Early Printing & Manuscripts / Art History & Literature

QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS. Derelictorum ab Homero libri quatuordecim, Iodoco Valar[a]eo interprete. Coluti Thebani Raptus Helenae eodem interprete.
Antwerp, Joannes Steelsius, 1539. Small 8vo. With 16 decorated woodcut initials. Modern blind-tooled calf by the Period Bookbinders in Bath. [4], "CCVII" [= 208] ll. Full description

ROGEL, Hans the elder. Capital und Versal Buech, allerhanndt grosser und kleiner Alphabeth, zue den Hauptschrifften und Büechern, dessgleichen in Canntzleyen unnd gemein, zuegebrauchen ganntz zierlich geordiniert.
Augsburg, Johann Jacob Schönig, [1680/94, printed from the woodblocks of 1568]. Oblong folio (21 x 34 cm). With a richly calligraphic woodcut title-page (18 x 28 cm), with text in white fraktur lettering on black, with a white panel at the foot with the letterpress imprint in a fraktur type; and 9 (of 10) full-page woodcuts (about 17 x 25.5 cm) showing alphabets in white on black, one dated 1568: 8 with decorated gothic capitals (versals: 22-150 mm) and 1 with textura capitals, textura lowercase and roman capitals, all versos blank. With a small and perhaps fragmentary manuscript on parchment (2 ll., 11.5 x 13.5 cm, written on both sides): a Protestant copybook written (soon?) after 1557, probably in Basle or vicinity, with 7 writing samples, including alphabets of capitals and minuscules, the first two pages in fraktur gothic styles, and the last two in humanistic styles. Vellum (ca. 1985?), in a cloth slipcase. [10 (of 11)] ll. Full description

RUTILIUS LUPUS, Publius and 15 others (François PITHOU, ed.). [Antiqui rhetores Latini.] ... Omnia ex codd. manusc. emendatiora vel auctiora.
Paris, Adrien Périer (ex officina Plantiniana), 1599. Large 4to. Set in roman types with incidental italic, Greek and Hebrew. Contemporary gold-tooled calf with 18th-century restorations, with the arms of Aire-sur-la-Lys (an eagle) flanked by "S.P.Q. ... Arien[sis]". Rebacked with the original backstrip laid down. [4], 382, [15], [1 blank] pp. Full description

SADOLETO, Jacopo. De liberis recte instituendis, liber.
(Colophon:) Venice, Giovanni Antonio Nicolini da Sabbio & fratres for Melchiorre Sessa, July 1533. Small 8vo (15 x 10 cm). With Sessa's woodcut device of a cat with a mouse on the title-page. Modern overlapping vellum. 52, [1 blank] ll. Full description

SECUNDUS, Janus. Opera. Nunc primum in lucem edita. quorum cataalogum proxima facies enumerabit.
Utrecht, Herman van Borculo, 1541. 8vo. With Borculo's woodcut device on the title page and full-page woodcut device with the motto "Felici genio vivax liber arte per orbem,/Chalcographa missus, non minus volat." on the verso of the last leaf. 18th-century limp vellum. [328] pp. Full description

SECUNDUS, Janus (Joannes or Jan EVERAERTS). Opera. Nunc primum in lucem edita.
Utrecht, Herman van Borculo, 1541. With Van Borculos winged stag and book device on the title-page and another on the verso of the otherwise blank last leaf. Small 8vo (16 x 10.5 cm). Contemporary vellum wrapper. [324], [3 blank], [1] pp. Full description

[SINDBAD - SEVEN SAGES]. Historia septem sapientum Rome.
Cologne, Johann Koelhoff the Elder, of Lübeck, (before 6 November) 1490. 4to (200 x 128 mm), 34-37 lines, gothic type, rubricated in red. Illustrated with a large armorial woodcut printers device at the end and 23 full-page woodcuts, with two of the woodcuts repeated several times. Bound in contemporary blind-tooled full calf over wooden boards. Remains of clasps. Endpapers from a rubricated incunabular edition of the Biblia cum glossa ordinaria. [50] ff. [a–g6, H8]. Full description

SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, Gaius [and Guillaume Michel de TOURS (translator)]. Des faictz et gestes des douze Caesars, nouvellement imprime.
Paris, Arnoul l'Angelier, 1540. 8vo. With a half-page woodcut illustration by Denis Janot on the title page, and 11 half-page woodcuts from the same series in the text, a smaller woodcut illustration at the start of the work, numerous woodcut decorated initials throughout, and a woodcut printer's device on the final page. Mid- to late-19th-century red morocco (not before 1861), signed by Chambolle-Duru. [8], 276 ll. Full description

TASSO, Torquato. Il Re Torrismondo tragedia.
Venice, Fabio & Agostino Zoppini, 1588. 12mo or long 24mo in 12s (13.5×7 cm). With the Zoppinis' woodcut device on the title-page, a woodcut headpiece, several woodcut tailpieces, several woodcut decorated initials (3 series), and cast fleurons. Gold- and blind-tooled overlapping sheepskin (ca. 1900?). 58, [1], [1 blank] ll. Full description

THEOCRITUS, HESIOD, and others. [Indication of contents in Greek followed by Latin:] Haec insunt in hoc libro. Theocriti Eclogae triginta. Genus Theocriti & De inventione bucolicorum. Catonis Romani sententiae paraeneticae Distichi. Sententiae septem sapientum. De invidia. Theognidis megarensis siculi sententiae Elegiacae. Sententiae monostichi per capita ex variis poetis. Aurea carmina Pythagorae. Phocylidae Poema admonitorium. Carmina Sibyllae erythraeae De Christo Jesu domino n[ost]ro. Differentia vocis. Hesiodi Theogonia. Eiusdem Scutum Herculis. Eiusdem Georgicon libri duo.
Venice, Aldus Manutius, February "1495" [=1496]. Folio. With 8 fine woodcut headpieces (2 by the famous Poliphilus master) plus 29 repeats, and 23 woodcut outline interlaced initials (3 series: 3-line, 5-line and 7-line) plus 16 repeats. Modern red morocco, gold- and blind-blocked. [140] ll. Full description