Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan
Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.
We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia. Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.
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[ARCHCONFRATERNITY OF THE MOST HOLY CRUCIFIX.]
Distinta descrizione della machina, luminari, ed ordinanza nella solenne processione...
Rome, per il Casaletti, 1775.
Rare record of a procession made by members of the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Crucifix from the church of San Marcello in Rome to Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican in the jubilee year of 1775.
£250
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ARIAS, Francisco.
Paleys der deughden begrypende de naervolghinghe der alder-heylichste ende weerdichste Maghet Maria. Eerst gemaeckt...
Antwerp, Gheleyn Janssens, 1609.
First Dutch edition of this work of Marian devotion by the Spanish Jesuit and ascetical writer Francisco Arias (1533–1605), first published in Spanish as De la imitacion de Nuestra Señora in 1588.
£375
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ARISTAENETUS.
Επιστολαι … Epistolae graecae. Cum Latina interpretatione & notis. Tertia editio emendatior & auctior.
Paris, Marc Orry, 1610.
A volume of fictional Greek amatory epistles, printed in parallel Greek and Latin, from the library of the Padua professor and printer Giovanni Antonio Volpi.
£1250
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ARISTIDES, Aelius.
Orationum tomi tres, nunc primum latine versi a Gulielmo Cantero Ultraiectino. Huc accessit orationum tomus...
Basel, Peter Perna and Heinrich Petrus, 1566.
First edition in Latin, a remarkable copy once owned by one of the preeminent music theorists and composers of Renaissance Italy, Gioseffo Zarlino.
£2750
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ARISTOPHANES.
The Frogs, a Comedy. Translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, by C[harles] Dunster, A.M …
Oxford, J. and J. Fletcher; London, Rivington, Payne, Faulder, Cadell; Cambridge, Merrill, [1785].
First edition in English, and the only separately published translation of The Frogs in the eighteenth century. ‘It is … somewhat surprising that in an age so studious of ancient literature as the present, and which so much abounds in translations of the Greek and Latin classics, we...
£500
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ARISTOPHANES, and Henry Francis CARY, translator.
The Birds … with Notes.
London, Printed for Taylor and Hessey … 1824.
First edition of the first metrical translation of Aristophanes’ The Birds into English by Henry Francis Cary (1722–1844) – perhaps best known for his blank verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
£350
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ARISTOTLE.
Αριστοτελους περι ποιητικης: Aristotelis de poetica liber ex versione Theodori Goulstoni. Lectionis...
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1780.
Large-paper issue of the first Winstanley edition, handsomely bound. The first work published by the Oxford historian and classicist Thomas Winstanley (1749–1823), subsequently Camden Professor of History and Laudian Professor of Arabic, this edition of Aristotle’s De poetica was based...
£675
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ARISTOTLE; THEOPHRASTUS; Theodorus GAZA and Pietro ALCIONIO, translators.
Historiae. Cum de natura Animalium, tum...
Lyons, [Nicolas Bacquenois for] Guillaume Gazeau, 1552.
A union of Aristotle on animals and Theophrastus on plants, the fundamental texts from Ancient Greece on zoology and botany, in the translations of Gaza and Alcionio.
£800
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ARNIGIO, Bartolomeo.
Rime dell’Arnigio per la ill[ustre] signora Claudia Martinenga.
Brescia, Giovanni Battista Bozzola, 1566.
First edition of Bartolomeo Arnigio’s collection of poems addressed to Claudia Martinengo, wife to Ludovico Martinengo della Pallata, an important association copy presented by the author to fellow poet Antonio Beffa Negrini.
£1750
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AUBERY, Jean-Henri.
D. Virgo Guarazonia. Scriptore reverendo patre, P. Ioanne Henrico Auberio Borbonio, religioso presbytero...
Auch, Arnaud de Sainct Bonnet, 1650.
A seemingly unrecorded (first?) edition of a remarkable neo-Latin poem on Our Lady of Garaison composed by the Jesuit priest Jean-Henri Aubery (1601–1652).
£1250
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AUGUSTINE, Pseudo-, et al.
Opusculum multarum bonaru[m] rerum refertum, ut sunt. Diui Augustini meditationes, et eiusde[m]...
Venice, Pietro Quarengi, 6 March 1512.
Uncommon edition of various devotional works, comprising: the pseudo-Augustinian Meditations, Soliloquies, and a treatise on the word of God; meditations on the human condition, and a letter on leading the perfect life, attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux; a short sermon assigned to Peter Damian; Anselm’s...
£750
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AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius.
De civitate Dei.
Venice, Nicolaus Jenson, 2 October 1475.
A tall copy with some deckle edges of the only Jenson edition of the City of God, Augustine’s influential treatise written in the wake of the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. Augustine sought to justify why a Christian state, with the support of God, could be defeated in this way;...
£24000
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AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona].
Summa de potestate ecclesiastica.
Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473.
First edition of this highly important and influential magnum opus of political theory, a defence of papal supremacy.
£22500
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BACON, Francis.
Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica, civilia, et theologica, nunc primum edita. Cura & fide Guilielmi Rawley...
London, R. Daniel, impensis Octaviani Pulleyn, 1658.
First edition, second issue of this collection of the philosophical, political, and theological writings of Bacon, including numerous essays previously unpublished, and the first appearance in Latin of a biographical sketch of the philosopher by William Rawley (c. 1588–1667), Bacon’s literary...
£1250
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BACON, Francis.
Historia vitae et mortis.
Amsterdam, Johannes van Ravesteyn, 1663.
Pocket-sized Amsterdam editions of three works by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), uncut and unopened and bound, exceptionally, in the original drab boards.
£975
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BALBUS, Johannes.
Catholicon.
[Strasbourg, The R-Printer (Adolf Rusch), not after 1475.]
Third edition of the earliest printed lexicon, a monumental piece of printing from one of the earliest presses in Strasbourg, containing the thirteenth-century Latin dictionary and grammar of Johannes Balbus, the ‘greatest of the medieval encyclopaedic dictionaries’ (Chamberlin, p. 136); his...
£65000
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BARTHOLOMEW OF PISA.
Sermo[n]es lucidissimi et insignes dubiorum et casuum, co[n]scientialium co[n]te[m]ptivi et elucidativi sup[er]...
Lyon, Romain Morin, 3 February 1519.
Rare edition of forty-five sermons for Lent and Easter by the Franciscan friar Bartholomew of Pisa (d. c. 1401), printed in Lyon by Romain Morin.
£2250
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BARTOLI, Adolfo.
Scenari inediti della Commedia dell’arte. Contributo alla storia del teatro popolare italiano.
Florence, Sansoni, 1880.
Rare first edition, one of only 350 copies, of a foundational source for the study of Commedia dell’Arte. The exceptionally well-loved and widely-performed form of drama is the subject of the author’s pioneering study: he examines tropes, characters, plots, structures and lines of ‘scenarios’...
£500
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[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]
The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...
Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...
£1200
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BEAUMONT, Joseph.
Psyche: or Loves Mysterie in XX. Canto’s: displaying the Intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soule …
London, Printed by John Dawson for George Boddington, 1648.
First edition of this lengthy religious epic representing the journey of the personified Soul from England to the Holy Land and back, written by Beaumont, one of the Royalist fellows ejected from Cambridge in 1644.
£1250