Book History, Education, Learning & Printing

[BIBLE - PSALMBOOK]. PSALTERION. Prophetou kai Basileoos tou David [in Greek type] - Davidis Regis ac Prophetae Psalmorum Liber. Ad exemplar Complutense.
Antwerp, Christophe Plantin, 1584. 16mo (11,8 x 8 cm). With woodcut printer's device on the title page, the text is partially printed in Greek. Late 17th-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, (faded) red speckled edges. 267, [13] pp. Full description

BIE, Cornelis de. Het gulden cabinet vande edele vry schilder-const ontsloten door den lanck ghewenschten vrede tusschen de twee magtighe croonen van Spaignien en Vrancryck, waer-inne begrepen is den onsterffelijcken loff vande vermaerste constminnende geesten ende schilders van dese eeuw, hier inne meest naer hrt leven af-gebeldt, verciert met veel vermakelijcke rijmen ende spreuken.
Antwerpen, Jan Meyssens, 1662 (colophon: Juliaen van Montfort, 1661). 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With an engraved frontispiece by Cornelis Meyssens after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, a full-page portrait of the dedicatee Antoine van Leyen by Richard Collin (1661), a full-page portrait of the author by Jan Meyssens after Erasmus Quellinus, and 97 full-page engraved and etched portraits of painters, engravers, architects and sculptors, engraved by Jan Meyssens, Wenceslaus Hollar, and numerous others, after drawings by Anthony van Dyck, Paulus Pontanus, Jan Lievens, etc. 18th-century gold-tooled half sheep. [2], "584" [= 586], [3] pp. Full description

BIENATO, Aurelio. In elegantiarum sex libros Laurentii Vallae disertissimi epithomata nuper recognita.
Venice, Giovanni Antonio Nicolini da Sabbio, for Melchiorre Sessa, 1539. Small 8vo. With Sessas charming woodcut device showing a cat with a mouse in its mouth, with motto "Dissimilium infida societas" below, repeated on the last page. Later half vellum, gold-tooled spine, boards covered with decorated paper. 63, [1] ll. Full description

[BINDING - EMBROIDERED]. Esercizio da premettersi dalle donne in stato di gravidanza per conseguire da dio per l'intercessione del glorioso San Torello protettore insigne l'essenzione da tutti i pericoli e felicità nel prossimo parto.
Florence, Stamperià Arcivescovile alla Croce Rossa, 1822. 8vo. Beautifully embroidered contemporary pink silk over paperboards, with flowers and a border along the edges of both sides, and the initials "CM" in centre of front cover, preserved in a modern marbled slipcase. 39 pp. Full description

[BINDING - GHELARDI SCOLOPI, Orazio Antonio]. La pace tra la virtu', la gloria, ed amore. Componimento drammatico da cantarsi in occasione delle faustissime nozze del nobil uomo signor Silvestro Michele Arnolfini con la nobil donzella signora Beatrice Luisa Bernardini dedicato alla medesima.
Lucca, Giuseppe Rocchi, 1767. Small 4to (17 x 14 cm). Contemporary red velvet, embroidered with silver and gold thread and white and yellow silk (each board with an emblematic image: a crowned mirror[?] showing a hand planting a flag, perhaps intended as the groom's hand on the front and the bride's hand on the back), sewn without supports through 3 holes, brocade paper endpapers (grape vines and large flowers, white on a copper background), green silk ribbon marker. 24 pp. Full description

[BINDING - SILVER]. [Pair of embossed silver book covers, with two engraved silver clasps].
[Netherlands?, ca. 1725?]. Pair of embossed silver book covers (34 x 25 x 3 cm); each cover with a large scrollwork cartouche surrounded by extensive vine and flower decorations and with medallion portraits in each of the four corners, the front showing the crucifixion flanked by Mary and St. John (with an "INRI" scroll above, flanked by a crescent moon and a sun, and a skull and crossbones below), with portraits of four saints, each with a blank scroll (above left bearded with a regal crown; above right clean-shaven with a round-topped mitre; below left and right bare-headed and bearded), the back showing the resurrection with an angel and two astonished guards, with portraits of the four Evangelists. Full description

[BINDING VOC - MANUSCRIPT - FRENCH - VERNET, Jacob]. [Instruction chrétienne, ou catechisme familier; avec quelques prières a lusage des petits enfans].
[The Netherlands?, ca. 1780?]. 4to (ca. 19 x 15 cm). Manuscript in French, written in black ink on paper, in a neat cursive script by one hand. With chapter divisions (numbered 39-75) and headings. The text is written upside down in relation to the binding. Most leaves show an identical watermark, depicting a lion rampant on a pedestal with "Vryheyt" in a crowned ring with "Pro Patria Eiusque Libertate" and the letters "CR" below, which is very close to Heawood 3149 (date: 1753). Late 18th-century gold-tooled brown mottled calf, sewn on 5 supports, bound by the so-called Acorn-and-Foliage Tool Bindery in Amsterdam (Storm van Leeuwen). Both boards show the large gold-tooled monogram of the Amsterdam chamber of the VOC as a centre piece sandwiched between the gold-tooled date "Anno 1780", all within a gold-tooled floral frame with floral corner pieces in the inside corners, spine gold-tooled in six compartments, red sprinkled edges. [28] ll. Full description

[BINDO GUERRI of Siena] with a prologue by Antonius de RAMPIGOLLIS. Reportatorium Biblie aureum [= Biblia aurea].
[Augsburg], [printing office of the Abbey of Saints Ulrich and Afra], [in the period 1473 to early 1475]. Chancery (Foolscap) folio (28 x 22 cm). With the title in a note following the prologue, at the foot of the first page (and abbreviated at the end of the book), a 2-page alphabetical table of contents and the main text comprising 139 entries.
Burgundy goatskin morocco (ca. 1890?). With the armorial bookplate of Robert Proctor. [231], [1 blank] pp. Full description

[BINGHAM, Minerva Clarissa (née Brewster)]. [Kingsmill primer].
[Ponape Island (Micronesia), Mission Press, 1858]. 4to (24 x 20 cm). Set in roman type with rules dividing the page into 5 compartments. [1] leaf. Full description

BLANCARDUS, Stephanus. Lexicon novum medicum Graeco-Latinum, caeteris editioibus longè perfectissimum.Inhoc enim totius artis medicae termini, in anatomia, chirurgia, pharmacia, chumia, re botanica, &c. ...
Leiden, Cornelis Boutesteyn & Jordaan Luchtmans, 1701. 8vo. With the engraved portrait of the author, 4 engraved full-page tables of medical symbols, title-page printed in red and black, some woodcut initials and tail-pieces. Vellum over boards, title written in ink on spine, sprinkled edges. [16], 662, [194] pp. Full description