Europe / France, Greece & Italy

[MANUSCRIPT - CALENDAR]. [Calendar for calculating the date of Easter].
[Auxerre, France?], [ca. 1400?]. Small 4to. Latin manuscript in red, brown and black ink on paper, written in an upright French gothic semi-cursive hand with short texts in a textura hand, with 6 round diagrams for calendrical calculations containing text and 2 more with no text filled in. Leaves A4-A6 (6 pages) written in two columns contain 12 tables for the 12 months (January to December) providing data for each day of the month, and the manuscript includes further data for calendrical calculations in several more rectangular tables. The final blank leaf has holes pricked to form a circle, but no diagram has been drawn using them. Sewn through 3 holes in a (ca. 1550?) paper wrapper, the whole in paperboards lined with printed waste paper from a (17th-century?) Latin Breviary. [18], [2 blank] pp. (pp. 2 & 5 also blank). Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALLIGRAPHY - FRENCH]. [Writing masters copy-book].
[Liège?], 1634-1643?. Oblong 4to (17.5 x 21.5 cm). A manuscript writing masters copy-book in French, written on the rectos only, mostly in black ink on paper, each of the first 9 leaves beginning with a very large (9-13 cm) decorated initial drawn in pen and ink, displaying knotwork (sometimes making heart forms) and extensive stylized pictorial elements - both reminiscent of mediaeval Keltic examples - and coloured by a contemporary hand: A-I/J in alphabetical order, and the same letter of the alphabet written below the initial in several styles of gothic capitals and usually also minuscules (A-E in black, F-I/J in red). The two remaining leaves, also in an upright gothic cursive, show an 8-line model text (a letter to a friend, Antoine van Rosendal, dated from Liège, 5 June 1643) with a 2-line minuscule alphabet (beginning with a capital A) below and several other As separately; and a complete capital and minuscule (24-letter) alphabet, including W (6 lines); both with penwork flourishes, including (in the former) a round spiral incorporating 6 faces in profile. Sewn through 3 holes in a contemporary sheepskin parchment wrapper. Kept in a 20th-century French curl-marbled paperboard folder, in a matching marbled slipcase. [11], [10 blank] ll., the 10 blanks including 3 small fragments. Full description

MAPPUS, Marcus and Johan Christian EHRMANN (editor). Historia plantarum alsaticarum.
Strasbourg and Amsterdam, Johann Daniel Dulsecker and Pieter Mortier, 1742. 4to. With 7 folding copper-engraved plates of plants, an engraved printer's device on the title-page, an engraved coat-of-arms of François-Joseph de Klinglin, baron de Hattstatt etc. as a headpiece above the dedication, 3 woodcut initials, a headpiece made up of typographical ornaments at the start of the main text and the index, a woodcut tailpiece at the end of the main text, and the title-page is printed in red and black. Contemporary gold-tooled, mottled, polished calf. [8], 335, [32] pp. Full description

MARCHESE, Duca Annibale. Tragedie Cristiane.
Naples, Felice Mosca, 1729. 2 volumes in 1. Large 8vo. With two title-pages in red and black, an engraved frontispiece by Jeremias Jakob Sedelmayr after Francesco Solimena, an engraved author's portrait by Antonio Baldi and 11 engraved plates by Sedelmayr and Baldi after Solimena, accompanying the 10 tragedies and the dedication. Also with some engraved initials, woodcut tailpieces and 40 pages of engraved polyphonic music for the choruses. Contemporary gold-tooled brown goatskin morocco, gilt and gauffered edges with an intricate fore-edge painting, incorporating both a closed and fanned design for the fore-edge. The head and foot edges are painted with floral and botanical designs. [4], [16], 502; [4], 504, [2]; pp. plus 40 pp. of engraved music. Full description

MARTINET, Jean. Emblesmes royales a Louis le Grand.
Paris, Claude Barbin, 1673. 8vo. With 60 numbered half-page engraved emblems and one unnumbered emblem on extra inserted leaf. Modern marbled boards. [10 (of 12)], 219, [3] pp. Full description

MAU, August. Geschichte der decorativen Wandmalerei in Pompeji ... Mit 20 Tafeln in einer Mappe.
Berlin, G. Reimer, 1882. 1 text volume & 1 portfolio with plates. 8vo (text volume) and 1mo (plates portfolio 53 x 43 cm). With 20 large numbered plates showing Pompeii wall paintings in situ, mounted on card stock, loose in a separate portfolio with letterpress title-leaf and contents leaf: 9 sepia collotypes (21 x 16 to 26.5 x 24.5 cm) and 11 chromolithographs (21.5 x 19 to 37 x 36 cm), no. 18 actually comprising 7 small chromolithographs on 1 card, each plate with a letterpress label on the back; and 7 black and white floor plans in the text. Contemporary half sheepskin parchment (text); contemporary blue half cloth portfolio (plates). XII, 462 pp. Full description

MAUGENDRE, Adolphe. Société anonyme des mines et fonderies de zinc de la Vieille Montagne[.] Album de 30 vues.
Paris, (printed by Auguste Bry), 1850-1851. Oblong 1mo (55.5 x 38.5 cm). Tinted lithographed title-page and 30 tinted lithographed plates (55.5 x 38.5 cm, one slightly smaller: 35 x 50.5 cm), all in fine contemporary hand-colouring. Loose in modern clamshell box. Full description

MAZZELLA, Scipione. Sito, et antichita della citta di Pozzuolo, e del suo amenissimo distretto ...
Naples, Tarquinio Longo for Giorgio Varisco (part 1) and Bartholomeo Carampello (part 2), 1606. 2 parts in 1 volume. Small 8vo (15 x 10 cm). With 3 title-pages, a large folding woodcut map with letterpress title and text (the woodcut itself 17 x 24.5 cm) showing Pozzolo and the surrounding area (omitted in some copies), 15 woodcut illustrations (plus 4 repeats) in text. 17th-century limp sheepskin parchment. [16], 284, [4], 103, [1 blank] pp. Full description

[LETTER - SIGNED]. MEDICI, Catherine de'. [Letter to Jacques de Germigny in Constantinople (Istanbul)].
Chenonceaux, 2 September 1584. Folio (34 x 24 cm). Signed letter in French, in brown ink on paper, written in a clear gothic hand. Folded for sending and addressed on the outside, with a slot for a ribbon and traces of a red wax seal. [1], [3 blank (except for address)] pp. Full description

MEERBEECK, Adriaan de. Theatre funebre ou sont representéez les funerailles de plusieurs princes et la vie, trespas, & magnifiques obseques de Albert Le Pie de tres haulte memoire Archiduc d'Autrice, Duc de Bourgoigne, Brabant, &c. faicts a Bruxelles le 12. de Mars, 1622.
Brussels, Ferdinand de Hoeymaker [printed by Henrick van Hastens in Louvain], 1622. 8vo. With a small woodcut decoration on the title-page and a full-page woodcut representing a "chapelle ardente" on the verso; a large folding woodcut plate with two horses, one dressed as a "cheval de bataille" and the other as used "à la pompe funebre du ... Archiduc". Further with 3 woodcut decorated initials (2 series) and 2 woodcut factotums. Contemporary vellum, remnants of ties. [8], 278, [2] pp. Full description