Early Printing & Manuscripts / Art History & Literature

[PANCHATANTRA/BIDPAI]. [CAPUA, Johannes de, and Anton von PFORR (translators)]. Der alten Weisenn exempel sprüch, mit vil schönen Beyspilen und Figuren erleüchtet.
(Colophon:) Strasbourg, printed by Jacob Frölich, 1539. Folio. With half-page woodcut illustration on title-page, further 1 full-page and 112 smaller (ca. 9 x 14 cm) woodcut illustrations in the text (including a small number of repeats), a woodcut royal procession above and woodcut device of a swan playing a viol below the colophon, numerous woodcut pictorial and decorative strips. Modern blind-tooled calf in 16th-century style. [4], CVII ll. Full description

PARADIN, Claude and Gabriel SYMEON. Symbola heroica. M. Claudii Paradini, beliiocensis canonici et D. Gabrielis Symeonis. Multo, quàm antea, fideliùs de Gallica lingua in Latinam conversa.
Antwerp, Christophe Plantin, 1583. 12mo. With 216 woodcut illustrations in text, namely 179 for Paradin and 37 for Simeon. 19th-century gold-tooled red morocco, gilt edges; bound by Thompson. 319, [1 blank] 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

QUINTILIANUS, Marcus Fabius. [De institutione oratoria].
(Colophon: Florence, Filippo I Giunta, October 1515). Small 8vo (14.5 x 10 cm). With a title-page containing only the author's name, but with the title in the heading to liber I, and Giunti's woodcut device on the verso of the otherwise blank final leaf. Set entirely in an Aldine-style italic (with upright capitals). Vellum (ca. 1850?). [4], "269" [= 367], [1] ll. Full description

QUINTILIANUS, Marcus Fabius. [Institutiones oratoriae].
(Colophon: Venice, "aedibus Aldi et Andreae soceri" [= Aldus Manutius & Andre Torresani d'Asola], August 1514). 4to. With Aldus's famous woodcut anchor device on the title-page, repeated on the back of the last text page. Gold-tooled red morocco (ca. 1700), rebacked and given a black morocco spine label in the 19th century. [4], 230 ll. Full description

QUINTILIANUS, Marcus Fabius. Institutionum oratorium libri XII diligentius recogniti M D XXII. Index capitum totius operis. Conversio dictionum Graecarum, quas ipse author in latinum non transtulit.
(Colophon: Venice "In Aedibus Aldi, et Andreae soceri" [= André d'Asola & sons], January 1521 [= 1522]). Narrow 4to in 8s (21 x 13 cm). With Aldus's anchor and dolphin publisher's device on the first and last pages. Set entirely in a single size of Aldine italic, with some headings, running heads, etc., set in its (upright) capitals. Gold-tooled red morocco (ca. 1700), each board with delicate centre-piece a petit fers, rebacked in gold-tooled red morocco. [4], 230 ll. Full description

ROGEL, Hans the elder. Capital und Versal Buech, allerhanndt grosser und kleiner Alphabeth, zue den Hauptschrifften und Büechern, dessgleichen in Canntzleyen unnd gemein, zuegebrauchen ganntz zierlich geordiniert.
Augsburg, Johann Jacob Schönig, [1680/94, printed from the woodblocks of 1568]. Oblong folio (21 x 34 cm). With a richly calligraphic woodcut title-page (18 x 28 cm), with text in white fraktur lettering on black, with a white panel at the foot with the letterpress imprint in a fraktur type; and 9 (of 10) full-page woodcuts (about 17 x 25.5 cm) showing alphabets in white on black, one dated 1568: 8 with decorated gothic capitals (versals: 22-150 mm) and 1 with textura capitals, textura lowercase and roman capitals, all versos blank. With a small and perhaps fragmentary manuscript on parchment (2 ll., 11.5 x 13.5 cm, written on both sides): a Protestant copybook written (soon?) after 1557, probably in Basle or vicinity, with 7 writing samples, including alphabets of capitals and minuscules, the first two pages in fraktur gothic styles, and the last two in humanistic styles. Vellum (ca. 1985?), in a cloth slipcase. [10 (of 11)] ll. Full description

RUTILIUS LUPUS, Publius and 15 others (François PITHOU, ed.). [Antiqui rhetores Latini.] ... Omnia ex codd. manusc. emendatiora vel auctiora.
Paris, Adrien Périer (ex officina Plantiniana), 1599. Large 4to. Set in roman types with incidental italic, Greek and Hebrew. Contemporary gold-tooled calf with 18th-century restorations, with the arms of Aire-sur-la-Lys (an eagle) flanked by "S.P.Q. ... Arien[sis]". Rebacked with the original backstrip laid down. [4], 382, [15], [1 blank] pp. Full description

SADOLETO, Jacopo. De liberis recte instituendis, liber.
(Colophon:) Venice, Giovanni Antonio Nicolini da Sabbio & fratres for Melchiorre Sessa, July 1533. Small 8vo (15 x 10 cm). With Sessa's woodcut device of a cat with a mouse on the title-page. Modern overlapping vellum. 52, [1 blank] ll. Full description