Book History, Education, Learning & Printing / Bindings

SAVARY, (Nicolas) Claude Étienne. Brieven over Egypte.
Amsterdam, Martinus de Bruyn, 1788-1789. 3 volumes. 8vo. With 4 numbered engraved folding plates, including maps of Egypt and northern Egypt, a plan of Alexandria, and a cross-section of the Great pyramid. Contemporary mottled calf, richly gold-tooled spines and binding edges. XVI, 446, [1], [1 blank]; XVI, 364, [2 blank], [1], [1 blank]; “XIV” [=XXIV], 390, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

SIMPLICIUS of Cilicia. Commentarius in Enchiridion Epicteti, ex libris veteribus emendatus. Cum versione Hieronymi Wolfii, et Cl. Salmasii animadversionibus, et notis quibus Philosophia Stoica passim explicatur & illustratur.
Leiden, Johannes Maire, 1640. 4 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With three title-pages. Set in roman, Greek and Arabic types. Contemporary French pointillé binding in the style of "Le Gascon", richly gold-tooled in concentric panels on both covers, and in the six compartments of the spine, the second with the title. [20], 332, [12]; [1], [1 blank], 329, [23]; [34], 88, 15 pp. Full description

STANLEY, Edward. A familiar history of birds.
London, Longmans, Green and Co. (at the end: printed by Spottiswoode and Co.), 1865. 8vo. With engraved frontispiece, title-vignette, 2 engraved plates and 102 illustrations in the text.Contemporary gold-tooled calf, probably a school prize binding, with "King Edward's School Bruton" and its "Sealle of the Skolle of Brew" in a frame, the seal showing a Brewers tonne (Brew-ton), richly gold-tooled spine with a red morocco label, edges gilt over a fore-edge painting showing a falconry hunting scene. xiii, [1 blank], 446 pp. Full description

STRAAT, Pieter. D'Oranjeboom verheerlykt [above:] Geslachtboom van de huizen van Oranje en van Nassau, ...
(Colophon: Amsterdam, Hendrik de Leth), [1747]. 4to. With an engraved armorial title-page by Hendrik de Leth, with the subtitle in a banderol at the head, a crowned tree representing the family tree of the houses of Orange and Nassau (with 27 family coats of arms), a wreath with an orange tree, the 7 arms of the Dutch provinces and military attributes, the whole beautifully hand-coloured as published. Contemporary gold-tooled calf, by the Van Damme bindery in Amsterdam, a rosette and fillets in each of the spine compartments, gold-tooled board edges, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. Engraved title-page plus [17], [1 blank] pp. Full description

SZYMANSKI, Félix. Essai sur la guerre dans le Soudan.
Lyon, Imprimerie Mougin-Rusand, 1888. Large 8vo (24.5 x 16 cm). With 2 large folding chromolithographed maps (50 x 60 cm; map images 44 x 58 cm; scale 1: 1,000,000), 4 wood-engraved illustrations in the text and 3 original photographic albumen prints (10.5 x 13 cm) mounted on paperboard plates. Contemporary gold-tooled, black goatskin morocco (signed at the foot of the front turn-in by Lucien Magnin in Lyon), richly gold-tooled spine, richly gold-tooled turn-ins, double fillets on board edges, gilt edges. [4], 184 pp. Full description

[TELESFORO DA COSENZA]. Livre merveilleux, contenant en bref la fleur et substance de plusieurs traittez, tant des propheties & revelations, qu'anciennes croniques, faisant mention de tous les faictz de l'Eglise Universelle, co[m]me des scismes, discords & tribulations advenir en l'Eglise de Rome, & d'un temps auquel on ostera & tollira aux ge[n]s d'eglise & clergé, ...
Paris, Thibault Bessault, 1565. 8vo. With Bessault's woodcut device on the title-page. 18th-century French grained red morocco (ca. 1745?), gold-tooled spine with pointillé ornaments, each board framed with thin-thick-thin fillets with a rosette(?) stamped over their intersections at the corners, gold-tooled turn-ins, gold fillets on the board edges, gilt edges. [54] ll. Full description

[TEYSSIER des FARGES, George Aimé]. TOUCHSTONE, S.F. (pseudonym). Les chevaux de course[:] pedigree - description - historique. 60 portraits en couleur par V.-J. Cotlison, L. Pénicault et Le Nail. Texte orné de 182 vignettes ... = Historique des étalons pur-sang Anglais et Français et des juments Françaises les plus célèbres ayant paru sur le turf de 1764 à 1887.
Paris, J. Rothschild, 1889. Oblong folio (24.5 x 37 cm). With 2 title-pages in red and black, each with a different vignette; 60 chromolithographed plates, highlighted with gum arabic and lithographed by Thurwanger, each facing an inserted letterpress leaf with a pedigree of the horse portrayed. Further with 182 lithographed vignettes in the text. Contemporary gold- and blind-blocked brown morocco, with the original publisher's front wrapper (lithographed and hand-coloured) mounted on the front board in a wide decorated gold frame, gold-tooled turn-ins, gilt edges, white glazed endpapers with a watered-silk pattern, signed on the front board, "A SOUZE A. LENEGRE REL.", meaning Auguste Souze and Antoine Lenègre the younger in Paris. XXV, [1 blank], 165, [1 blank] pp. Full description

[TORINUS (THORER), Albanus (ed).]. De re medica huic volumini insunt...
[Colophon: Basel, Andreas Cratander, 1528]. Folio. With woodcut printer's device on title-page, repeated on final page, 2 pages with 4-piece decorative woodcut borders and numerous woodcut decorated initials. 18th-century half calf, with marbled paper in a tree pattern on sides, gold-tooled spine with the coat of arms of the Russian Tsars. [12], 125, [1] ll. Full description

TORRENTINUS, Hermannus (Herman van der BEKE). Elucidarius poeticus co[n]tinens historias poeticas, fabulas, insulas regiones, urbes, fluvios, mo[n]tesq[ue] insigniores, atq[ue] huiusmodi alia, ...
Antwerp, Michiel Hillen van Hoogstraten, 1527. With the title in an elaborate woodcut border.
With: (2) [FIOCCHI, Andrea Dominico (Andras Dominicus FLOCCUS)] under the name of Lucius FENESTELLA. De magistratibus, sacerdotiisq[ue] Romanorum libellus, iamprimum nitori restitutus.
[Cologne, Hero Fuchs, 1527]. With the title in a finely cut 4-piece woodcut border. 2 editions in 1 volume. 8vo. 16th-century(?) limp vellum (formerly used for a slightly thinner book). The binding is an interesting example of a spine reinforced with a horizontal metal rod at the central sewing support to give more support and prevent the bookblock from becoming concaved or developing sharp kinks; probably bound in Flanders. [88]; [88] ll. Full description

TOSTATUS (TOSTADO DE MADRIGAL), Alfonso. Super Leviticum in sensu litterali nova et hactenus abscondita a se edita commentaria.
(Colophon: Venice, Petrus Liechtenstein, 1529). With title-page printed in red and black with a large woodcut containing the coats of arms of the Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain) and two bishops (the author and perhaps a relative), leaf 2 with a woodcut of the author writing at his desk, with his arms, and a woodcut initial with the other bishop's arms inside the letter, the arms in the initial and some lines of text printed in red. Printed in two columns.
With: (2) TOSTATUS, Alfonso. Opus super Deuteronomium.
(Colophon: Venice, Petrus Liechtenstein, 1528). With title-page printed in red and black, leaf 1 with a woodcut of the author writing at his desk, with his arms (not the same woodcut as in ad 1), and a woodcut initial with the other bishop's arms as in ad 1. Printed in two columns. 2 works in 1 volume. Folio. Contemporary blind- and gold-tooled tanned sheepskin over wooden boards; each board in a panel design with 2 (on the back board 3) different vine rolls, rules, and on the front board a central medaillon depicting Bathsheba kneeling before King David playing his harp, and a half dozen separate stamps, with author and title at the head, "Thostati Super Leviti et Deuteronomy" and the binding date MDXXXII (1532); blind-tooled spine, remnants of brass anchor plates on the back board (for straps?), catch plates on the front board lacking. 249, [1 blank]; [1], 120 ll. Full description