Book History, Education, Learning & Printing / Greek & Non-Western Types

AESOP. Fabulae ... Graecè & Latinè, nunc denuo selectae: eae item quas Avienus carmine expressit. Accedit Ranarum & murium pugna, Homero olim asscripta. Cum elegantissimis in utroque libello figuris, & utriusque interpretatione plurimis in locis emendata.
Leiden, Joannes Maire, 1632. 8vo. With 47 woodcut illustrations (5 x 6.5 cm) by Christoffel van Sichem II in the text. Contemporary vellum, each board with a panel stamp (59 x 50 mm) of the Amersfoort coat of arms. Most endpapers later. 158, [2] pp. Full description

AL-ZAMAKHSHARI and Jens Peter BROCH. Al-Mufassal, opus de re grammatica Arabicum.
Oslo, W.C. Fabritius, 1859. 8vo. Near contemporary cloth with title in gold on spine, covered with protective plastic. 229, [5] pp. Full description

ANACREON. Anakreontos Teiou mele praefixo commentario quo poëtae genus traditur et bibliotheca Anacreonteia adumbratur.
Parma, in aedibus Palatinis [Typis Bodonianis], 1791. 16mo in 4s (15 x 11 cm). With a small engraved portrait of Anacreon in a roundel on the title-page, a small engraved portrait of the dedicatee J. N. de Azara in a roundel on the dedication page. Part of the text is set in Greek type. Contemporary gold-tooled green morocco with the title lettered in gold on the spine, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, shiny pink endpapers, with a frame of small silver leaves mounted on the pastedowns. [4], CXVIII, [2], 111, [1] pp. Full description

[ARABIC-SCRIPT PRINTER’S WOODBLOCK]. Hand-cut woodblock bearing the text "Safr Nishd al-nishad li-Süleyman ..." (Book of the Song of songs of Solomon) in naskh Arabic script.
[Probably Ottoman provinces, mid-18th century (ca. 1750)]. A single hand-cut woodblock (17 x 9 x 2.2 cm, with protrusions to the left and right making it wider - 11 cm - near the head to accommodate the wider 2nd line) intended for use as printing block, with 6 lines of text, together with an inked impression on 18th century paper (16.5 x 10.5 cm). Full description

ARIAS MONTANUS, Benito (editor). Novum testamentum Graecum.
[Geneva], Petrus de la Rouière, 1619.
With: (2) PAGNINI, Sante (translator) and Benito ARIAS MONTANUS (editor). Biblia Hebraica eorundem Latina interpretatio ...
[Geneva], Petrus de la Rouière, 1618. 2 works in 1 volume, both in 4 parts. Folio. With numerous decorated woodcut initials and woodcut headpieces, the work is printed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew type. Contemporary blind-tooled vellum with remnants of closing ties, red gauffered edges. [8], 271, [1 blank], [50], [2 blank], [4], 70, [2 blank], 167, [1 blank]; 183, [1], 283, [1 blank], 84, 203, [1 blank] pp. Full description

[BELIGATTI, Giovanni (Cassiono Da MACERATA)]. Alphabetum Tangutanum sive Tibetanum.
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1773. 8vo. With a folding table, printer's device on title-page and an elaborate woodcut tailpiece after the preliminaries. Modern vellum, green title label. XVI, 138, [2] pp. Full description

BELLARMINO, Roberto. Dottrina Cristiana composta dall...
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1786. Large 4to. With 4 woodcuts on 3 plates, 1 full-page woodcut on the back of the title-page, and a few woodcut initials, factotums and decorations, as well as frames, factotums and decorations built up from arabesque and rococo typographic ornaments. Set in three columns in Ethiopic, roman and Arabic type. Contemporary vellum, gold-tooled spine title, red sprinkled edges. 97, [1] pp. Full description

[BIBLE - NEW TESTAMENT - GREEK]. ESTIENNE, Robert, editor. Tῆò Káéíῆò ÄéáèÞêçò ἅπáíôá [Tes Kaines Diathekes Apanta] = Novum Jesu Christi D.N. Testamentum Ex Bibliotheca Regia.
Paris, Robert Estienne, King's printer, 1550. Folio (35 x 24 cm). With a Greek and Latin title-page including Estiennes woodcut basilisk device as Kings printer (and 1 repeat), his woodcut olive tree device on the otherwise blank last page (N6v), 3 single-piece decorated architectural frames with putti, etc. (plus 3 repeats) for the tables of the Eusebian canons for the Gospels, 9 woodcut headpieces and 21 decorated woodcut initial letters (plus numerous repeats). Set almost entirely in the three sizes of Claude Garamonts famous Greek printing types, known as the Grecs du Roi, and the first use of the largest size. The present copy has been richly decorated, probably around the time it was bound, not just by colouring Estiennes woodcut devices (the basilisk in gold), decorative frames, headpieces and initials, but also by adding extensive decorations in rococo style, the whole using a large number of mostly bright colours plus gold and silver. Gold-tooled black sheepskin, the gold-tooled spine with the title, publisher and date in the 2nd and 6th of 7 compartments in roman capitals, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, gilt and richly gauffered edges, Dutch combed and curled endpapers. [32], “272” [= 268], 202, [2] pp. Full description

[BIBLE - PSALMBOOK]. PSALTERION. Prophetou kai Basileoos tou David [in Greek type] - Davidis Regis ac Prophetae Psalmorum Liber. Ad exemplar Complutense.
Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1584. 16mo (11,8 x 8 cm). With woodcut printer's device on the title-page, text is partially printed in Greek. Late seventeenth-century dark brown calf, with gold-stamped coat of arms of Pierre-Daniel Huet on both covers and gold-tooled dubbel-lined borders on covers and spine, (remnants of) red speckled edges. 267, [13] pp. Full description

[COLENSO, William]. [Drop-title:] He Inoinga ma te tangate e wakaaro atu ana ki te Iriiringa.
[Heretaunga, William Colenso, ca. 1847]. Leaflet (17.2 x 11 cm). [1], [1 blank] pp. Full description