Continental

Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan

Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.

We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia.  Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.

 
  1. [TACOLI, Carlotta Munarini, Marchioness.]

    ‘Memorie riguardanti la storia filosofica per istruzione elementare d’una...

    Modena, 1805.

    An unpublished manuscript introduction to ancient philosophy compiled by Marchioness Carlotta Munarini Tacoli for the education of her precocious eight-year-old-daughter, the future entomologist Adelaide Tacoli Bellincini Bagnesi (see below).

    £1250

  2. TAULER, Johannes, attributed

    Exercitia D. Ioannis Thauleri piissima, super vita et passione salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi,...

    Antwerp, Philippus Nutius, 1565. 

    Uncommon Antwerp edition of Laurentius Surius’s Latin translation of a devotional work on the life and passion of Christ attributed to the medieval German mystic Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), in an attractive contemporary binding and with interesting manuscript notes. 

    £1500

  3. TERENCE.

    Les comedies … avec la traduction et les remarques de Madame Dacier ….

    Rotterdam, Gaspar Fritsch, 1717.

    A fine edition of Anne Dacier’s French Terence (first published 1688), the translation here revised by her, and the notes expanded, with delightful illustrations by Picart.

    £850

  4. TERENCE.

    Comediae sex. A M. Anto. Mureto locis prope innumeris suo nitore restitutae …

    Carmagnola, Marcantonio Bellone, 1590.

    A rare provincial printing of a school edition the plays of Terence, printed in the small town of Carmagnola in Piedmont, which had become part of the Duchy of Savoy only two years earlier, after almost half a century under French domination. The text is taken from earlier printings of Marc Antoine...

    £375

  5. TERENCE.

    P. Terentii comoediae sex elegantissimae, cum Donati commentariis, ex optimorum praesertim veterum exemplariorum collatione...

    Basel, the heirs of Nicolaus Brylinger, 1567.

    A thoroughly annotated student edition of the plays of Terence, issued by the heirs of the Basel printer Nicolaus Brylinger (1515–1565), with introductory matter by Erasmus and commentary by Donatus and others.

    £1750

  6. TERENCE Afer, Publius. 

    Comoediae sex, tum ex Donati commentariis … diligentius quam unquam antehac emendatae; Aelii Donati...

    Paris, Robert Estienne, 1529. 

    First folio edition of Terence’s comedies by Robert Estienne.  The printer had already produced a small, octavo edition of Terence’s works in 1526.  Confident in its success, and through access to an excellent and ancient manuscript of the fourth-century commentary by Aelius Donatus, ‘in...

    £1500

  7. TERENCE; Daniel HEINSIUS, editor.

    Pub. Terentii comoediae sex, ex recensione Heinsiana.

    Amsterdam, Henrik Wetstein, [c. 1700].

    A small-format edition of Terence’s comedies, printed in Amsterdam but bound in Britain and owned by a Devonshire schoolboy.

    £145

  8. TERENTIUS Afer, Publius.

    Comoediae sex. Ex recensione Heinsiana, cum annotationibus Thomae Farnabii in quatuor priores et M.C.Is.F....

    Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1658.

    An intensely annotated copy of this rare pocket Jansson edition of Terence’s comedies. The edition itself was a successful production, uniting the text edited by Heinsius with the commentary of Thomas Farnaby to the first four comedies, and that of Méric Casaubon to the last two. Jansson had...

    £2250

  9. TERTULLIAN.

    Opera … per Beatum Rhenanum Seletstadiensem e tenebris eruta, atque a situ pro virili vindicata, adiectis singulorum...

    Basel, [(colophon:) Hieronymus] Froben [and Nikolaus Episcopius], March 1539.

    Third Froben edition of Tertullian’s extant writings, studiously edited and re-revised by Beatus Rhenanus, with extensive annotations showing considerable engagement with the text by early readers seeking to contextualise Tertullian.

    £1750

  10. THEOCRITUS, BION, MOSCHUS, SIMMIAS of Rhodes.

    Θεοκριτου … Ειδυλλια και Επιγραμματα. Μοσχου...

    [Heidelberg], Commelin, 1596.

    First edition of the Greek Idylls published by Commelin, and first edition of Joseph Justus Scaliger’s commentary and notes, complemented with Isaac Casaubon’s notes, a form of which had first appeared in Geneva in 1569.

    £550

  11. THEOCRITUS et al.

    Theocriti aliorumque poetarum Idyllia. Eiusdem Epigrammata …

    [Geneva], Henri Estienne, 1579.

    An outstanding volume uniting the Estienne Greek bucolic poets (Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus) and the Estienne Greek Psalms in an Henri Estienne presentation binding.

    £9000

  12. TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND,

    who are in Place to do Justice, and to break the Bonds of the oppressed. A Narrative of the cruel,...

    London, Printed for Thomas Simmons …, 1659.

    First edition, rare, a list of Quaker victims of persecution in Ireland with details of their sufferings. The pamphlet was published and undersigned by a group of the victims including the country’s reputed first Quaker, William Edmondson, and Thomas Holme, who went on to publish A Brief...

    £300

  13. [THOMAS À KEMPIS.]

    Messer Giovanni Gerson. Utile & divota operetta della imitatione di Giesu Xpo …

    Florence, Piero Pacini da Pescia, 16 April 1505.

    Scarce edition of an anonymous Italian translation of the Imitatio Christi, with a striking woodcut of Christ to the title.

    £4000

  14. [THOMAS À KEMPIS.]

    Ioanni Gerson vulgare devota operetta della imitatione di Iesu Christo …

    Florence, Antonio Miscomini, 22 July 1493.

    Uncommon editions of two classic Latin devotional texts rendered into Italian.

    £6500

  15. THOMAS À KEMPIS.

    De imitatione Christi libri quatuor.

    ‘Leiden’ [Amsterdam], Elzevir, 1658.

    Second Elzevir edition of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi, with a new engraved title and a false imprint, handsomely bound in French red morocco with citron doublures.

    £675

  16. THOMAS À KEMPIS; Johann Michael SAILER, translator.

    Das Buch von der Nachfolgung Christi … Zweyte Ausgabe.

    Munich, Ignaz Joseph Lentner, and Leipzig, Hartmann, 1820.

    Uncommon ‘second edition’ of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi as translated by Johann Michael Sailer, Bishop of Regensburg.

    £250

  17. THOMAS AQUINAS; Antonius PIZAMANUS, editor.

    Opuscula [with a life of St Thomas].

    Venice, Hermannus Liechtenstein, 7 September 1490.

    First collected edition of seventy-one shorter works by Thomas Aquinas.

    £3750

  18. THOMAS CANTIPRATENSIS.

    Bonum universale de proprietatibus apum.

    [Cologne, Johann Koelhoff, the Elder, c. 1478–1480.]

    Second edition of this manual of moral theology structured around the behaviour of bees, composed in the 1260s. It was a popular work, surviving in over a hundred manuscripts.

    £6000

  19. THUCYDIDES; Lorenzo VALLA, translator; Henri ESTIENNE, editor.

    Περι του Πελοποννησιακου πολεμου...

    [Geneva, Henri II Estienne for] Frankfurt, heirs of Andreas Wechel, Claude Marne, and Jean Aubry, 1594.

    A richly annotated and extra-illustrated copy of Thucydides, edited and printed by perhaps the greatest Greek scholar of the sixteenth century; a bilingual edition with multilingual annotations, providing evidence of the keen interest in Thucydides demonstrated by German Protestant humanist scholars.

    £2250

  20. TOMPSON, John, editor.

    English Miscellanies consisting of various Pieces of Divinity, Morals, Politicks, Philosophy and History;...

    Gottingen by Abram. Vandenhoeck, Printer and Bookseller to the University 1746.

    Second edition, revised, of John Tompson’s important English Miscellanies, expanded to almost twice the size of the first edition, including up-to-date content published since 1737.

    £300