Early Printing & Manuscripts

[DAMASCUS – VENETIAN TAXES]. [Promissory note for Venetian customs taxes on goods from Damascus].
Venice, 22 Feb. / 5 March 1488. Italian notarial document on vellum (44.5 x 16 cm; text block ca. 27 x 14 cm). Written in two fine cursive hands. Full description

DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius. In hoc volumine haec continentu.r [!] Ioannis Baptistae Egnatii Veneti in Dioscoridem ab Hermolao Barbaro tralatum annotamenta. Quibus morborum et remediorum vocabula obscuriora in usum etiam mediocriter eruditorum explicantur ...
Venice, Francesco Barbaro & Giovanni Bartolomeo Gabiano for Giovanni & Gregorio De Gregori, 1 February 1516. 2 parts in 1 volume. Folio (22.5 x 32 cm). Later vellum with old gold-tooled red spine label. [36], “CXXXIII” [= CXXXIV], 106 ll. Full description

DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius. De medicinali materia libri quinque. De virulentis animalibus, et venenis canerabioso, et eorum noti, ac remedijs libri quattuor.
(Colophon: Paris, Henri Estienne, 1516). Folio. With the title within a decorative metalcut( ?) panel. Set in roman types. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment; rebacked in calf, with new endpapers, but preserving the original paste-downs. [12], 157, [2], [1 blank] ll. Full description

DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius. De medica materia libri sex.
Lyon, Thibaud Payen (Theobaldus Paganus), 1546 (colophon: 1547). 16mo. With a woodcut device on title-page and some woodcut initials. 18th-century calf, rebacked with original gold-tooled backstrip laid down. [30], 543, [147] pp. Full description

DODOENS (DODONAEUS), Rembert. Medicinalium observationum exempla rara. Accessere & alia quaedam, quorum elenchum pagina post praefationem exhibet.
Leiden, Christoffel Plantin, 1585. Small 8vo (16 x 10 cm). With Plantin's woodcut compasses device on the title-page. Contemporary reversed parchment (made from the lower part of a leaf from a 16th-century legal document in German, with a reference to Basel). [16], 298, [6] pp. Full description

OVIDIUS NASO, Publius (Lodovico DOLCE, translator). Le trasformationi, ... . In questa quarta impressione da lui in molti luoghi ricorrette.
Venice, Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, 1557. 4to. With title in a richly designed architectural woodcut frame, a half-page woodcut hemispherical map of the Americas, Europe and Africa and 82 large woodcut illustrations (plus 2 repeats) with fine ornamental and grotesque borders at either side. Contemporary(?) Polish(?) blind-tooled calf. 17th- or 18th-century endpapers. [16], 309, [3] pp. Full description

DOLCE, Lodovico. Dialogo della pittura. Nel quale si ragiona della dignità di essa pittura, e di tutte le parti necessarie, che a perfetto pittore si acconuengono: con esempi di pittori antichi, & moderni: e nel fine si fa mentione delle virtù e delle opere del divin Titiano.
Venice, Gabriel Giolito de Ferrari, 1557. Woodcut vignette on title-page. Later half vellum, title in ink on spine. 60 ll. Full description

DOLCE, Lodovico. Dialogo ..., nel quale si ragiona delle qualità, diversità, e proprietà de i colori.
Venice, Giovanni Battista & Melchiorre Sessa and brothers (colophon: 1565). Small 8vo (15 x 10.5 cm). With woodcut scrollwork Pegasus device on title-page, the word "Dilogo" in a woodcut scrollwork frame, 2 woodcut headpieces, 3 woodcut decorated initials (1 with a figure riding a griffon, 1 with a leopard(?)) and 3 fleurons. With the main text set in italic and preliminaries in roman. 18th-century half parchment (recased?). 87, [1] ll. Full description

[DOM SEBASTIÃO, King of Portugal and Giovanni STROZZI (attributed)]. Oratio habita serenissimi Portugaliae Algarbiorumque Regis Sebastiani Nomine, in Concilio Tridentino. Die IX. februarij. M.D.LXII. Unva cum responsione Sanctae Synodi.
Ripae [= Riva del Garda], Italy, Pietro Antonio Alciatis, 1562. 4to (18.2 x 13.4 cm). With the woodcut coat-of-arms of the Medici popes and a woodcut head-piece on the title-page, 2 large woodcut decorated initials in the text, a woodcut head-piece at the start of the text and two ornaments at the start and end of the text. Mid 19th-century marbled paper wrappers. [1], [1 blank], [6] pp. Full description

DONI, Anton Francesco. Disegno ..., partito in piu ragionamenti, ne quali si tratta della scoltura et pittura; de colori, de getti, de modegli, con molte cose appartenenti a quest' arti: & si termina la nobiltà dell' una et dell' altra professione. ...
Venice, Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, (colophon: February) 1549. Small 8vo (16 x 10 cm). With the imprint in the base of an elaborate woodcut on the title-page, with Ferrari's motto, initials and phoenix device, a different woodcut phoenix device on last page, and 21 woodcut pictorial initials (3 series) plus 1 repeat. Italian sheepskin parchment (ca. 1700?). 63, [1] ll. Full description