Early Printing & Manuscripts

[PHILIP II, King of Spain]. Ordinancie, statuyt ende policie gemaect byden coninck onsen aldernadichsten Heere, op tfeyt vande contracten vande asseurancien ende versekeringen in dese Nederlanden.
Antwerp, Christoffel Plantin, 1571. 4to. With armorial woodcut on title-page. Modern vellum. 15, [1 blank] pp. Full description

PIGAFETTA, Filippo and Duarte LOPEZ. Relatione del reame di Congo et delle circonvicine contrade tratta dalli scritti & ragionamenti di Odoardo Lopez.
Rome, Bartolomeo Grassi, [1591]. 4to. With an integral engraved architectural title-page (with the coat of arms of the dedicatee Antonio Migliore, Bishop of San Marco), large folding engraved general map of Africa (64×44 cm), large folding engraved map of the Congo (43.5×51.5 cm) and 8 numbered folding engraved plates of plants, animals and inhabitants of the country, by Natalis Bonifazio. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [8], 82, [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

[GENEALOGY - HOUSES OF SAXONY AND SAVOY]. [PINGONE, Emanuele Filiberto]. [Inclytorum Saxoniae Sabaudiaeq principum arbor gentilitia Augustae Taurinorum].
[Turin, heirs of Nicolai Bevilacqua, 1581]. Ca. 35 x 310 cm. With one large continuous woodcut illustration, printed on 8 leaves, which are glued together side by side. Housed in a carboard folder, with white book cloth on the spine and a white cloth tie. Full description

PIRCKHEIMER, Willibald. Germaniae ex variis scriptoribus perbrevis explicatio.
Augsburg, Heinrich Steiner, 1530. Small 8vo (15.5 x 10.5 cm). Title in a wide woodcut ornamented border, 2 woodcut historiated initials. Set in an Aldine-style italic with a word of Greek. Modern brown shell-marbled boards. [69], [3 blank] pp. Full description

PIUS V, Pope. Freiheit und Bulla des allerheiligsten in Gott vatters und Herren, Herren Pii, des namens fünfften Bapsts, uber die Erhoehung und Schoepffung des durchleüchtigsten Fürsten und Herren, Herren Cosmi Medices, Hertzogen zu Florentz, &c. Zu einem Groszhertzoge und koenigmässigem, der provintz Ethrurien, ime underworffen. Geschehen zu Rom, den 27. Augusti. Anno M.D. LXIX.
[Germany], 1570. Small 4to (20 x 15 cm). With a woodcut figure of the Pope on the title-page. Set in Schwabacher gothic type with fraktur headings and incidental roman. Half maroon goatskin morocco (1930s?), gold-tooled spine. [12] pp. Full description

PLACENTIUS, Johannes Leo. Catalogus omnium antistitum Tungarorum, Traiectensium, ac Leodiorum, & rerum domi, bellique gestarum compendium.
Antwerp, Willem Vorsterman, [1530?; preface dated 14 September 1529]. Small 8vo (13.5 x 10 cm). Title with woodcut coat-of-arms of Cardinal Everard van de Marck in a 4-piece woodcut border, a large woodcut coat of arms on the last page, 2 woodcut illustrations, one showing Mary and Jesus with Saint Anne (63 x 42 mm), and the other a bishop in his study (45 x 43 mm), each in the same 4-piece woodcut border (different from that on the title-page). Capitals rubricated throughout, some woodcuts also rubricated and some headings and other words underlined in red. Vellum (ca. 1700?). [16], [216] pp. Full description

PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Gaius (PLINY the Elder). Historiarum naturae libri XXXVII, post omnes omnium editiones, ...
Paris, Jean Parvum (index: Jean Petit), 1532. Folio. 18th-century cat's paw calf, richly gold-tooled spine. [36], 671, [188] pp. Full description

PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Gaius. Opus divinum, cui titulus historiae naturalis, multoqua[m] antehac unqua[m] prodiit in luce[m] castigatius, una cu[m] annotationibus Hermanolai Barbari ...
Paris, Jean Petit (colophon: Nicolaus Sauetier), 1526. 2 parts in 1 volume (bound in reverse order). Folio. With title-page to the main work (bound second) printed in red and black and title-page to the index (bound first), each in a four-piece woodcut border. Contemporary or near contemporary calf, with the boards richly blind-tooled in a panel design; rebacked with part of the original backstrip laid down. [188], [34], "CCCCCXXXVI" [= CCCCCXXXVIII] pp. Full description

PLUTARCHUS. Moralia, quae usurpantur. sunt autem omnis elegantis doctrinae penus: id est, varij libri: morales, historici, physici, mathematici, deniq; ad politiorem litteraturam pertinentes & humanitatem: omnes de Graeca in Latinam linguam transscripti.
Basel, Thomas Guarini, 1570. Folio. With woodcut printer's device on title-page and repeated on last page, some mathematical woodcuts in text and numerous historiated woodcut initials. Early 17th-century Jesuit prize binding in richly gold-tooled light brown calf, sides with arabesques in the style of Gascon, richly gold-tooled double borders and inner panel with small bands in a geometrical pattern. [12], 857, [91] pp. Full description

POLIZIANO, Angelo. Omnia opera Angeli Politiani, et alia quaedam lectu digna, quorum nomina in sequenti indice vedere licet.
Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1498. Folio. Early 18th-century (?) polished calf, spine richly gilt in compartments with red morocco title label, both sides with triple gilt fillets along the edges and large gilt oval coat-of-arms in the centre, inner dentelles, marbled endpapers. The coat of arms is of Henri-Louis Loménie, comte de Brienne (1658-1743), son of Louis Henry Loménie de Brienne. [452] ll. Full description