749–1823), subsequently Camden Professor of History and Laudian Professor of Arabic, this edition of Aristotle’s De poetica was based...

£675

ARNIGIO, Bartolomeo. 

Rime dell’Arnigio per la ill[ustre] signora Claudia Martinenga. 

Brescia, Giovanni Battista Bozzola, 1566. 

First edition of Bartolomeo Arnigio’s collection of poems addressed to Claudia Martinengo, wife to Ludovico Martinengo della Pallata, an important association copy presented by the author to fellow poet Antonio Beffa Negrini. 

£1750

AUBERY, Jean-Henri.

D. Virgo Guarazonia. Scriptore reverendo patre, P. Ioanne Henrico Auberio Borbonio, religioso presbytero...

Auch, Arnaud de Sainct Bonnet, 1650.

A seemingly unrecorded (first?) edition of a remarkable neo-Latin poem on Our Lady of Garaison composed by the Jesuit priest Jean-Henri Aubery (1601–1652).

£1250

AUGUSTINE, Pseudo-, et al. 

Opusculum multarum bonaru[m] rerum refertum, ut sunt.  Diui Augustini meditationes, et eiusde[m]...

Venice, Pietro Quarengi, 6 March 1512. 

Uncommon edition of various devotional works, comprising: the pseudo-Augustinian Meditations, Soliloquies, and a treatise on the word of God; meditations on the human condition, and a letter on leading the perfect life, attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux; a short sermon assigned to Peter Damian; Anselm’s...

£750

AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius.

De civitate Dei.

Venice, Nicolaus Jenson, 2 October 1475.

A tall copy with some deckle edges of the only Jenson edition of the City of God, Augustine’s influential treatise written in the wake of the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. Augustine sought to justify why a Christian state, with the support of God, could be defeated in this way;...

£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

BACON, Francis.

Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica, civilia, et theologica, nunc primum edita. Cura & fide Guilielmi Rawley...

London, R. Daniel, impensis Octaviani Pulleyn, 1658.

First edition, second issue of this collection of the philosophical, political, and theological writings of Bacon, including numerous essays previously unpublished, and the first appearance in Latin of a biographical sketch of the philosopher by William Rawley (c. 1588–1667), Bacon’s literary...

£1250

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

BALBUS, Johannes.

Catholicon.

[Strasbourg, The R-Printer (Adolf Rusch), not after 1475.]

Third edition of the earliest printed lexicon, a monumental piece of printing from one of the earliest presses in Strasbourg, containing the thirteenth-century Latin dictionary and grammar of Johannes Balbus, the ‘greatest of the medieval encyclopaedic dictionaries’ (Chamberlin, p. 136); his...

£65000

BARTOLI, Adolfo.

Scenari inediti della Commedia dell’arte. Contributo alla storia del teatro popolare italiano.

Florence, Sansoni, 1880.

Rare first edition, one of only 350 copies, of a foundational source for the study of Commedia dell’Arte. The exceptionally well-loved and widely-performed form of drama is the subject of the author’s pioneering study: he examines tropes, characters, plots, structures and lines of ‘scenarios’...

£500

[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]

The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...

£1200

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

BEAUVILLIERS, Marie de.

Conférences spirituelles d’une supérieure à ses religieuses ... d’après un manuscrit revu et mis...

Paris, Moquet et Cie for Toulouse, 1838.

Scarce second edition (first 1837, also rare) of this spiritual guide by Marie de Beauvilliers (1574–1667), edited from a manuscript by the historian l'abbé Louis Gaudreau (1798–1872) and including a short biography of the author.

£400

BEDFORDSHIRE – ARLESEY.

Charter of William Hoye of Arlesey (‘Auricheseya’) granting to Robert of Wewenshal for seventy shillings...

Bedfordshire, 1st half of 13th century.

Witnessed by Roger Burnard, William Rixpaud, Roger his brother, Richard the clerk, Robert Rixpaud, Henry son of Odo, Walter son of William, Ivo of Stodfaud, Geoffrey his son, Simon of Estwich, Andrew of Qurisco, William son of Gerard, Roger son of Walter son of William Hay, and many others. Various place-names...

£1400

BELLINTANI, Mattia. 

Quattro prediche dell’istesso R. P. F. Mattia Bellintani Capuccino, della risurrettione.  Della manifestatione...

Brescia, Vincenzo Sabbio, 1598. 

Very rare collection of sermons by the Capuchin friar Bellintani (1535–1611), illustrated with attractive woodcuts. 

£750

BERNARD of Clairvaux.

Opera omnia, tam quae vere germana illius esse nemo inficias eat, quam quae spuria & supposititia (quanquam...

Paris, [Nicolas Bruslé for] Sébastien Nivelle, [1571-] 1572.

A rare Parisian edition of the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, beautifully preserved in a contemporary Spanish plateresca binding with elaborate fore-edge lettering.

£3750