FAERNO, Gabriele.

Fabulae centum ex antiquis auctoribus delectae, carminibus explicatae …

Padua, Giuseppe Comino, [(colophon:) 27 October] 1730.

A collection of popular verse fables by the sixteenth-century scholar Gabriele Faerno of Cremona (c. 1510–1561), in an eighteenth-century patterned paper binding.

£300

[ENIGMAS.]

‘Recueils d’Enigmes’.

[France, mid-eighteenth century.]

Four manuscript volumes collecting over seven hundred enigmas and riddles from the Mercure de France, the most popular literary magazine of eighteenth-century Paris.

£750

PÉREZ DE HERRERA, Cristóbal.

Proverbios morales, y consejos christianos … Y enigmas philosoficas, naturales, y morales, con...

Adornadas con trece emblemas … Madrid, heirs of Francisco del Hierro, [1733].

Second edition, the Stirling Maxwell copy, of these 759 proverbs and 311 enigmas by Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, social reformer, senior physician to Philip II of Spain, and ‘the prince of riddles’.

£1450

PIETRASANTA, Silvestro.

De symbolis heroicis libri IX …

Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1634.

First edition of this Jesuit collection of cryptic emblems covering the elements of natural and supernatural life, dedicated to Cardinal Pier Luigi Carafa and written by his confessor, the Roman Jesuit Silvestro Pietrasanta.

£850

QUARLES, Francis.

Emblemes [– Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man].

London, for William Freeman, [1709].

Quarles’ Emblemes, ‘the work that secured his fame’ (ODNB) and popularised the Catholic baroque emblem in Protestant England, issued together with his Hieroglyphikes.

£375

[RARITIES AND PROVERBS.]

Lyste van Rariteiten, die verkocht zullen werden op den 32 van Bokkem-maand, in den Jaren dat tweemaal...

‘Gedrukt in Arabien, midden op de Zand-Zee, in’t vervalle Kasteel van den razenden Roeland’ [i.e. Amsterdam?, 1706?].

A bizarre series of fictitious auction catalogues of books and objects, the auctions taking place on impossible dates (‘the 32^nd of smoked herring month’), followed by collections of proverbs; an extra-illustrated copy from the library of Sir William Stirling Maxwell.

£5500

[GIRALDI, Giovanni Battista.]

Giuditio sopra la tragedia di Canace et Macareo con molte utili considerationi circa l’arte tragica,...

(Colophon:) Lucca, Vincenzo Busdraghi, 4 May 1550.

First edition of this criticism, in the form of a dialogue, of Speroni’s play Canace et Macareo, which sparked one of the most remarkable literary debates of the time. The text was previously attributed to Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, but the authorship of Giraldi is now generally accepted. The full text...

£650

[COTIN, Charles, Abbé.]

‘Enigmes du temps.’

[France, c. 1750.]

A manuscript compendium of 237 French enigmas, largely drawn from Charles Cotin’s pioneering and popular Recueil des énigmes de ce temps, first published in 1646.

£1250

SAAVEDRA FAJARDO, Diego de.

Idea de un Principe politico christiano, representada en cien empressas. Va enmendada en esta quarta...

Valencia, heirs of Crisóstomo Garriz, for Bernardo Noguès, at the cost of Mateo Regil, 1656.

Fourth Valencian edition of ‘the most remarkable treatise of political devices for the use of a prince’ (Praz), illustrated with numerous woodcut emblems.

£750

SCHOPPER, Hartmann, translator.

Speculum vitae aulicae. De admirabili fallacia et astutia vulpeculae Reinikes libri quatuor,...

Frankfurt, [(colophon:) Nikolaus Basse], 1595.

Fifth and final edition of the first Latin translation of the adventures of the trickster fox Reynard (or Reineke), translated from the German and illustrated with fifty-seven woodcuts by Jost Amman and Virgil Solis.

£850

[TARONI, Giovanni Battista, pseud.] ‘Giovanna Statira BOTTINI’.

Cento nodi da sciogliersi proposti al genio de suoi...

Bologna, Gaspare de’ Franceschi, 1765.

Extremely rare edition of one hundred widely imitated riddles, published under the female anagrammatic pseudonym ‘Giovanna Statira Bottini’.

£450

VAN VEEN, Otto.

Amoris divini emblemata …

Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1660.

Second edition (first 1615) of sixty spiritual emblems personifying the Soul and Divine Love, a counterpart to van Veen’s 1608 emblem book on secular love, Amorum emblemata.

£950

VERRIEN, [Nicolas].

Recueil d’emblêmes, devises, medailles, et figures hieroglyphiques, au nombre de plus de douze cent, avec...

Paris, Claude Jombert [part II: Jean Jombert], 1724.

A rich collection of engraved emblems, monograms, and heraldic supporters, devised as a pattern book for the use of artists and craftsmen.

£750

ZAUNSLIFER, Petrus.

Tafereel van overdeftige Zinnebeelden, gemaelt naer de Deuchden, Ondeuchden, Gemoetsdriften der Menschen, Straffen...

Amsterdam, Gerard Onder de Linden, 1722.

First edition of this illustrated collection of religious emblems by the Dutch preacher Petrus Zaunslifer, adapting Cesare Ripa’s influential Iconologia.

£950

GAY, John.

Fables by John Gay, with a Life of the Author.

Vienna, Rudolph Sammer, 1799.

Uncommon Vienna-printed edition of this series of fables by John Gay (1685–1732), which humorously subverts expectations of power and authority through the juxtaposition of characters from beggars and kings to booksellers and elephants.

£375

AESOP.

Les fables et la vie d’Ésope, composée par Planudes le Grand, traduites du Grec en Français, selon la version Grecque,...

Caen, Pierre-Théodore Chalopin, [between 1822 and 1832].

An uncommon provincial edition of Aesop’s Fables, illustrated by Pierre-François Godard, stab-stitched in its original Bibliothèque-bleue wrappers.

£250

[ALTAR CARDS.]

Two altar cards with Latin text and images of Christ and St John.

Paris, Vanheck, [early eighteenth century].

Two seemingly unrecorded hand-coloured prompt-cards for priests with prayers for the celebration of Mass, with woodcut illustrations and lively wheat-and-vine borders.

£1750

[BOOK OF HOURS.]

Parts of the Hours of the Cross, Litanies, and Office of the Dead.

Northern France (?Loire Valley), late fifteenth century.

Four leaves from a small and elegant Book of Hours, with attractive initials and borders and with spaces left blank for small miniatures.

£1250

[ALVISET, Jean Antoine.]

L’Ange gardien. Pour les devotes confreries des Saincts Anges Gardiens. Par un prestre de l’eglise...

Lyon, Jacques du Creux, 1647.

Very rare devotional manual for female and male members of the Confraternity of the Guardian Angels established in the church of St Peter in Besançon, in eastern France, in 1643, with a separately published and seemingly unrecorded appendix detailing its rules.

£350

BAUDELAIRE, Charles.

Oeuvres complètes … Les Fleurs du mal.

Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, [1917?].

An attractive early twentieth-century edition of Les Fleurs du mal, owned by the young Graham Pollard before going up to Oxford in 1921.

£250