Early Printing & Manuscripts / Art History & Literature

ALAMANNI, Luigi. Opere toscane.
Venice, heirs of Lucantonio Giunta (colophons: printed by Peter Schoeffer the younger), 1542. 2 volumes bound as 1. 8vo. With 2 title-pages, each with the same woodcut Giunta device, and a full-page woodcut showing a larger version of the same device on the last printed page of vol. 2. Set in an Aldine-style italic. 18th-century gold-tooled mottled calf. [16], 431, [1 blank]; 295, [7] pp. Full description

ALCIATO, Andrea. Los emblemas ... traducidos en rhimas Españolas. ...
Lyon, Guillaume Rouille [printed by Macé Bonhomme], 1549. 8vo (18.5 x 12.5 cm). With an elaborate woodcut architectural frame; 210 emblems (200 with woodcuts); nearly every page in one of about 34 different richly decorated woodcut frames. Early 18th-century (Spanish?) sheepskin parchment. 256, [6] pp. Full description

[AMADIS DE GAULE]. Le quatorzieme livre d'Amadis de Gaule, traittant les hauts faits d'armes & amours extremes du Prince Sylves de la Selve, & les estranges aventures mises a fin tant par luy que par autres magnanimes princes de la Grece, & maints preux chevaliers: en la queste & pourchas de la delivrance des princesses Grecques, ou Silves conquit les armes enchantées de la son. Avecques la naissance des deux princes Spheramond & Amadis d'Astre.
Paris, Galliot du Pré, 1574. Small 8vo. With the title within richly illustrated woodcut borders, incorporating the printer's monogram in the lower border. 18th century calf, gold-tooled spine with red label, red edges. [8], 176, [3] ll. Full description

APIANUS, Petrus and Bartholomeus AMANTIUS. Inscriptiones sacrosanctae vetustatis non illae quidem Romanae, sed totius fere orbis . . .
Ingolstadt, Petrus Apianus, 1534. Folio (31×22 cm). Title-page with a large woodcut (15×16 cm) by H. Brosamer after Albrecht Dürer, Apianus's woodcut device above the colophon, woodcut coat of arms of Raimund Fugger (who helped finance the publication), and numerous woodcut illustrations by Brosamer, M. Ostendorfer, G.A. Benewitz and others, most showing sculptural elements from tombs, most pages in woodcut borders, usually assembled from 4 blocks each. 19th-century red half calf, gold- and blind-tooled spine. [40], CCCCXII, [8] pp. Full description

ARATOR. Acta Apostolica, carmine heroico descripta.
Antwerp, Joannes Grapheus, 1535 (title 1534). 8vo. Old boards. (48) ll. Full description

ARIAS MONTANO (MONTANUS), Benito (Benedictus). Humanae salutis monumenta.
Antwerp, Christoffel Plantin, "1571" [= 1582/83]. 4to (22 x 14.5 cm). With an engraved, illustrated title-page bearing the initials of the engraver Pieter Huys and the date 1571, an unsigned circular portrait of Jesus in profile and 70 full-page engravings (16.5 x 11.5 cm) by several artists. 17th-century gold-tooled black goatskin, the front board with a centrepiece comprising coat-of-arms (with a name below it) in an oval (the arms and name mutilated, but probably Robert de Ligne or an heir), gilt edges, later endpapers. [172] pp. Full description

ASCONIUS PEDANIUS, Quintus. Expositio in IIII orationes M.T. Cic. contra C. Verrem [&c.]
(colophon:) Venice, heirs of Aldo I Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, December 1522. 8vo. With Aldos woodcut anchor and dolphin device on the title-page, repeated on the verso of the last otherwise blank leaf (each with letterpress "AL ... DVS" flanking the device), with spaces (with guide letters) left for manuscript initials, not filled in. Set in Aldos famous italic (with upright capitals), the worlds first italic printing type, first used in 1501 (showing the alphabet a-z and A-N in the register of quires above the colophon). Dark purple sheepskin (ca. 1880?). [12], 283, [1] ll. Full description

BARGAGLI, Scipione. Dell' imprese die Scipion Bargagli ... Alla prima parte, la seconda, e la terza nucoamente aggiunte.
Venice, Francesco de Franceschi, 1594. Small 4to (20.5 x 15 cm). With oval engraved device on title-page, full-page engraved portrait of Rudolf II, full-page engraved dedicatory emblem, and 138 engraved oval emblems in text. 19th-century half sheepskin parchment. [24], “573” [=604], [15], [1 blank] pp. Full description

[BECH, Philipp, ed.]. De disciplina puerorum, recteque formandis eorum & studiis & moribus, ...
Basel, Joannes Oporinus (colophon: Bern, Samuel Apiarius, March 1556).
With: (2) [MOREL, Guillaume, ed.]. Graecorum veterum selectae brevesque epistolae.
Paris, Guillaume Morel, King's printer for Greek, 1562. With a remarkable woodcut device on the title-page. With the Greek text set in Claude Garamont's famous Grec du Roi and the Latin translation set in his Aldine-style italic. 2 works in 1 volume. 8vo (15 x 10 x 4.5 cm). Richly gold-tooled tanned sheepskin (ca. 1700), gilt edges. 31, [21]; [16], "840" [= 804] pp. Full description

BEDA VENERABILIS (The Venerable BEDE). Ecclesiasticae historiae gentis Anglorum libri quinque diligenti studio à mendis, quibus hactenus scatebant, vindicati.
Including: BEDA VENERABILIS. Epitome sive breviarium totius praecedentis historiae Anglorum ...
Antwerp, Joannes de Grave (Gravius), 1550. Folio. With De Grave's woodcut armorial device on title-page (repeated on the otherwise blank final leaf) and 30 woodcut decorated initials. Contemporary blind-tooled calf, each board with a double border made from a roll with 4 heads in profile, not labelled but showing Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Desiderius Erasmus and apparently the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V rather than the more common Jan Hus, each in an oval wreath and separated by foliage (bilaterally symmetrical both vertically and horizontally). [6], 263, [1 blank], [12] pp. Full description