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  1. BOEMUS, Johann, and ‘Lucio FAUNO’ [pseud. Giovanni TARCAGNOTA] (translator).

    Gli costumi, le leggi, et...

    Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1542.

    First edition in Italian of Johann Boemus’s influential ethnographic compendium, a sixteenth-century bestseller considered the first of its kind.

    £475

  2. LIVY, Titus. 

    T. Livii Patauini […] ex XIIII Decadibus Historiae Romanae ab Urbe condita, Decades, prima, tertia, quarta,...

    Paris, [Michel Vascosan for] Oudin Petit, 1543 [– Michel Vascosan for himself and Oudin Petit, 1542]. 

    A much-praised edition of Livy’s History, reprinting Vascosan’s 1535 edition and including the philological corpus on Livy by the most established humanists of the time: Rhenanus, Gelenius, Grynaeus, Glareanus, Badius Ascensius, Valla, and Sabellico. 

    £3800

  3. MARLIANI, Bartolomeo. 

    Urbis Romae topographia. 

    Rome, Valerio & Luigi Dorico, September 1544. 

    First illustrated edition (third overall), showing the archaeology and antiquities of Rome as known in the sixteenth century.  First published in octavo by Antonio Blado in 1534 and reprinted at Lyons by Sébastien Gryphe later the same year, Marliani’s topography of Rome remained the foremost...

    £5500

  4. 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

  5. SOPHOCLES.

    Σοφοκλεους τραγωδιαι επτα μετα σχολιων παλαιων και πανυ ωφελιμων....

    [(Colophon:) Frankfurt am Main, Peter Braubach], 1544.

    First of several Braubach editions of the seven extant Greek tragedies of Sophocles, this copy with annotations in two different hands, spanning two centuries. The text follows the first Giunta edition published at Florence in 1522 under the editorship of Antonio Francini, with the text of the...

    £2000

  6. POMPONIO LETO, Giulio.

    In omnia quae quidem extant, P. Vergilii Maronis Opera, Commentarii, varia multarum rerum cognitione referti,...

    Basel, [Johann Oporinus, 1544].

    Second edition of Leto’s influential commentary on all the works of Virgil, ‘the first to deal with all the works attributed to Virgil, and also the most extensive and complete, and therefore certainly the most important commentary written in the fifteenth century’ (Stok, p. 204).

    £450

  7. CURTIUS RUFUS, Quintus.

    De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni regis Macedonum opus … Accesserunt enim antehac nunquam visa … Omnia...

    Basel, Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1545.

    Handsome folio edition of Curtius Rufus’ history of Alexander the Great, edited by the German humanist Christoph Bruno (fl. 1541–1566), with extensive sixteenth-century marginal annotations.

    £2000

  8. SIMEONI, Gabriele.

    Comentarii di Gabriello Symeoni Fiorentino sopra alla tetrarchia di Vinegia, di Milano, di Mantova, et di Ferrara ...

    Venice, Comino da Trino di Monferrato, 1546.

    Scarce first edition of Gabriele Simeoni’s (1509–1575) political history of the most powerful city-states of sixteenth-century Italy – Venice, Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara – with full-page genealogical diagrams of the Visconti, Gonzaga, and d’Este families.

    £550

  9. GIOVIO, Paolo. 

    Elogia veris clarorum virorum imaginibus apposita.  Quae in musaeo Ioviano Comi spectantur.  Addita in calce...

    Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1546. 

    First edition of Giovio’s biographies of illustrious men, with several marginal corrections, remarks, and comments by a contemporary reader, whose knowledge of biographies of the past encompassed several authors, including Erasmus. 

    £3000

  10. TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.

    Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546.]

    First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations.

    £6750

  11. [LEXICON.] [ALENIUS, Arnoldus, i.e. Arnout van EYNDHOUTS.]

    Lexicon Graecolatinum post omnes hactenus editiones maxima iam...

    Venice, Alessandro Brucioli and brothers [i.e. Antonio and Francesco Brucioli], 1546.

    First edition of the Lexicon edited by the Dutch humanist and poet Arnout van Eyndhouts, or Arnoud de Lens, known as Arnoldus Alenius. Alenius’s formation took place in Paris, then Ferrara and Bologna. His proficiency as a Greek scholar earned him the post of librarian to the Spanish ambassador...

    £2000

  12. HOFFMEISTER, Johann.

    Loci communes rerum theologicarum, quae hodie in controversia agitantur, ad regulam, et consensum verae, catholicaeque...

    (colophon:) Ingolstadt, Alexander Weissenhorn, 1547.

    First edition. In the dedication to the present work, Hoffmeister (1509–1547), one of Luther’s resolute adversaries, and Vicar General of the Augustinians in Germany, explains that there are people who wish, bono fortasse zelo, to find the truth for themselves and who hope that it may be possible...

    £500

  13. GIRALDI, Lilio Gregorio. 

    De Deis gentium varia et multiplex historia, in qua simul de eorum imaginibus et cognominibus agitur,...

    Basel, Oporinus, 1548. 

    First edition of the most important mythography to be published after Boccaccio’s Genealogiae deorum gentilium and before Conti’s Mythologiae, with extensive marginalia in the first part. 

    £2500

  14. LANDSBERG, Johannes Justus.

    Iohannis Iusti Lanspergii Bavari Carthusiani omnium epistolarum ac evangeliorum dominicalium totius...

    Cologne, Melchior von Neuss, 1548.

    Later edition (first 1539) of paraphrases, exegeses, and sermons by the Carthusian ascetic and mystic Johannes Landsberg (c. 1490–1539).

    £950

  15. [SAVONAROLA, Girolamo.] Ambrogio Caterino POLITI.

    Discorso … contra la dottrina, et le profetie di Fra Girolamo Savonarola.

    Venice, Giolito, 1548.

    First edition of a condemnation of Savonarola’s theology, doctrine and prophecies by the former Savonarola acolyte Politi (1484–1553), ‘one of the most fiery Catholic polemicists of his times’ (Bongi, trans.), who four years earlier had published a confutation of Luther’s theology.

    £1500

  16. GUAZZO, Marco.

    Historie di M. Marco Guazzo di tutti i fatti degni di memoria nel mondo successi dal 1524 sino a l’anno 1549....

    Venice, Giolito, 1549.

    First edition thus, this copy owned by the future Pope Clement XII, of a remarkable history of recent and contemporary events, first published in 1540 and here updated by almost ten years, resuming the account of world event and Italian politics and including references to American history from 1522.

    £3600

  17. STOBAEUS, Johannes.

    Εκλογαι αποϕθεγματων και υποθηκων … Sententie ex thesauris Graecorum delectae …...

    Basel, Johann Oporinus for Christoph Froschauer, August 1549.

    Second, ‘in every respect preferable’ (Dibdin) edition of Gesner’s Stobaeus, acclaimed as ‘the first critical impression of the text of the Florilegium’ (ibid.), philologically and critically much superior to the first, published in 1543. Gesner’s parallel printing of the Greek...

    £1750

  18. DONI, Antonio Francesco.

    Disegno … partito in piu ragionamenti, ne quali si tratta della scoltura e pittura; de colori, de getti,...

    Venice, Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1549.

    First edition of an important art-theoretical text by the polyglot scholar Anton Francesco Doni (1513–1574) on the Renaissance concept of disegno in contemporary sculpture and painting, a notable source text for scholars of Michelangelo and his lifelong rival, Baccio Bandinelli.

    £1250

  19. QUINTILIAN, Marcus Fabius, and Pierre GALLAND (ed.).

    M. Fabii Quintiliani … de oratoria institutione livre XII....

    Paris, Thomas Richard, 1554 [– 1550-1561].

    A mixed edition of Pierre Galland’s Quintilian, a hugely successful project from its first appearance in 1538. This copy joins the Institutio oratoria with the (now believed to be spurious, if contemporary) Declamationes, and conforms with the copy held at the Arsenal.

    £700

  20. CASAL, Gaspar do.

    Axiomata christiana ex divinis scripturis & sanctis patribus.

    Coimbra, João da Barreira and João Alvares, 1550.

    First edition of Gaspar do Casal’s major work of theology, which informed his participation in the Council of Trent, from the library of another participant in the Council. 

    £2500