Book History, Education, Learning & Printing

FALCONIA PROBA, Valeria, Francesco POLA, Bernardus BRUSCHUS (all after VIRGILIUS & OVIDIUS) and Carolus SCRIBANIUS. [Elegantes variorum Virgilio-Ovidio-centones de opificio mundi, Christo Deo, Deique Matre, SS. Francisco et Car. Borromaeo].
[Munich, Anna Berg (widow of Adam Berg the elder) for Raphael Sadeler, 1617]. Small 8vo (15 x 9.5 cm). Contemporary French gold- and blind-tooled black morocco, each board with a frame of blind fillets and a gold centrepiece comprising an HD monogram surrounded by 4 gothic S's (Hobson's S fermé), and the 6 spine compartments with alternately a gothic s and a small fleur-de-lis, the 2nd compartment with "[PR]OB[A]" above the fleur-de-lis:, blind fillets on the board edges. 82 of 98, [2] pp. Full description

FELICIANO, Francesco. Libro di arithmetica & geometria speculativa & praticale ... intitulato Scala Grimaldelli: novamente stampato
(Colophon: Venice, Francesco de Leno), 1563. 4to. With the title in a 5-piece woodcut border with an allusive woodcut illustration (ladder and key), and with numerous woodcut diagrams, geometric figures and other illustrations printed in the large fore-edge margin. Contemporary sheepskin parchment. [80] ll. Full description

FÉNELON, François. Les aventures de Télémaque.
Paris, [Pierre François Didot le jeune], 1785. 2 volumes. Super royal 4to. With 98 hand-coloured plates, namely two engraved title pages in volume 1, 72 illustration plates engraved by Jean-Baptiste Tilliard after drawings by Charles Monnet, and 24 engraved plates with summaries of the "books" in decorative frames. Further with an elaborate armorial device on the title page of each volume. Contemporary gold-tooled dark greenish-brown morocco, a red morocco title and volume label on the spine, lettered in gold, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. [3], [1 blank], [4], 309, [3 blank]; [3], [1 blank], 297, [1 blank], [2] pp. Full description

FEO CARDOZO DE CASTELLOBRANCO E TORRES, João Carlos. Memorias contendo a biographia do vice almirante Luiz da Motta Feo e Torres. A historia dos governadores e capitaens generaes de Angola, desde 1575 até 1825, e a descripção geographica e politica dos reinos de Angola e de Benguella.
Paris, Fantin, 1825. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With one large folding map at the start of the first volume, showing the coast of Angola, and a small vignette on the title page. Contemporary gold-tooled tree-marbled calf. [14], 375, [6] pp. Full description

FERRARI, Ottavio. Prolusiones vigintisex. Epistolae. Et formulae ad capienda doctoris insignia. Item variae inscriptiones. Editio altera auctior & emendatior.
Padua, heirs of Paolo Frambotti, 1668. 2 volumes bound as 1. 4to. With a general title-page and a volume 2 title-page, the former printed in red and black, each with the woodcut device of the printer-publisher Frambotti (Pallas Athena standing next to a tree with a scroll reading "Pacis opus"); some interesting woodcut head- and tailpieces. 19th-century gold-tooled green morocco, each board with the coat of arms of Gomez de la Cortina in a frame of double fillets. [12], 579; [8], 144 pp. Full description

[FIOCCO, Andrea Domenico] under the name of Lucius FENESTELLA. De magistratibus, sacerdotiisq[ue] Romanorum libellus, iam primum nitori restitutus. Pomponii Laeti itidem de magistratibus & sacerdotiis, & praeterea de diversis legibus Rom[anorum]. Item Valerii Probi grammatici de literis antiquis opusculum.
Including: POMPONIO LETO, Giulio. De Ro[manorum]. magistratibus, ...
Basel, (colophon: Valentino Curio, May 1523). With the general title in a woodcut border, Curio's large architectural woodcut device on the otherwise blank final page.
With:
(2) LUCIANUS OF SAMOSATA. Complures ... dialogi à Desiderio Erasmo Roterodamo ... in Latinum conversi, & à Nicolao Buscoducensi illustrati, additis Fabularum & difficilium vocabulorum explanationibus.
(Colophon: Antwerp, Michael Hillen van Hoochstraten, 1524).
(3) MOSELLANUS, Petrus (Peter SCHADE). Paedologia ..., in puerorum usum conscripta & aucta. Dialogi XXXVII. Dialogi pueriles Christophori Hegendorphini. XII. ...
Including: HEGENDORF, Christoph. Dialogi pueriles ... XII. ...
(Colophon: Antwerp, Michael Hillen van Hoochstraten, 1523).
3 editions in 1 volume. 8vo (16 x 10.5 cm). Contemporary panel-stamped calf, each board with the same 3 panel stamps: 2 virtually identical panels with 6 animals in 2 grape vines (the animals from head to foot in the left vine: a monkey, dog and wyvern; and in the right vine: a squirrel, hare and lion) in a border of a diaper of quatrefoils in lozenges, the two separated by a small panel stamp sith a peacock, paste-downs made from a leaf from an Aristotle manuscript on vellum. 91, [1]; 26, [2]; [40] ll. Full description

FLINES, Jacob de, and Jacob de FLINES the younger. Inventaris.
Amsterdam, Jan van der Linde, [1747]. Folio. Folded. [1 blank], [2], [1 blank] pp. Full description

FLORUS, Lucius Annaeus. [Epitome rerum Romanarum].
Leiden, Adriaen Wijngaerden (colophon: printed by Philippe de Croy), 1648. 8vo (18 x 12 x 3 cm). With an engraved allegorical title-page by Cornelius van Dalen. Contemporary or near-contemporary calf. The decoration on the binding is believed to have been executed in Bologna ca. 1880/1900 by a group of forgers: each board with the same scene, showing 2 women in Ottoman costume, one kneeling to play a qanun (Turkish zither) at left and the other perhaps dancing at right, framed by drapery as though on a stage, with a crescent moon and 5-pointed star in each corner and the name "IBRAHIM" at upper left, the whole in a frame of double fillets. The figures' skin is painted white and the clothes and drapery red and green. The crescent moon and star repeat in spine compartments 1 and 3-5. [32], “595” [= 535], [69], [4 blank] pp. including the integral engraved title-page. Full description

[FOLENGO, Teofilo]. Opus Merlini Cocaii poetae mantuani macaronicorum.
Amsterdam [or possibly printed in Naples?], Abraham van Someren, 1692. 8vo. With a full-page engraved portrait of the author as a frontispiece, 26 engraved illustrations in the text (ca. 6 x 5 cm), a woodcut floral vignette on the title page, woodcut decorated initials, and woodcut floral and ornamental tailpieces. Early 19th-century elaborately gold-tooled black morocco, with a floral frame on both boards, detailed floral designs in the compartments on the spine and the title, year of publication, and name of the binder lettered in gold on the spine, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. [30], 419, [4], [1 blank] pp. Full description

FORSTER, Johann Reinhold. [Letter to an unnamed fellow freemason in Braunschweig, probably Ferdinand, Herzog von Braunschweig-Lünenburg or someone in his inner circle].
Halle (Saale), 9 August 1781. 4to. Autograph letter in German, signed, written in brown ink on laid paper in a clear German hand, with foreign words and names in a Latin hand. [4] pp. Full description