Book History, Education, Learning & Printing / Bindings

MECHELEN, Hans van. Perill[ust]ri. ac reverend[issimo]. d[omi]no D. Michaeli Ophovio ex. ord. praedic. Episcopo Buscoducensi S. Dominicum Gusmannum eiusdem ordinis fundatorem D.D.
[Antwerp], Hans van Mechelen, [ca. 1629]. 24mo (11 x 7 x 0.6 cm). Wholly engraved print series printed on vellum, comprising an engraved title page and 12 engraved scenes from the life of Saint Dominic. The title page cartouche and all 12 scenes coloured by a 17th-century hand and highlighted in gold. 17th-century richly gold-tooled armorial black morocco, each board with a Lante della Rovere coat of arms, gold-tooled board edges. [I], [12] ll. Full description

MELON, Jean-François. Mahmoud le Gasnevide, histoire orientale. Fragment traduit de l'Arabe, avec des notes.
Rotterdam, Jean Hofhoudt, 1730. 8vo. Contemporary marbled calf, gold-tooled spine, boards, board edges and turn-ins, both boards with the gold-tooled coat of arms of Louis Marie Alexandre, Duc d'Aumont, gilt edges. [2], VI, 162, [4] pp. Full description

MESA, Sebastian de. Jornada de Africa por el Rey Don Sebastian y union del reyno de Portugal a la corona de Castilla.
Barcelona, Pedro Lacavalleria, 1630. 4to. Each page framed with thin printed rules. Contemporary gold-tooled leather (blackened and flaking), each board with the helmed and mantled arms of the Mazarin family in the centre. [2], 169, [1] ll. Full description

MEXIA, Pedro. Coloquios o dialogos compuestos por el magnifico cavallero Pero Mexia, vezino de Sevilla, en los quales se disputan y tratan varias y diversas cosas de mucha erudicion y doctrina. Al illustrissimo senor don Perasan de Ribera Marques de Tarisa &c.
Antwerp, widow of Martinus Nutius, 1561. Small agenda 12mo (14 x 6.5 cm). With Nutius's woodcut device on the title-page. 17th-century(?) blind-tooled overlapping vellum, each board with the coat of arms of the Landgrave of Hesse, gilt edges. 165, [3 blank] ll. Full description

MEZERAY, Francois Eudes de. Abregé chronologique de l'histoire de France. ... Divisé en six tomes.
Amsterdam, Abraham Wolfgang, 1673-1674.
With: (2) MEZERAY, Francois Eudes de. Histoire de France avant Clovis.
Amsterdam, Abraham Wolfgang, 1688.
2 works in 7 volumes. 12mo. Ad 1 with woodcut publisher's device on each of the 6 title-pages, engraved frontispiece-title in the style of Romeyn de Hooghe and full-page engraved portrait of Louis XIV by A. Zylevelt in volume 1, 61 engraved portraits of French rulers in text, woodcut head- and tailpieces, woodcut initials. Ad 2: with engraved frontispiece-title in the style of Romeyn de Hooghe, title-page with woodcut publisher's device, woodcut head- and tailpieces, woodcut initials. Uniform polished, crushed red morocco, gold-tooled boards, spines and wide turn-ins, fillets on board edges, edges gilt over marbling, marbled endpapers. Each volume signed and dated 1913 on the turn-in by the leading Brussels bookbinder Charles DE SAMBLANX (1855-1943). Full description

[MINIATURE BOOK - ALMANACK - LONDON]. London Almanack for the Year of Christ 1788.
London, T. Carnan, [1788]. 24mo(?) (5.7 x 3.3 cm). With an engraved armorial title-page, 4 full-page engraved portraits, and a half-page engraved view. Contemporary elaborately gold-tooled red morocco, the gold-tooled boards are beautifully decorated with a white morocco trellis-like (mosaic) pattern with red and green lozenge shaped morocco inlays, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. [24] pp. Full description

[MINIATURE BOOK - ALMANACK - LONDON]. London Almanack for the Year of Christ 1851.
[London, Company of Stationers, 1851]. 24mo(?) (5.8 x 3.3 cm). With a steel-engraved armorial title-page, a four-page steel-engraved view, and a steel-engraved half-page armorial vignette. Contemporary elaborately gold-tooled black morocco, both boards show a beautiful geometrical design of gold-tooled black, white, and green morocco, gilt edges, in a matching slipcase. [24] pp. Full description

[MOSAIC BINDING - BIBLE]. LEEMPUTTE, Henricus van den (editor). Het nieuwe testament ons salighmaeckers Jesu Christi, mitsgaders: d'epistelen uit het oude testament, soo die door 't jaer in den dienst der H. Kercke gelesen worden.
Antwerp, Hieronymus Verdussen (for Niclaes Braau in Haarlem), 1696. 8vo. With 39 detailed woodcut illustrations in the text, and woodcut decorated initials and small printed manicules. The text is set in a Gothic letter, with incidental use of Roman type. Exquisite 18th-century gold-tooled multi-colour morocco mosaic binding. Gilt edges and green silk covered end papers. [1], [1 blank], [14], 837, [27] pp. Full description

NEAPOLIS, Carolus. Anaptyxis ad fastos P. Ovidii Nasonis.
Antwerp, Balthasar I Moretus, 1639. Folio (ca. 31 x 21 cm). With the title page engraved by Jacob Neeffs after a design by Erasmus Quellinus II, Plantin's large woodcut device on the verso of the final leaf, several woodcuts in the text, several woodcut ornamental tailpieces, and numerous woodcut decorated initials. Contemporary elaborately gold-tooled reddish-brown leather, sewn on 4 supports with corresponding raised bands on the spine, with a brown leather title label on the spine lettered in gold, the Jesuit monogram "IHS" central in the large lozenge-shaped centrepiece on both boards, gilt edges, remnants of ties. [1], [1 blank], [30], 304, [30], [2 blank] pp. Full description

NIDER, Johannes. Preceptorium divine legis [preceded by] Prologus in expositionem decalogi [= Praeceptorium divinae legis, sive expositio decalogi].
[Colophon:] Ulm, Johann Zainer the elder, [1478/79]. Chancery (Foolscap) folio. Set in a rotunda gothic type, the preliminaries in two columns, with spaces for manuscript paragraph marks and initials, filled in in red ink, the initials Lombardic, one with interior decoration. Contemporary richly blind-tooled calf over square-edged wooden boards (from an Augsburg bindery active 1473-1494: Eindbanddatenbank workshop w002141), sewn on 3 double supports. Further with a brass catchplate on the front board and a brass anchor plate on the back board. The anchor plate still secures remnants of the leather strap that would have had a brass clasp. [246] ll. Full description