Forum Rare Books

Medical secrets plus a largely imaginary Medieval European view of India

[ACHILLINI, Alessandro]. Secreta secretorum Aristotelis.
Including:
ARISTOTLE [pseudo]. Maximi philosophi ... de signis aquarum: & tempestatum.
ARISTOTLE [pseudo]. Maximi philosophurum ... de mineralibus.
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS. De intellectu.
AVERROES. De beatitudine anime.
ACHILLINI, Alexander. De universalibus.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT [pseudo]. De mirabilibus Indie.
(Colophon: Lyon, Antoine Blanchard, 1528. Small 8vo. With a title-page with a 4-piece decorated woodcut border with flowers, birds and snails, woodcut printer's device on last page, 6 woodcut initials and a leaf ornament. Set in 3 sizes of rotunda gothic types, with the title in roman capitals. Contemporary blind-tooled sheepskin(?) parchment over wooden boards, in a panel design with quadruple fillets and 2 decorative rolls, brass catch-plates and anchor-plates (straps and clasps lost). LXXXIII ll. Full description

€ 11,500

Early Printing - 16th century India & Sri Lanka Law & Politics Medicine & Pharmacy (16th Century) Mineralogy & Gems

The book that opened America

ACOSTA, José de. Historie naturael ende morael van de Westersche Indien.
Enkhuizen, Jacob Lenaertsz. Meyn (colophon: Haarlem, printed by Gillis Rooman), 1598. 8vo. With a woodcut decoration on the title-page. Vellum (ca. 1700?). [7], 398, [8] ll. Full description

€ 7,500

Anthropology & Ethnography Early Printing - 16th century Earth Sciences Economic History & Trade Faunas & General Zoology Geology Latin America Mexico Middle America Mineralogy & Gems North America Peru South America Travel & Voyages North America Travel & Voyages South America

Venice school edition of Aesop with numerous fables by other authors, the 3rd edition of this collection

AESOP. Fabellae Graece et Latine, cum aliis opusculis, quorum index proxima refertur pagella.
Venice, (colophon: Giovanni Farri and brothers), 1542. Small 8vo (16 x 11 cm). With 1 woodcut decorated initial but further with spaces left for manuscript Greek and Latin initials (with printed guide letters). Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment, with fragments of a vellum manuscript used to reinforce the spine. 364, [4] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Early Printing - 16th century Fable Books Greek & Roman Classics

Well-produced gospel harmony illustrated by Urs Graf

AGRICOLA, Daniel [and Urs GRAF (illustrator)]. Passio domini nostri Jesu Christi s[ecundu]m serie[m] q[ua]ttuor eva[n]gelistaru[m].
(Colophon: Basel, Adam Petri de Langendorff, 31 July 1514). 4to. With large woodcut (12 x 9.5 cm) on title-page and 20 small woodcuts in text (ca. 4.5 x 3.5 cm), all by Urs Graf. Modern light-brown calf. 39, [1] ll. Full description

€ 5,000

Catholicism & Eastern Orthodox Church Early Printing - 16th century Religion (16th Century)

Annotated copy of a highly important work on Western occultism,
from the library of the infamous Haven O'More

AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM, Henricus Cornelius. De occulta philosophia libri tres.
[Cologne, Johann Soter], (colophon:) 1533. Folio. With a woodcut portrait of the author on the title page, 12 woodcut illustrations in the text, 28 letterpress tables, numerous symbols in the text, and numerous decorated woodcut initials. Contemporary elaborately blind-tooled brown calf. Kept in a custom-made clamshell box of burgundy cloth. [12], CCCLXII pp. Full description

€ 12,500

Alchemy Astrology & Occult Bindings Early Printing - 16th century Magic & Conjuring Philosophy & Esotericism

Satirical poetry by a Medici opponent who fled Florence for France

ALAMANNI, Luigi. Opere toscane.
Venice, heirs of Lucantonio Giunta (colophons: printed by Peter Schoeffer the younger), 1542. 2 volumes bound as 1. 8vo. With 2 title-pages, each with the same woodcut Giunta device, and a full-page woodcut showing a larger version of the same device on the last printed page of vol. 2. Set in an Aldine-style italic. 18th-century gold-tooled mottled calf. [16], 431, [1 blank]; 295, [7] pp. Full description

€ 1,750

Aldine Press Caricature & Satire Early Printing - 16th century Italian Literature Italy Literature

Rare early edition of a popular book of botanical, mineralogical and zoological wonders,
with a large woodcut of the author among his books

ALBERTUS MAGNUS (pseudo). Liber secretorum ... De virtutibus herbarum: & animalium quorundam. Eiusdemq[ue] liber De mirabilibus mundi: & etiam de quibusdam effectibus causatis a quibusdam animalibus &c.
(Colophon: Venice, Johan Baptist Sessa, 12 February 1502). Small 4to (21 x 15.5 cm). With a large woodcut portrait of the author at his desk. Gold-tooled maroon morocco (ca. 1870/90?) for James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk (1827-1905), gilt edges. 16 ll. Full description

€ 12,500

Alchemy Bindings Early Printing - 16th century Mineralogy & Gems

Extremely rare Antwerp edition (1502) of popular pseudo-Magnus treatises Liber aggregationis and De mirabilibus mundi

ALBERTUS MAGNUS (pseudo). De virtutibus herbarum. De virtutibus lapidum. De virutibus animalium et mirabilibus mundi. Item parvum regimen sanitatis valde utile. [Liber aggregationis and De mirabilibus mundi].
[colophon (f4r):] Antwerp, Govaert Bac, 1502. 4to. With a full-page woodcut on the title-page (a monk offering a book to a prince), repeated on the back of the title-page, and Govaert Bacs full-page woodcut printer's device of on the verso of the last leaf. With 3- and 4-line lombardic initials and smaller 2-line initials, supplied by hand in red. Rubricated throughout. 19th-century calf with double gold fillets along the edges of both boards. [36] ll. Full description

€ 35,000

Alchemy Astrology & Occult Early Printing - 16th century Herbals & Medical Botany Medicine & Pharmacy (16th Century) Mineralogy & Gems

Latin translation of a classic Arabic surgical manual that reformed European knowledge of the subject

ABULCASIS (Abu al-Quasim Khalaf Ibn Al-Abbas). Chirurgicorum omniu[m] primarii, lib. tres.
I. De cauterio cum igne & medicinis acutis per
singula corporis humani membra ...
II. De sectione & perforatione, phlebotomia, & ventosis ...
III. De restauratione & curatione dislocationis me[m]brorum ...
preceded by:
[THEODORUS PRISCIANUS] (mis-attributed to "Octavius HORATIANUS"). Rerum medicarum lib. quatuor ... Per Herma[n]num Comitem a Neüenar, nuper restitutus autor.
Strasbourg, Johannes Schott, 1532 (colophon: 26 February). 2 works in 1 edition. Folio in 6s (32.5 x 21 cm). With a 5-piece woodcut frame on the title-page (each side piece with 2 roundels containing a portrait and coat-of-arms), 8 full-page woodcuts by Hans Wechtlin (ca. 1480-post 1526) and numerous woodcuts in the text. Set in Venetian-style roman types, with 14 mm typographic Roman capitals (probably by Peter Schoeffer the younger) used as initials. Later half sheepskin, with the title in ink on the foot edge. [8], 319, [1 blank] pp. Full description

€ 65,000

Early Printing - 16th century Islamic Art, Culture & Science Medicine & Pharmacy (16th Century)

First Spanish edition of the first emblem book, expanding the earlier editions to the nearly definitive form,
with 200 woodcut emblems

ALCIATO, Andrea. Los emblemas ... traducidos en rhimas Españolas. ...
Lyon, Guillaume Rouille [printed by Macé Bonhomme], 1549. 8vo (18.5 x 12.5 cm). With an elaborate woodcut architectural frame; 210 emblems (200 with woodcuts); nearly every page in one of about 34 different richly decorated woodcut frames. Early 18th-century (Spanish?) sheepskin parchment. 256, [6] pp. Full description

€ 18,000

Early Printing - 16th century Emblem & Songbooks

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