Book History, Education, Learning & Printing / Book History, Calligraphy & Printing

OTTO VAN PASSAU. Boeck des gulden throene of der xxiiij ouden.
Utrecht, "tC", (30 March) 1480. Folio. With 24 illustrations in text (ca. 9 x 6.2 cm), printed from 1 complete woodcut (plus 4 repeats) and 15 components assembled in different combinations, all rubricated and with architectural frames. Each of the 24 chapters begins with a large manuscript initial, 11 with two or more colours and others with interior white decoration. A smaller initial with penwork opens the book's first page and there are numerous further 1-line and 2-line initials. Woodcut printer's device at the end. Contemporary (Utrecht?) blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, each board in a panel design; rebacked. [4], 197 ll. Full description

PALMQUIST, Erich. Nagre widh sidste Kongl. ambassaden till Tzaren i Muskou giorde observationer öfwer Ryszland, dess wäger, pasz med fästningar och gräntzer - Sammandragne aff Erich Palmquist anno 1674.
Stockholm, Generalstabens Litografiska Anstalt, [1898]. Large oblong folio. With the 1674 title-page, the text, 14 maps and charts, 13 full-page illustrations and several figures on one page (1 page illustrating flags hand-coloured as published). All lithographed after the original manuscript. Paper imitating tree calf, with a gilt-stamped frame, gold-tooled spine. [72] pp, some leaves printed on one side only. Full description

PHIPPS, Constantine John. A voyage towards the North Pole undertaken by His Majesty's command 1773.
London, William Bowyer and John Nichols for J. Nourse, 1774. Large 4to. With 15 large double-page and larger folding engraved plates, and many letterpress tables in the text. Contemporary tree calf, gold-tooled board edges, rebacked soon after with a richly gold-tooled spine with globes and numerous floral stamps, red morocco spine-label. VIII, 253 pp. Full description

[PROPAGANDA FIDE]. (1) Alphabetum Armenum iussu S.D.N. Gregorii XV. ...
(2) Alphabetum Aethiopicum, sive Abyssinum.
(3) Alphabetum Arabicum ...
(4) Alphabetum Barmanum seu Bomanum ...
(5) Alphabetum Brammhanicum ...
(6) Alphabetum Chaldaicum, ...
(7) Alphabetum Chaldaicum ...
(8) Alphabetum Cophtum sive Aegyptiacum ...
(9) Alphabetum Graecum ...
(10) Alphabetum veterum Etruscorum ...
(11) Alphabetum Ibericum, ...
(12) [Alfabeta].
(13) Alphabetum Hebraicum ...
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1629-1776. 13 works in 1 volume. 8vo and small 4to. Sheepskin parchment (ca. 1776). Full description

RAVASI, Fratelli. Catalogo 1913 ... Placche ferro smaltato e lettere rame ...
Milan, Ravasi brothers (colophon: Stabilimento Grafico Matarelli), 1913. Oblong 8vo (16.5 x 24 cm). With very large, loosely inserted, oblong folding tinted lithographed poster (61 x 90.5 cm), showing types and other decorations in full size in black and white on a green-grey background, and 100 numbered half-tone illustrations in text. Also with a tipped in circular letter on pink paper introducing the catalogue, by Luigi and Giovanni Ravasi. Stapled in publisher's gray paper wrappers, printed in blue. 16 pp. Full description

[AUTOGRAPH]. REDOUTÉ, Pierre-Joseph. [Letter acknowledging payment from the Paris bookseller Debure for Les Roses, part 30].
Paris, 18 February 1824. 4to (24.5 x 18.5 cm). Autograph letter, signed, written in brown ink on paper, with a note in a different hand recording a related payment. [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description

[REICHARD, Heinrich August O.]. Malerische Reise durch einen großen Theil der Schweiz vor und nach der Revolution.
Jena, H.W.Ch. Seidler, 1805. 8vo. With engraved frontispiece with 4 medallion portraits, engraved title-page with the title on a rock in an alpine scene, 54 numbered engraved plates (1 folding) and 2 folding leaves with built-up letterpress music. With the 4 costume plates hand-coloured. Later 19th-century half cloth. XVI, 414, [2] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT]. REMY, Claude. Traité des elemens présenté à M. Raoul de Choiseul-Gouffier.
Paris, 1786. Small 8vo. Calligraphic manuscript written in French in dark brown ink on paper, in a formal Latin script hand (a French-style "batard"), with an ornamental, calligraphic title-page in reddish brown, green, dark brown and black ink, each page in a thick-thin-thin border with circular decorations in each corner and centred at the head, running heads in the border, the heading of the "Avertissement" in a decorative script, and calligraphic chapter headings in circular or rectangular decorations and sub-headings in decorated horizontal bands. Contemporary red, gold-tooled morocco, the smooth spine divided into 6 panels (separated by lines flanked by dotted lines), the 2nd with a dark green title-label, each of the others with an 8-petalled flower, 10 dots, a decoration in each corner and another at each side, and a decorated band at the foot; each board with a border of thin-thick-thin fillets with a decoration stamped on each corner and a 6-petalled flower inside each corner; gold-tooled turn-ins, gold fillets on the board edges (altogether about 130 impressions of 13 tools), gilt edges. [2], 186, [4] pp. 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

[ROMAN MISSAL]. Missale ad consuetudinem Ecclesie Romane; ...
[Paris], Thielman Kerver, [colophon: anno domini 1506. x. kalendas apriles = 23 March 1507]. 8vo. Printed in red and black throughout in 2 columns, with Kervers finely executed criblée armorial device on the title-page, a crucifixion woodcut, hundreds of impressions of at least 28 finely executed lombardic initials with decorations, as well as dozens of spaces left for manuscript initials, about half with printed guide letters, and a two-impression plainchant music type. The capitals are rubricated throughout. The main text is set in a rotunda gothic type, and the Canon in a larger textura gothic. The woodcut crucifixion, Kervers device and the criblée initials are all coloured by a contemporary hand. Gold- and blind-tooled black goatskin morocco (1st half of the 18th century), the front board dated "ANNO|DOMINI|1506" in gold, and the spine-title "MISSALE|ROMANUM" in gold, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, 2 brass fastenings. [8], 233, [3] ll. Full description