Early Printing & Manuscripts / Religion & Devotion

ERASMUS, Desiderius. De contemptu mu[n]di epistola.
Antwerp, Michiel Hillen van Hoogstraten, 1523. 8vo. With a decorative woodcut border on the title page, and 2 decorated woodcut initials. Later vellum. [32] ll. Full description

ERASMUS, Desiderius. Lingua ... Opus novum, & hisce temporibus aptissimum.
(Colophon) Basel, Johann Froben, August 1525.
With:
(2) IDEM. Christiani Matrimonii institutio ... opus nunc primum & natum, & excusum.
Basel, (colophon:) [Johann Froben], August 1526.
(3) CHRYSOSTOM, John and Desiderius ERASMUS (translator). Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi de orando deum, libri duo. Erasmo Rot. interprete. Adiuncti sunt ijdem Graece, ut lector conferre possit.
(Colophon:) Basel, Johann Froben, April 1525. 3 works in 1 volume. 8vo. With Froben's woodcut device on the title page and final leaf of each work. Contemporary elaborately blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards, with the manuscript title of ad 1 on the fore-edge, remnants of fastenings.     [172]; [212]; [40] ll. Full description

ERASMUS, Desiderius. Hyperaspistes diatribae adversus Servum Arbitrium Martini Lutheri ... ab autore recognitus.
Basel, Johann Froben, July 1526. Small 8vo. With a woodcut printer's device on the title page and final leaf, and 2 decorated woodcut initials. Modern calf. [120] ll. Full description

ERASMUS, Desiderius. Epistola ... contra quosdam, qui se falso iactant evangelicos, iam recens aedita.
(Colophon:) Freiburg im Breisgau, Johannes Faber, 1529. Small 8vo (9.5 x 13.9 cm). With a decorated woodcut initial and a small woodcut illustration incorporating Fabers device on the final page. Modern, half vellum and brown sprinkled paper sides. [27] ll. Full description

[ERASMUS, Desiderius]. Ursach, warumb Erasmus vo[n] Roterodam, in einer schrifft an den Bepstlichen Legaten und Cardinal Compeium, bedenckt, das es nicht gut sein sol das Rö. Key. Maiestat, die Lutherische, und andere lere mit dem schwerdt dempffe &c. In Sibenzehen Artickel gestellet.
[Strasbourg or Nuremberg, Georg Ulricher or Wolfgang Heußler, 1531 or 1546]. 4to. Modern blind-tooled, mottled calf, with a double fillet border on both boards. [3], [1 blank] ll. Full description

ERASMUS, Desiderius Apophthegmatum opus cum primis frugiferum, vigilanter ab ipso recognitum autore ... locupletatum insuper quum varijs per totum accessionibus, tum duobus libris in fine adiectis.
Basel, Froben Office (Hieronymus Froben & Nicolaus Episcopius), 1532, Small fol (20 x 30.9 cm). With 9 decorated metalcut initials, a decorated woodcut initial, and a woodcut printers device on the title page and final page. 19th-century blind-tooled brown half morocco. [8], 401, [1], [14] pp. Full description

ERASMUS, Desiderius. De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis, libellus et novus & elegans. & elegans ... Eiusdem de ratione instituendi discipulos. uterque per autorem recognitus, & locupletatus.
Paris, Chrétien Wechel, 1536.
With:
(2) IDEM. Responsio ad Petri Cursii defensionem, nullo adversario bellacem.
Paris, Chrétien Wechel, 1535.
(3) IDEM. Responsio ad epistolam paraenetica[m] clarissimi, doctissimicq[ue] viri... Alberti Pii carporum principis.
[Paris, Pierre Vidoux], April 1529.
(4) IDEM. Purgatio adversus epistolam non sobriam Martini Luteri.
Basel, (colophon:) Hieronymus Froben and Nikolaus Episcopius, April 1534. 4 works in 1 volume. 8vo. Ad 1 with Wechels woodcut device on the title page and 3 woodcut decorated initials. Ad 2 with Wechels woodcut device on the title page and the verso of the blank last leaf, and 1 woodcut decorated initial. Ad 3 with a woodcut architectural frame on the title page and 2 woodcut decorated initials. Ad 4 with Frobens woodcut device on the title page and the verso of the last blank leaf. Half vellum and brown sprinkled paper sides, with the (faded) manuscript title on the spine, red edges. [50] ll.; 30, [1 blank], [1] pp.; [56]; [32] ll. Full description

ERASMUS, Desiderius. Ecclesiaastae [!] sive de ratione concionandi libri quatuor, opus recens, denuo ab autore recognitum, sed cum indice accuratiore quam antehac & copiosiore.
Antwerp, sub intersignio Rubri Castri (= Guilielmus Montanus), 1539. Small 8vo. With an architectural woodcut border on the title page, 7 decorated metalcut initials, 5 woodcut headpieces, 7 woodcut tailpieces, and a woodcut printer's device at the end of the work. 18th-century half vellum. "549" [=544], [31], [1 blank] pp. Full description

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

EURIPIDES and Desiderius ERASMUS (editor and translator). Euripidis tragoediae duae hecuba & iphigenia in aulide, Latinae factae...
Basel, Froben Office [heirs of Johann Froben], April 1530. 8vo (10.4 x 15.4 cm). With a woodcut printer's device on the title page and final page, and 7 decorated woodcut initials. 19th-century half brown calf and grey paper sides. 293, [1], [1 blank], [1] pp. Full description