New York International
Antiquarian Book Fair 2019

Thursday 7 March, 5-9 PM (preview)
Friday 8 March, noon-8 PM
Saturday 9 March, noon-7 PM
Sunday 10 March, noon-5 PM
 
Park Avenue Armory
 
Booth D15

TO ORDER OR INQUIRE
 
Heron Tower, Sixth Floor
70 East 55th Street
New York, NY 10022
212.308.0018


Travel & Americana (#1-19)

Travel: Asia & Europe (#20-30)

Science & Technology (#31-46)

Art, Architecture, Humanities (#47-64)





Travel & Americana


A Manual for Clerics
Printed in Lima in 1621
Rich in Ethnographic & Anthropological Information
On the Natives of Peru

1. [Americana] / [Peru] / ARRIAGA, Pablo José de . Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru. Dirigido al Rey N.S. en su Real Conseio de Indias . Lima, G. de Contreras, 1621. 4to. Bound in contemporary flexible vellum.
$85,000

Rare first edition of a rich account of the Indians of Peru at the turn of the 17th century. A manual intended to help clerics identify native “superstitions,” this early Lima imprint is filled with details describing native ceremonies, medicines, and beliefs.

Spanish Navigational Intelligence & the Struggle for Florida

2. [Americana] / [Caribbean] / [Florida] / SAN MARTÍN SUÁREZ, José de . Tablas Modernas, de la situacion… que tienen... en Latitud, y Longitud todas las Costas de Tierra firme, Islas de Barlevento… del Seno Mexicano… Barcelona, B. Pla, 1784. Quarter bound in vellum, marbled paper over boards.
$15,000
 
Very rare first complete edition (after the 1781 Havana edition, recorded in 1 copy) of an early Spanish-language pilot guide for navigating the Antilles, the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, etc., including detailed information on the location of the reefs, sounds, bays, channels, ports, and inlets of the United States coast from south Texas, to New Orleans, along the entire Florida peninsula, and as far north as Charleston.

The ‘Black Legend’ in German

3. [Americana] / CASAS, Bartolomeo de las . Newe Welt. Warhafftige Anzeigung der Hispanier grewlichen, abschewlichen und unmenschlichen Tyranney, von ihnen inn den Indianischen Ländern, so gegen Nidergang der Sonnen gelegen, und die Newe Welt genennet wird, begangen … [Frankfurt], s.n., 1597. 4to. Half bound in late 19th-century morocco and marbled boards.
$9500

Rare first German edition of one of the most important documents for the early colonial history of the Americas. Las Casas’ narrative was the first to decry the excesses and brutality of the European colonization of the Americas, in the same breath giving birth to the ‘Black Legend’ of Spanish colonial barbarism. The (no doubt Protestant) translator of the present work also uses Las Casas’ narrative as an anti-Spanish polemic in response to the current Habsburg occupation of the Low Countries.

Landmark of World Travel Literature
In 17th-Century Red Morocco, with the Arms of Comte D’Hoyme

4. [Americana] / CHAMPLAIN, Samuel de . Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada…depuis l’an 1603 iusques en l’an 1629 . Paris, P. Le Mur, 1632. Large 4to. With 1 large folding map on two sheets, including 6 engravings in the text, two of which are full-page. Bound in gilt 17th-century red morocco.
$550,000

First collected edition of this landmark of discovery Americana, augmented with new material and, above all, the first appearance of Champlain’s seminal two-sheet map of the Great Lakes. This copy comes in the rare first issue of both text and map, in a splendid contemporary red morocco binding with the arms of Comte D’Hoyme stamped in gold.

Danish Influence in the West Indies

5. [Americana] / CHRISTIAN VII OF DENMARK. Verordnung, betreffend den Handel zwischen den Königlichen europäischen Staten und den dänischen Inseln in America . Christiansburg, den 7ten April 1777 . Copenhagen, N. C. Höpffner, [1777]. 4to. Disbound, with marbled paper spine.
$900

Extremely rare printed proclamation concerning trade between the Danish West Indies – St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John – with the mother territories of Denmark, Norway, and Schleswig-Holstein. To promote trade in sugar, wool, and coffee, Christian VII announces several tax breaks and confirms a monopoly for Danish ships. 

The Veneration of St. Michael the Archangel
In Europe and the Americas
Complete with the Oft-Missing
Indulgence Engraving Frontispiece

6. [Americana] / [Art] / COLLADO DE RUETE, Manuel . Insinuacion de las grandezas de san Miguel y de sus famosos santuarios en los reynos de España, Francia, Portugal, Napoles y las Indias . Madrid, Heredos de F. del Hierro, 1760. 4to. With 1 full-page engraving. Bound in contemporary vellum.
$4500

Rare first and only edition of an 18th-century study on the cult of Saint Michael the Archangel in Europe and ‘the Indies,’ with information on the saint’s following as far afield as Peru, Puebla de los Angeles in Mexico, Japan, and Manilla. The present copy preserves the work’s (often missing) engraved frontispiece which grants 100 days of indulgence to those who recite a ‘Pater Noster’ and an ‘Ave Maria’ while viewing the print, a very unusual example of an indulgence print used as a frontispiece.

Seville Defends its Overseas Trade with America
Against the Encroachment of Cadiz
With Much Discussion
Of American Ports, Pirates, and Personalities

7. [Americana] / [Spain] . Defensorio de la barra, de la ciudad de San Lucar. Equiparacion de su Puerto con los de America, y baia de Cadiz . [Spain], s.n., [1701]. Folio. Quarter bound in modern morocco and marbled boards.
$4850


Very rare first and only edition of an official document rich in first-hand information about Spain’s 17th-century trade with its American colonies and the tense contest between Spanish cities to control this invaluable Americas monopoly, including many details concerning ports, ships, captains, and conflicts, from Florida, to Puerto Rico, to Cuba and indeed across Spain’s full circuit of maritime commerce throughout the Spanish Main and as far south as Argentina.

News of Drake’s Circumnavigation
“The First Published Account of the Voyage”
Sammelband of Rare First Editions by Charles de l’Ecluse

8. [Americana] / [Botany] / [DRAKE, Francis] / CLUSIUS, Carolus [L’ECLUSE, Charles de] .  Aliquot notae in Garciae aromatum historiam . Antwerp, C. Plantin, 1582. 8vo. With 15 woodcuts. [Bound with:]  CLUSIUS, C. Rariorum aliquot stirpium per Hispanias observatarum historia . Antwerp, Plantin, 1576. With 233 woodcuts. [And:] MONARDES, N. / CLUSIUS, C., trans.   Simplicium medicamentorum ex Novo Orbe delatorum… Antwerp, Plantin, 1582. [And:]  ACOSTA, C. / CLUSIUS, C., trans.   Aromatum & medicamentorum in Orientali India nascentium . Antwerp, Plantin, 1582. With 2 woodcuts. Half bound in 18th-century calf and marbled boards.
$18,500

Rare first edition of the naturalist Charles de l’Ecluse’s botany of Sir Francis Drake’s 1577-1580 circumnavigation, the first printed book in botanical literature to be substantially based on a specific trans-Atlantic voyage of any kind, and indeed the first substantial record of Drake’s achievement to be printed. This important work is bound here with the first edition of l’Ecluse’s extensively illustrated monograph on the flora of the Iberian Peninsula and with two first editions of his important Latin translations of recent botanical findings from the Americas and the East Indies.

Mexican Antiquities
In Contemporary Hand-Color

9. [Americana] / Mexico / DUPAIX, Guillaume / CASTANEDA, José Luciano (illustr.); CHATEAUBRIANT, François-René de . Antiquités mexicaines. Relation des trois Expéditions du Capitaine Dupaix, ordonnées en 1805, 1806, et 1807, pour la Recherche des Antiquités du Pays, notamment celles de Mitla et de Palenque … Paris, Didot, 1834. Folio. 3 parts in 2 volumes. With 1 frontispiece, 1 map, and 166 hand-colored plates. Bound in splendid contemporary French red morocco.
$150,000

First edition, first issue of this monumental work, here in a rare example with fine contemporary hand-coloring. An “indispensable supplement to Humboldt’s Voyage dans l’Amerique ” (Sabin), Dupaix’s arduous work represents in many cases the first glimpses – and first published records – of untouched Mayan ruins emerging from the jungle. The remarkably faithful engravings in the Antiquités mexicaines have ensured that the work remains one of the most valuable colonial sources on Mayan art and architecture to the present day.

Unrecorded 18th-Century Broadside Account
Of American Exports to Spain
With Information
On Cuban, Mexican, and South American Goods

10. [Americana] / [Cuba] . Estado de la carga, que cuenta de S. M. comercio han conducido de los Puertos de Vera-Cruz, Cartagena, y Havana los Navios de la Flota del Mando del Gefe de Esquadra Don Augustin de Ydiaquez, que entro en este Puerto de Cadiz el dia 13. de Marzo de 1767 . [Cadiz], s.n., [1767]. Folio broadside. Bound in modern cardboard and marbled paper, mounted on tab.
$1250

Very rare first and only edition of an apparently unrecorded official broadside listing American goods delivered to Cadiz from Havana in 1767 at the return of the Spanish flota from its annual voyage to the New World. The document, an important witness to 18 th -century transatlantic trade, served as a preliminary handlist for government and/or commercial officials in Cadiz to account for the wide range of valuable American imports arriving in the city, imports vital to the Spanish economy in the period.

“Among the Rarest of Hakluyt’s Works” (Church)
Using News of De Soto’s Florida Expedition
To Encourage Support of the Fledgling Virginia Colony
With Much First-Hand Information
On Florida and the Carolinas

11. [Americana] / [Florida] / [Carolinas] / [Virginia] / [SOTO, Hernando de] / HAKLUYT, Richard. Virginia richly valued, by the description of the maine land of Florida, her next nighbour . London, F. Kyngston for M. Lownes, 1609. 4to. Bound in 19th-century gilt red morocco by F. Bedford.
$95,000

Very scarce first English edition (1609) of this account of Hernando de Soto’s (c. 1500-42) North American expedition (1539-1543), published by Richard Hakluyt (1553-1616) with a view to strengthen the fledgling English colony in Virginia. Settlers arrived at Jamestown only two years before this book was published, and the colony’s fate still very much hung in the balance as Hakluyt penned his text.

A New American Wonder Drug
Tudor Translation
Of One of the First Published Patient Narratives

12. [Americana] / [Medicine] / HUTTEN, Ulrich von .  Of the Wood Called Guaiacum that healeth the frenche pockes… London, T. Berthelet, 1540. 4to. With numerous figural woodcut initials. Bound in early calf.
$35,000

Rare 1540 (first quarto) Tudor translation of an important early medical work on the curative properties of the American wood known as ‘guaiacum.’ The treatise popularized its use to treat several conditions, especially the New-World scourge of syphilis, and accelerated the import of this botanical from the Caribbean. “This tract had enormous resonance in 16th-century medical circles … it remained influential into the 18th century” (Jillings).

Monardes’ Influential Early Work
On American Botany
Very Rare First Edition (1565)
“For Many Years the Most Important Work
On the Medicinal Plants of the New World”

13. [Americana] / [Botany] / [Medicine] / MONARDES, Nicolás . Dos libros. El uno trata de todas las cosas q(ue) trae(n) de n(uest)ras Indias Occide(n)tales, que sirven al uso de medicina… Seville, S. Trugillo, 1565. 8vo. Bound in later stiff vellum.
$55,000

Very rare first edition – virtually unacquirable for the past half century or more – of the first printed work devoted to the botanical and medicinal discoveries made in the Americas , a treatise which, through its later expansions and numerous translations, would remain “for many years the most important work on the medicinal plants of the New World” (Garrison & Morton).

Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo,
And the Barcelona Trading Company
Official Report on American Commerce On the Eve of the Anglo-Spanish War

14. [Americana] / [Puerto Rico] / [Dominican Republic] / [Anglo-Spanish War] . Papel que se leyó en la junta general de la Real Compãnia de Comercio de Barcelona à Indias, celebrada en la Pieza de la Casa Lonja del Mar de la misma Capital… [Barcelona?], s.n., [1762]. Folio. Bound in recent marbled boards.
$1850

Very rare first and only edition of an official document providing an insider’s view of 18th-century Catalan trade with Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo and Margarita Island, with information on both “the immense visible riches of the continent of America” (p. 1) and the use of slaves to support Spanish ventures in America (p. 19).

The Death Sentence of Sir Walter Raleigh

15. [Americana] / [RALEIGH, Walter, Sir] / [BACON, Francis] . A declaration of the demeanor and carriage of Sir Walter Raleigh, knight, as well his voyage, as in, and sithence his Returne; and of the true motives and inducements which occasioned His Maiestie to proceed in doing iustice upon him, as hath bene done. London, B. Norton and J. Bill, 1618. 4to. Bound in later paneled calf.
$4500                                 

Rare first edition, first issue, of Francis Bacon’s defense of the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh by James I, with (according to Bacon) “very material” additions by the king himself. The work describes the circumstances surrounding Raleigh’s final voyage to America in 1618 (with the purpose of locating a fabled gold mine) and includes the text of Raleigh’s commission.

From the Library
Of the Virginia Colonist George Sandys
The First English Translation
Of Acosta’s Historia natural y moral de las Indias ,
The Only Work Concerning the Americas
To have Survived with a Sandys’ Provenance
Cited by Sandys
In his Famed ‘Virginia Ovid’ of 1632

16. [Americana] / [Virginia Colony] / [Georges Sandys] / ACOSTA, José de. The natural and morall historie of the East and West Indies . London, V. Sims for E. Blount and W. Aspley, 1604. 8vo. Bound in contemporary calf, gilt armorial centerpiece of Sandys to upper and lower covers, housed in a custom box. $68,000

An extraordinary volume – previously unrecognized in bibliographic scholarship – which once formed part of the library of George Sandys (1578-1644), the poet, traveler, colonial treasurer of the Virginia Company, and “one of the most important men in the history of Colonial Jamestown” (Grizzard), whose English verse translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses was largely composed on Virginian soil and which thus has been considered, “the first utterance of the conscious literary spirit articulated in America” (Tyler), and indeed “the first real poetry composed in English in America” (R. B. Davis). Here – preserved in its original armorial binding – is Sandys’ copy of the first English translation of the Jesuit José de Acosta’s (1539-1600) influential Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590), a work which (remarkably) Sandys is known to have used in preparation for his deluxe 1632 edition of the Metamorphoses .

“The Foundation of England’s Knowledge of America
During the Early Period of Colonization” ( PMM )

17. [Americana] / SMITH, John. The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England and the Summer Isles… London, I.D. and I.H. for E. Blackmore, 1632. Small folio. With engraved title and 4 plates, of which 2 are folding maps, 2 views. Bound in early gilt-ruled calf, rebacked.
$195,000
                                                                                                                                                 
A fine copy of one of the most important books in American history. It is the primary source for information about the first English settlements in the New World. Captain John Smith’s eyewitness observations, which he made during his stay in Virginia from 1606 to 1609 and during his exploration of the New England coast from 1610 to 1617, form the basis of the narrative. “ His masterpiece is the Generall Historie, which was the first sizeable work written in English about the newfound continent ” ( PMM ).

‘The Art of Jumping across the World’
An Illustrated Geography Primer From 18th-Century Germany

18. [Americana] / WEBER, Fürchtegott Thurecht . Kurtzgefasste Geographie zum Gebrauch der Trivial-Schulen, nebst einem Alphabetischen Verzeichnisse der merckwürdigsten Oeter des bewohnten Erdbodens . Sorau, G. Hebold, 1760. 8vo. With the full-page 2-hemisphere engraved world map in contemporary hand-color, and with figural woodcut headpieces, initials and tailpieces. Bound in contemporary sprinkled pasteboards.
$1450

Very rare second edition of an 18th-century geography primer for German elementary school children written by the minister F. T. Weber (1722-86). The work is illustrated with a charming two-hemisphere world map in contemporary hand-color entitled “The art of jumping across the world,” which shows young children hopping from continent to continent: One child prepares for a leap from North America to California, which here is depicted as an island.

New World Giants
The Study of American Fossils
By “One of the Founders of Paleontology”

19. [Americana] / TORRUBIA, José . La gigantologia spagnola . Naples, Nella Stamperia Muziana, 1760. 8vo. With engraved arms on title and a figural engraved headpiece. Bound in contemporary vellum. 
$3850

Rare first and only complete edition of an early work on fossils in the Americas by “one of the founders of paleontology” (Mancini), the Franciscan historian and naturalist José Torrubia (1698-1761). An early proponent of the idea that fossils were of organic origin, and not spontaneous ‘games of nature,’ Torrubia here examines recent discoveries of large fossil specimens in the Americas (later understood to be mastodons and the like) against various legends (Native American, classical, and Biblical) about races of now-extinct antediluvian and postdiluvian giants.



Travel: Asia & Europe (#20-30)


“The First European Book
Devoted Exclusively to China” (Lach)

20. [China] / CRUZ, Gaspar da . Tractado em que se co[n]tam muito por este[n]so as cousas da China, co[m] suas particularidades, [e] assi do reyno dormuz . Evora, A. de Burgos, 1569/1570. 4to in eights. With woodcut arms and border on title page and woodcut initials. Bound in stiff vellum.
$285,000

Very rare first and only early edition of this extraordinary eyewitness account: “the first European book devoted exclusively to China” (Lach). This highly important work, the first printed book published in the West on the subject, served as the primary source on China for European authors and their readers – most of whom never set foot in the East – for many decades following its publication. 

The Beginning of French Sinology
The First Work Printed
With Engraved Chinese Type in France

21. [China] / FOURMONT, Étienne . Meditationes Sinicae . Paris, Chez Musier [et al.], 1737. Folio. With large folding chart of vocalized characters. Bound in contemporary vellum over boards.
$15,000

Scarce first and only edition of the author’s first work, an elaborate treatise on the Chinese language, “the second grammar to be published in Europe, preceded only by Bayer’s grammatical account [1730]” (Löwendahl). As the first work printed with engraved Chinese type in France, Fourmont’s Meditationes Sinicae may be considered the beginning of French sinology . The present work is significant in the history of Oriental typography, representing the first use of the petits chinois typeset created at the behest of Louis XIV, the first Chinese type produced in France. 

Early Reports from the Vietnam Mission

22. [Vietnam] / SACCANO, Metello. Relation des Progrez de la Foy au Royaume de la Cochinchine és années 1646. & 1647. Envoiée au R.P. Général de la Compagnie de Jésus . Paris, S. Cramoisy and G. Cramoisy, 1653. 8vo. Bound in old vellum.
$6500

Rare first and only edition of two Jesuit letters from the province of Cochin-China, written in the years immediately following the expulsion of the Jesuit’s most powerful Southeast Asian operative, Alexander de Rhodes.  

“The Most Comprehensive & Popular Book
On Ming China to Appear in Europe” (Lach)

23. [China] / [Binding] / GONZALEZ DE MENDOZA, Juan. Histoire du grand royaume de la Chine . Paris, J. Perier, 1588. 8vo. Hand-ruled in red throughout. Bound in contemporary brown morocco, richly tooled and gilt with daisies and ‘GR’ monograms.
$28,500

Rare first French edition – here in a magnificent, contemporary Parisian binding – of the Spanish Augustinian Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza’s (1545-1618) groundbreaking treatise on China, a work considered “the most comprehensive and popular book on Ming China to appear in Europe” (Lach).

Eyewitness Accounts of the Mongol Empire
Including Chapters on the Holy Land

24. [Asia] / HETOUN of KORIKOS . Liber historiarum partium Orientis, sive Passagium Terrae Sanctae… Haguenau, J. Secerius, 1529. 4to. Bound in speckled boards.
$6850
 
First Latin edition of this account of Asia and the Middle East, which, along with Marco Polo, formed one of the few eyewitness sources for Asia from the Middle Ages: According to Lach, it was an important source for Mandeville’s knowledge about the Mongols and the great Khan, and even into the 16th century it was a general source for Grynaeus and Huttich for Eastern matters.

Extraordinary Unpublished Autograph Manuscript
Including the First Official French Voyage to China (1698)

25. [China] / [Americana] / LAGRANGE, Louis de Chancel de . Le premier volume des voyages curieux faits dans diverses provinces, de France, dEspagne, de Flandres et de Loraine lespace de cinquante ans . [France], [1743]. 4to manuscript. Bound in contemporary vellum over boards.
$60,000

Unpublished autograph manuscript by the French nobleman and traveler Louis de Chancel de Lagrange (1678-1747) documenting his extraordinary world travels between 1692 and 1704. Lagrange provides an eyewitness account of the groundbreaking 1698-1700 trading expedition to Canton made by the frigate L’Amphitrite, considered the “the first voyage of the French to China” (Lach), as well as first-hand information concerning Louis XIV’s military campaigns during the Nine Years’ War. 

First French Marco Polo

26. [Asia] / POLO, Marco . La Description Geographique des provinces & villes plus fameuses de l’Inde Orientale. Paris, J. Longis, 1556. 4to. Bound in red crushed morocco.
$95,000

Rare first French edition of the work considered “the first to give anything approaching a correct and detailed account of China and the Far East” ( PMM ), and perhaps the most influential travel book of all time.

The French visit England
Watercolors by Gaudissart de Cari
With a Long Letter Describing the Journey

27. [England] / [Watercolors] / GAUDISSART DE CARI / [GODISSART] . Souvenirs de l’Angleterre . [England and France], Gaudissart, 1826. Oblong 8vo. Bound in contemporary brown sheep. With 20 full-page watercolors and a 16-page letter describing the journey.
$12,500

Extraordinary volume of 20 charming watercolors recording the 1826 journey to England by members of the French Delahaye family. The work is by the renowned caricaturist Gaudissart de Cari (d. 1848), called the “French Hogarth” and “the greatest master of French caricature during the early 19 th century” (Deberdt). 

First Historian of the Xarifes
Dynastic Politics in 16th-Century Morocco

28. [Morocco] / TORRES, Diego de. Relation de l’origine et succez des Cherifs et de l’Estat des Royaumes de Maroc, Fez, et Tarudant, et autres provinces qu’ils usurperent. Paris, J. Camusat, 1636. 4to. Bound in contemporary speckled English calf.
$4850

Rare first French edition (original Spanish 1585) of Diego de Torres’ history of north Africa, a detailed account of the on-going conflict between the Xarifes (the Saadian dynasty), the king of Fez, and the Turks, augmented with his own first-hand observations.

Eyewitness Account of a Voyage
From Moscow to Beijing
Illustrated with 30 Plates and a Folding Map

29. [Russia] / [China] / IDES, Evert Ysbrants. / KAO, Dionysius. Three years travel from Moscow over-land to China: thro’ Great Ustiga, Siriania, Permia, Sibiria, Daour, Great Tartary & co. to Peking… London, Freeman et al., 1706. Large 4to. With engraved frontispiece, 1 large folding map and 30 plates (22 single-page, 8 double-page). Bound in contemporary paneled calf, rebacked.
$6850

First English-language edition of this illustrated eyewitness account of a voyage from Moscow to Beijing from 1692-95 by Evert Ides, the Dutch-born Ambassador of Czar Peter the Great to China. This seminal document of early Russo-Chinese relations includes, in addition to its 30 plates, a large folding engraved map of the entire Eurasian landmass from Moscow east to Japan and Korea, and from Siberia south to India and southeast Asia.

First Printed Manual of Venetian Trade

30. [Trade] / [Venice] / [Middle East] / PAXI, Bartholomeo di . Tariffa de pexi e mesure. Venice, A. da Lisona Vercellese, 26 July 1503. 4to. Bound in modern cloth-backed boards.
$9850

Rare first edition of the first printed Venetian ‘ tariffa ’, a comprehensive mercantile manual compiled to bring order to the bewildering diversity of prices, weights, measures and quality grades for the hundreds of commodities and currencies traded among Venice and her many business partners from London to the Levant. The Tariffa de pexi e mesure is a key work from a transitional moment in global trade and a seminal source for understanding the commercial state of the Venetian Maritime Empire at the turn of the 16th century, having been printed only a decade after the discovery of the New World and within years of the opening of the Atlantic spice-route to India.



Science & Technology (#31-46)


“The Beautiful and Mysterious
Uranographia of John Bevis” (Ashworth)
A Remarkable Survival
Of this ‘Unpublished’ Celestial Atlas

31. [Astronomy] / [BEVIS, John] . [ Uranographia Britannica ] / [ Atlas Celeste ]. [London], s.n., [c. 1748]. Oblong folio. With an engraved frontispiece and 51 engraved star charts. Bound in modern calf and marbled boards.
$50,000

Rare first and only printing of the English astronomer John Bevis’s (1695-1771) legendary Uranographia Britannica , a celestial atlas of both high astronomical ambition and artistic beauty which was never formally published, its engraved sheets having been sequestered by the courts for 35 years after the bankruptcy of Bevis’s business partner. “The Uranographia , if published as scheduled, would certainly have joined the elite ranks of the Grand Atlases” (Ashworth) of Beyer, Schiller, Hevelius, Flamsteed, and Bode. “No expense was spared in the interest of accuracy and artistic quality” (Kilburn).

The Cassini Lunar Map
Complete with the Lady of the Moon

32. [Astronomy] / CASSINI, Jean-Dominique . Réduction de la grande Carte de la Lune de J. Dom. Cassini . [Paris], [Cassini], [1788]. Engraving with color etching en manière de lavis .
$8500

Very rare first and only edition of this separately issued ‘ petite ’ lunar map published in 1788 by Jean-Dominique Cassini (1748-1845), updating with explanatory text for a more general audience the groundbreaking 1679 map of his famous great-grandfather, Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625-1712). This fine color etching en manière de lavis preserves the map’s famous image of the mysterious ‘Moon Maiden.’

With 56 Star Charts
Hevelius’s Star Atlas, Saved from the Fire !

33. [Astronomy] / HEVELIUS, Johannes. Prodromus Astronomiae . Danzig, J. Z. Stoll, 1690. Folio. [Bound after:] Johannis Hevelii Annus Climactericus . Danzig, D. F. Rhetii, 1685. [Bound with:] Catalogus stellarum fixarum… Danzig, J. Z. Stoll, 1687. [And with:] Firmamentum Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia… Danzig, J. Z. Stoll, 1690. With 56 charts and numerous fine astronomical engravings and woodcuts. Bound in 18th-century speckled pasteboards.
$165,000
 
Rare first editions of 4 titles by Hevelius: his star atlas, introduction ( Prodromus ), catalogue of stars, and the Annus Climactericus . These are fundamental texts in the history of astronomy which here form a spectacular illustrated ensemble. The Firmamentum Sobiescianum is considered the most detailed and influential celestial atlas of its time, both in the formation of subsequent atlases and in the production of celestial globes. The Annus Climactericus , the last treatise Hevelius published during his lifetime, is rarely found bound with the Firmamentum Sobiescianum : This compilation of observational data and scientific contributions between 1679 and 1685, includes a description of the conflagration at Hevelius’s observatory, which famously destroyed his instruments and many of his books and manuscripts.

“The Foundation of all Planetary Calculations
For over a Century” (Sparrow)

34. [Astronomy] / KEPLER, Johannes . Tabulae Rudolphinae… Ulm, J. Saur, 1627. Folio. With engraved frontispiece and numerous woodcut diagrams. Bound in contemporary colored vellum.
$60,000

First edition of this classic in the history of science, a nice, large, genuine example of the last of Kepler’s works to appear in his lifetime, and in the judgment of Prof. Owen Gingerich, “the chief vehicle for the recognition of his astronomical accomplishments” ( DSB ). It contains the first astronomical tables to be based on Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion and is the first of Kepler’s books to employ logarithms.  


Galileo to Go
Galileo’s Proportional Compass Comes of Age

35. [Astronomy] / [Galileo] / LUSVERGH, Domenico. Di Galileo Galilei Il compass geometrico adulto per opera di Giacomo Lusvergh. Rome, D. A. Ercole, 1698. 12mo. With 1 large folding engraving of the instrument and 6 additional engraved plates. Bound in contemporary stiff vellum.
$6500

Rare first edition of this pocket ‘user’s guide’ to Galileo’s proportional compass, written by Domenico Lusvergh (1669-1744), nephew and protégé of Giacomo Lusvergh, the “outstanding maker of mathematical instruments” (S. Drake) during the second half of the 17th century. This manual was intended to accompany Domenico’s improved model of Galileo’s proportional compass, which was already nearly a century old at the time of the book’s publication.

Prognostication in the Age of Galileo
With 4 Working Volvelles

36. [Astronomy] / [Galileo] / [Paper Instruments] / MANENTI DA ESTE, Francesco . Deliberationi astronomiche... Mantova, A. Osanna, 1643. 4to. With 4 full-page engraved plates, each complete with working volvelles. Bound in contemporary cartone .
$12,500
                                                                                                                                         
Very rare first and only edition – illustrated with 4 ‘paper instruments’ complete with their volvelles – of this understudied early 17th-century treatise on astrological prognostication, a work of some note for its recognition (and acceptance) of recent groundbreaking telescopic discoveries made by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and others.

Early French Manuscript
On the Construction and Use of Napier’s Bones

37. [Mathematics] / [Computing]/ [NAPIER, John] . Baguettes de Nepper, auteur des tables des logarithmes . [France], c. 1690. 4to manuscript. With a drawing of the device. In original stab-stitched paper wrappers.
$2850

Unpublished 17th-century French manuscript on the construction and use of ‘Napier’s bones’ (or ‘rods’), the innovative calculating device invented by the Scottish mathematician John Napier (1550-1617) and first introduced in his Latin Rabdologiae in 1617. The Rabdologiae soon appeared in several European vernaculars, but it was not translated into French during the 17th century, making the present French-language manuscript ‘manual’ an intriguing witness to how knowledge of the Napier’s bones was disseminated in France.

From Peking To Prague
The Chinese Astronomy of François Noël
With A Large Folding Star Chart
Of the Southern Hemisphere

38. [China] / [Astronomy] / NOËL, François . Observationes Mathematicae, et Physicae in India et in China... Prague, J. Joannes Kamenicky, 1710. 4to, With full-page engraved Chinese Calendar, numerous woodcut diagrams and tables with woodcut Chinese letters, a full-page engraved plate of astronomical observations, and a folding engraved star chart. Bound in contemporary calf.
$28,500

Rare first and sole edition of one of the few works published in Europe to record detailed, first-person observations made at Jesuit astronomical observatories in China in the 17th century, and one of the first works to convey information on Chinese observational data and astronomical traditions to a Western audience. The volume contains a large folding celestial chart of the southern skies incorporating observations Noël made at the Jesuit Colleges at Rachol in Goa, Macao, and Bahia in Brazil.

“A Classic of Optics”
Illustrated with 36 Engravings
Binding with the Arms of the Work’s Dedicatee

39. [Optics] / TRABER, Zacharia . Nervus opticus sive tractatus theoricus . Vienna, J. C. Cosmerovius, 1675. 4to. With an engraved frontispiece, 36 full-page or folding engraved plates. Bound in contemporary vellum over boards. 
$24,500

Rare first edition of a lavishly illustrated compendium on optics, here in a contemporary binding carrying the arms of the work’s dedicatee, the Archbishop of Esztergom. With information on the physiology of the eye, properties of light, and reflecting the work of such contemporaries as Kepler, Kircher, Descartes, and Scheiner. “Published in the same year that Isaac Newton was making his advances in the study of light, this encyclopaedic illustrated book is a classic of optics” (Hoolihan).

The First Star Atlas

40. [Astronomy] / PICCOLOMINI, Alessandro.  La sfera del Mondo …  Venice, G. Varisco & Compagni, 1566. 4to. [With:] De le stelle fisse libro uno . Venice, G. Varisco & Compagni, 1570. With numerous star charts in the text. Bound in contemporary flexible vellum.
$4850

Rare edition of the first printed star atlas and “the first handbook for stargazers” (Gingerich). The depiction of the night sky in Piccolomini’s (1508-1579) La sfera and De le stele fisse , first published in 1540, departed radically from the anthropomorphized woodcut figures of individual constellations that preceded it in illustrated editions of Hyginus, and thus permanently changed the form in which celestial knowledge was conveyed. Piccolimini’s work introduced the system of stellar nomenclature that, with the modifications subsequently made by Bayer, remains in use by astronomers today.

A Curiosity Cabinet Goes Spectacularly Electric
A Landmark in 18th-Century Scientific Printmaking

41. [Physics] / [Chemistry] / [Museology] / [Printmaking] / MARUM, Martinus van . Description d’une très grande machine électrique, placée dans le Museum de Teyler a Haarlem / Beschryving eener ongemeen groote electrizeer-machine, geplast in Teyler’s Museum te Haarlem (complete with later supplements). Haarlem, 1785-1798. 4to. Two volumes. Quarter bound in patterned paper over boards. With numerous full-page and folding engravings, some of which are hand colored.
$38,500

Rare first edition. Using bursts of electricity far more powerful than anything ever before achieved, Van Marum devised novel experiments to pursue chemical, magnetic and physiological researches, the most intriguing of which was the vaporizing of metal wires, a test of Antoine Lavoisier’s (1743-94) new theory of combustion (which at the time had not yet been published). These exploding-wire experiments generated spectacularly vibrant ‘abstract’ patterns on paper which Van Marum took great pains to have engraved and colored with the highest fidelity by the noted Amsterdam artist Jan Christiaan Sepp (1739-1811). The result of this collaboration between the scientist and artist was a work – published in only 300 copies and disseminated to scientific luminaries across Europe – which was unlike anything ever before achieved in printmaking.

The Discovery of Oxygen

42. [Chemistry] / SCHEELE, Carl Wilhelm . Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer... Upsala & Leipzig, M. Swederus, 1777. 8vo. With engraved title vignette and 1 folding engraved plate. [Bound with:] BERGMANN, Torbern . Anleitung zu Vorlesungen über die Beschaffenheit und den Nutzen der Chemie... Stockholm & Leipzig, Swederus, 1779. Bound in contemporary speckled quarter calf and original paper boards.
$38,000

A fine copy of the first edition of this extremely scarce and important book which contains the announcement of Scheele’s discovery of oxygen, made independently of, and two years prior to, Priestley’s. Scheele’s work is fittingly here bound with Bergman’s lectures on the nature and application of chemistry, a rare work that is not included in his collected works Opuscula Physica et Chemica .

A Remarkable English Celestial Atlas
Charting Halley’s Southern Hemisphere Stars
& Visualizing the New Coordinates of Flamsteed

43. [Astronomy] / SELLER, John / SENEX, John / HALLEY, Edmund / FLAMSTEED, John . Stelleri Zodiacus Stellatus [manuscript title on spine]. London, Senex et al., s. a. (c. 1675-c. 1721). Folio. 8 double-page engraved charts. Bound in contemporary marbled boards.
$45,000

An intriguing collection of 8 very rare early English astronomical charts by the London cartographers and instrument makers John Seller (c. 1630-1697) and John Senex (c. 1678-1740), offering the most up-to-date celestial information then available, with several of the charts based on the recent groundbreaking observations of the English astronomers Edmond Halley (1656-1742) and John Flamsteed (1646-1719) and containing the first celestial hemisphere made from telescopically derived locations of the southern stars (Kanas).

Introducing Vernier’s Famous Scale
A Device “Indispensable
To all Refined Measurement” (Kiely)
With a Folding Engraving of the Instrument

44. [Mathematics] / [Instruments] / VERNIER, Pierre . La construction, l’usage, et les proprietez du quadrant nouveau de mathématique . Brussels, F. Vivien, 1631. 8vo With 1 folding engraving [Bound with:] WURSTISEN, Christian.  Elementa arithmeticae, logicis legibus deducta… 8vo. Bound in 18th-century speckled calf.
$6500

Very rare first and only edition of the mathematician Pierre Vernier’s (1580-1637) landmark work introducing his invention of an ingenious new scale – here illustrated with a fold-out engraving – designed to greatly increase the accuracy of mensuration instruments. The scarcity of this treatise belies its broad impact on many categories of scientific instrumentation, including astronomical quadrants, calipers and micrometers, navigational sextants, and surveying theodolites, with several of these categories today still regularly relying on the ‘vernier scale.’

The First Copper-Engraved Anatomical Illustrations
Bound with
Among the Earliest ‘Modern’ Anatomical Illustrations
In Woodcut

45. [Medicine] / VESALIUS, Andreas & GRÉVIN, Jacques . Les Portraicts anatomiques de toutes les parties du corps humain … Paris, Wechel, 1569. Folio. With full-page 40 engraved plates. [Bound with:] ESTIENNE, Charles & RIVIÈRE, Estienne de la . La Dissection des parties du corps humain … Paris, S. de Colines, 1546. With 64 full-page woodcuts. Bound in early, possibly contemporary, reversed calf.
$75,000

A handsome volume of the two most important anatomical works of the French Renaissance, both in their first French editions. Together these two spectacularly illustrated works present the pinnacle of 16th-century anatomical illustration, the Estienne in woodcut (Estienne) and the Vesalius in copperplate engraving.

The Airplane

46. [Aviation] / WRIGHT, Wilbur (& Orville) . Experiments and observations in Soaring flight. By Mr. Wilbur Wright / Dayton Ohio/ Printed in advance of the Journal of the Western Society of Engineers / Vol. III No. 4 August 1903 . Bound in the original blue-grey printed wrappers.
$31,500

A fine copy of the first separate printing, the offprint issue, of this key work in aeronautical engineering “from the private library of Orville Wright” (hand-stamped on the verso of the front wrapper).



Art, Architecture, Humanities (#47-64)


Builder’s Manual
From 17th-Century Germany
With 40 Full-Page Etchings
Of the Architectural Orders
Written for the Practical Use
Of Stonemasons and Carpenters

47. [Architecture] / BÖCKLER, Georg Andreas .  Neues und zuvor nie also eingerichtetes vollkommenes Seulen-Buch . Frankfurt am Main, 1684. Folio. With 40 engraved plates. Bound antique-style  cartonato .
$4850

Rare first edition, third issue, of an extensively illustrated German-language comparative treatment of the classical Orders by the Nuremberg architect-engineer Georg Andreas Böckler (c. 1617-87), who here cites his indebtedness to the writings of Vitruvius, Archimedes, Palladio, Scamozzi, Vignola, Barbaro, Serlio and Hans Blum. The book was intended not only for amateur enthusiasts of architecture, but also for practical use by “builders, stonemasons, and carpenters.”

Architectural Theory & Practice
In 18th-Century Bergamo

48. [Architecture]/ CALEPIO, Nicolino de’ . Elementi d’Architettura civile ridotti in Compendio . Bergamo, F. Locatelli, 1784. 4to. With 9 engraved plates. Bound in near-contemporary stiff vellum.
$2650

Rare first and only edition of this illustrated treatise on civil architecture by the Bergamo architect Nicolino de’ Calepio, of interest for the regional interpretation of classicizing forms. Discussed are building materials, taking measurements, drafting architectural plans, the Orders, the construction of private homes and public projects such as roads, piazzas, churches, theaters, and hospitals.

The Unification of the Louvre
And Palais des Tuileries
A Neoclassical Project Proposal
For the Elusive ‘Grand Design’

49. [Architecture] / [Paris] / DUBOIS, P.-F.-L. Projet de réunion du Louvre au Palais des Thuileries . Paris, Delance et Belin, [1810]. Folio. With 8 full-page engravings. Original letterpress paper wrappers stitched with string.
$4850

A fine example of this rare architectural proposal – illustrated with 8 fine, full-page engravings – concerning the ambitious project to connect the royal residences of the Louvre and the Tuileries Palace to form a single complex, a longstanding aspiration of monarchs and architects for over 200 years which remained unfulfilled until the work of Louis Visconti (1791-1853) in the 1850s.

A Galilean Instrument in the Service
Of Palladian Architecture
With 52 Engravings

50. [Architecture] / [Instruments] / REVESI BRUTI, Ottavio . Archisesto per formar con facilità li cinque ordini d’architettura . Vicenza, Heredi di D. Amadio, 1627. Folio. With 1 engraved vignette on title page, 1 double-page engraving of the instrument (here mounted), 49 engravings in the text (48 of which are full page), and 1 full-page engraving. Bound in contemporary vellum.
$9850

Rare first and only edition of the Vicenza architect Revesi Bruti’s (c. 1585-1648) richly illustrated folio describing his new instrument for constructing scale drawings of the architectural orders without reliance on laborious calculations, a boon both for practical architects and learned theorists. The nobleman Revesi Bruti, “an undisputed protagonist of the very early phase of post-Palladian architecture in Vicenza” (Trevisan), was educated at the city’s famed Accademia Olimpica, where he absorbed the teachings of the local architectural heroes Palladio (1508-80) and Scamozzi (1548-1616).

“Most Comprehensive
Spanish 16th-Century Work
On Sculpture and Architecture” (Kruft)

51. [Art] / [Architecture] / ARFE Y VILLAFAÑE, Juan de . De Varia Commensuracion para la Esculptura, y Architectura . Sevilla, A. Pescioni and J. de Leon, 1585-1587. Folio. With more than 300 woodcuts in the text. Bound in contemporary limp vellum.
$88,500
                                                
First complete edition, with only one copy in U.S. libraries (Harvard). A highly important work notable for being “the first printed and illustrated treatise on artistic anatomy” (Skaarup) and the second published original architectural treatise composed in Spanish , following only Diego de Sagredo’s famed Medidas del Romano (1526). Remarkably (and rather mysteriously), some two dozen of Arfe’s anatomical woodcuts in this work are derived from the unpublished drawings of Leonardo da Vinci.

A Fine Arts Book from Olafur Eliasson

52. [Architecture] / ELIASSON, Olafur . Your House . New York, Library Council of the Museum of Modern Art, 2006. Oblong folio. Bound in original blue cloth. No. 95 of an edition of 225.
$18,500

Conceived by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967) as part of the Contemporary Editions series at the Museum of Modern Art, Your House is one of the more intriguing achievements in 21 st -century book arts. The subject of the piece is Eliasson’s house in Denmark, its negative spaces rendered in a cross section through an elaborate laser die-cut process applied to each leaf. Spectacular!

Illustrated with 18 Engravings

53. [Art] / [BERNINI, Gian Lorenzo] / GUIDICCIONI, Lelio . Breve racconto della trasportatione del corpo di Paolo V dalla Basilica di S. Pietro à quella di S. Maria Maggiore...  Rome, 1623. Folio. Bound in contemporary gold-tooled vellum.
$22,500

Rare first and only edition of this illustrated funeral book recording the ceremonies for Pope Paul V (1550-1621) held in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, with a fine suite of full-page engravings of ephemeral sculpture and architecture, including a series of 16 sculptures of Virtues by the great Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680).

Rare Jesuit Auto-Bibliography

54. [Bibliography] / GRETSER, Jakob. Catalogus Librorum quos Jacobus Gretserus Societatis Iesu evulgavit usque ad Octobrem Anni 1610 . Ingolstadt, A. Sartorius, 1610. Small 4to. Disbound, housed in a custom cloth folder.
$1650

Very rare first edition of one of the earliest “auto-bibliographies,” a list of his own writings made by the highly learned controversialist Jesuit Jakob Gretser, one of the most prolific of Jesuit authors.

The Dance of Death in Basel,
In Vibrant Contemporary Hand-Color
Extensive Suite of Engravings
From Merian’s Original Copperplates

55. [Illustration] / [Dance of Death] / MERIAN, Matthäus . Todten-Tantz. Frankfurt am Main, [c. 1700-25]. 8vo. Bound in contemporary vellum. With engraved title and 44 full-page engravings in contemporary hand-color.
$33,500

A very fine (and quite unusual) example – here in vibrant contemporary hand-color – of the printmaker Matthäus Merian the Elder’s (1593-1650) renowned series of engravings recording the famous ‘Dance of Death’ mural formerly in the courtyard of Basel’s Predigerkloster. Versos of the engravings in the present example were richly decorated with marbled paper by the volume’s original owner, a certain Richard Moore.

Albrecht Dürer: Richly Illustrated
Including his Landmark Work
On Fortification and Urban Planning

56. [Art] / DÜRER, Albrecht. Institutionum Geometricarum . Paris, C. Wechel, 1532. Small folio. Numerous woodcuts and extensions. [Bound with:] De Urbibus, Arcibus, castellisque ... Paris, C. Wechel, 1535. With 10 double-page/extended leaves. Bound in 18th-century calf over boards.
$33,500

First Latin edition of Albrecht Dürer’s first book on the theory of art, the Unterweisung der Messung , bound here with the De Urbibus , the first Latin edition of his treatise on fortification, a work considered to be “the first treatise dealing exclusively with this subject” (Krufft). Illustrated by Dürer himself, the Institutionum Geometricarum outlines the artist’s theory of “the work of art as a natural object,” which became an accepted aesthetic dogma until the 19th century.

The Seven Deadly Sins
(And How to Avoid Them)

57. [Emblems] / [Jesuits] / STENGEL, Georg . Exempla, in Septem Capitalium Vitiorum Detestationem… Ingolstadt, G. Henlin, 1649. 8vo. With engraved vignette on title and 7 engraved vignettes at each chapter heading. Bound in 18th century armorial calf, evidently a prize binding.
$1850

Rare first and only edition of this illustrated emblematic devotional guide concerning the Seven Deadly or ‘Capital’ sins: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth. Each sin features a finely engraved didactic image by Wolfgang Kilian on which the reader is to meditate.

Spectacular Contemporary Hand-Color

58. [English Literature] / [Illustration] / ARIOSTO, Ludovico / HARINGTON, John . Orlando Furioso in English Heroical Verse . London, R. Field, 1591. 4to. With a full-page engraved frontispiece and 46 full-page engravings. Bound in 17th-century calf.
$145,000

Rare first edition of Orlando Furioso translated by the Elizabethan courtier Sir John Harington (1560-1612) here with its 47 full-page engravings in exceptionally fine contemporary hand-coloring, with extensive silver and gold accents, and giving every appearance of being a presentation copy. The volume contains “the best known engraved illustrations in an English book before 1700” (Hodnett).

The First Work on Engraving in Spanish

59. [Engraving] / RUEDA, Manuel de.   Instruccion para gravar en cobre y perfeccionar se en el gravado à buril, al agua fuerte, y al humo … Madrid, J. Ibarra, 1761. 8vo. With 12 folding plates. Bound in contemporary vellum.
$4500

Rare, first edition of the first Spanish work on the history and art of engraving, a fundamental source for the procedures employed by Goya and his contemporaries. Rueda’s manual is based on the work Abraham Bosse (Paris, 1645), provides a detailed introduction to the techniques of copper engraving and etching, as well as a section on working with color. The 12 plates demonstrate the correct way to hold a burin and how to mount a finished work in a frame, as well as depicting various tools, engraved lines of different weights, and an elaborate instrument used to automatically enlarge images.

Who ‘Wore the Pants’ in 17th-Century France?
Pair of Hand-Colored Engravings
On the Theme of Marriage during the Ancien Régime

60. [Engraving] / GUÉRARD, Nicolas . Prezage malheureux . [With:] Tout d’amitié et rien de force . Paris, N. Guérard, [c. 1690-1700]. 2 folio engravings in contemporary hand-color.
$3850

Pair of rare 17th-century French satirical engravings – here in vibrant contemporary hand-color – which treat the theme known as the ‘ debat pour la culotte ,’ a discussion about who ‘wears the pants’ in a marriage and, by extension, how non-traditional gender roles and authority structures at home broadly affected (and reflected) the health of French society during the Ancien Régime.rent weights, and an elaborate instrument used to automatically enlarge images.

Perspective Compendium
From 16th-Century Nuremberg

61. [Architecture] / LENCKER, Hans . Perspectiva hierinnen auffs kürtzte beschrieben mit Exempeln eröffnet ... Nuremberg, D. Gerlass, 1571. Small folio. With woodcut title, 10 woodcuts in text, and with 1 double-page folding woodcut. Bound in reverse calf.
$14,500

Rare first edition of this illustrated perspective compendium in the Nuremberg tradition of Kunstbuchleinen , which included such artists and goldsmiths as Stoer, Hirschvogel and Jamnitzer. “These model books, issued by professionals for fellow painters, architects, goldsmiths, carpenters, etc., were in constant use and soon worn out [which is] why very few copies have survived” (Hagelin).

A 3-Sheet Ideal View of the Capitoline in Rome
From Lafreri’s Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae

62. [Rome] / SALAMANCA, Antonio / [LAFRERI, Antonio] . Vera antique capitolii descriptio . [Rome], H. van Schoel, c. 1550 (the plate) and c. 1610 (the print). 3 folio sheets.
$4850

Rare 3-sheet engraved view depicting the ancient Campidoglio in Rome, an understudied and somewhat mysterious piece first published by Antonio Salamanca (1479-1562) in the middle of the 16th-century and thereafter at times included as part of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae , Antonio Lafreri’s (c. 1512-77) famed composite atlas of graphic material related to antique and modern Rome.

“The First Regularly Published Scene Designs” (Hewitt)

63. [Architecture] / SERLIO, Sebastiano . Il primo libro d’Architettura ... Il Secondo Libro . Paris, J. Barbé, 1545. Folio. Woodcut title and many woodcuts in text. Bound in 18th-century vellum.
$24,500

A tall copy of the first edition, first issue, of the first two books of Serlio’s treatise devoted to geometry, perspective and theatrical scenery, considered “the first published account of modern theatrical practice” (Hewitt). Serlio offers architects “a pattern book in which the architect could find solutions for all sorts of problems” (Blunt).

Matilda of Canossa Illustrated
With 12 Plates

64. [Women] / POZZO, Giulio dal. / [ZAMBELLINI, Cesare, Engraver]. Maraviglie heroiche del sesso donnesco Memorabili nella duchessa Matilda marchesana Malaspina, contessa di Canossa… Verona, 1678. Large 4to. Bound in early quarter vellum and carta varese floral patterned boards.
$4850

Rare first edition of this illustrated biography and genealogy of Matilda of Canossa, the medieval “sublime heroine” of papal fidelity, and one of the rare medieval women remembered for her military accomplishments.

Boccaccio’s Famous Women
Signed & Dated by the Scribe
Copiously Annotated with Early Poems on Women

65. [Women] / [Manuscript] / BOCCACCIO, Giovanni / ALBANZANI, Donato degli (trans.) / PICCARDI, Francesco di Pagolo (scribe) / TUCCI, Angolo ( cartolaio ) . Delle famose donne [ De mulieribus claris ]. [Florence], F. di Pagolo Piccardi, 1 September 1456. 4to manuscript on paper. Bound in 17th-century vellum.
$185,000

Fine, 15th-century Florentine vernacular manuscript of Giovanni Boccaccio’s (1313-75) renowned treatise De mulieribus claris ( Famous Women ), “the first collection of biographies in Western literature devoted exclusively to women” and a work considered to be “the fountainhead of the European tradition of female biography” (V. Brown).

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