Europe / France, Greece & Italy

[LOUIS NAPOLEON]. Cylindrical black lacquered wooden box.
Diameter 90 mm; height 21 mm. With a lacquered engraved portrait of Louis Napoleon mounted on the centre of the lid, below his coat-of-arms (an eagle facing to the viewers right with the motto "Vox populi vox Dei" and the caption "Lélu du peuple") and above the total number of votes (7,481,231) cast for him on 21 December 1851; the portrait is surrounded by the names of all the French Departments (Ain, Aisne ... Yonne), the colonies and the army, each with the exact number of votes for and against him. With a red ribbon to open the box. Full description

LUCAS, Paul. Voyage du sieur Paul Lucas fait par ordre du Roi dans la Grèce, L'Asie Mineure, La Macedoine et L'Afrique. Contenant la description de la Natolie, de la Caramanie, & de la Macedoine.
Amsterdam, aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1714. 2 parts in 1 volume. 12mo. With an engraved frontispiece and a title-page printed in red and black for each part, 9 folding engraved plates with pyramids, archeological findings, the Holy Grave, and inscriptions, 2 folding engraved maps of the Levant (engraved by B. Ruyter), and of Fioum, the Nile and surroundings in Egypt, and 8 full-page engraved plates. Contemporary half calf. [1], [1 blank], [28], 323, [1 blank]; [1], [1 blank], [8], 328 pp. Full description

[AUTOGRAPH]. LUIGIOS, Maria [= MARIA KAROLINE LUISE CHRISTINE OF AUSTRIA?]. [Signed letter to Ferdinand II, king of Two Sicilies].
Innsbruck, 13th August 1838. 25 x 20 cm. Signed manuscript letter in brown ink on paper in Italian, with signature 'Maria Luigios'. [1], [3 blank] pp. Full description

MANUEL, Henri. [Collection of 33 Paris fashion photographs from the 1910s].
Paris, Henri Manuel, [ca. 1910/20]. 33 albumen prints , 3 oval (ca. 19 x 15 cm) and 30 rectangular (ca. 27 x 16 cm), including 5 duplicates (with tint variations). The faces on two of the photographs are lightly tinted. Each photograph is mounted on a sheet of paper and signed in pencil "Henri Manuel Paris". Three photographs are also signed in the plate. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALENDAR]. [Calendar for calculating the date of Easter].
[Auxerre, France?], [ca. 1400?]. Small 4to. Latin manuscript in red, brown and black ink on paper, written in an upright French gothic semi-cursive hand with short texts in a textura hand, with 6 round diagrams for calendrical calculations containing text and 2 more with no text filled in. Leaves A4-A6 (6 pages) written in two columns contain 12 tables for the 12 months (January to December) providing data for each day of the month, and the manuscript includes further data for calendrical calculations in several more rectangular tables. The final blank leaf has holes pricked to form a circle, but no diagram has been drawn using them. Sewn through 3 holes in a (ca. 1550?) paper wrapper, the whole in paperboards lined with printed waste paper from a (17th-century?) Latin Breviary. [18], [2 blank] pp. (pp. 2 & 5 also blank). Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALLIGRAPHY - FRENCH]. [Writing masters copy-book].
[Liège?], 1634-1643?. Oblong 4to (17.5 x 21.5 cm). A manuscript writing masters copy-book in French, written on the rectos only, mostly in black ink on paper, each of the first 9 leaves beginning with a very large (9-13 cm) decorated initial drawn in pen and ink, displaying knotwork (sometimes making heart forms) and extensive stylized pictorial elements - both reminiscent of mediaeval Keltic examples - and coloured by a contemporary hand: A-I/J in alphabetical order, and the same letter of the alphabet written below the initial in several styles of gothic capitals and usually also minuscules (A-E in black, F-I/J in red). The two remaining leaves, also in an upright gothic cursive, show an 8-line model text (a letter to a friend, Antoine van Rosendal, dated from Liège, 5 June 1643) with a 2-line minuscule alphabet (beginning with a capital A) below and several other As separately; and a complete capital and minuscule (24-letter) alphabet, including W (6 lines); both with penwork flourishes, including (in the former) a round spiral incorporating 6 faces in profile. Sewn through 3 holes in a contemporary sheepskin parchment wrapper. Kept in a 20th-century French curl-marbled paperboard folder, in a matching marbled slipcase. [11], [10 blank] ll., the 10 blanks including 3 small fragments. Full description

MAPPUS, Marcus and Johan Christian EHRMANN (editor). Historia plantarum alsaticarum.
Strasbourg and Amsterdam, Johann Daniel Dulsecker and Pieter Mortier, 1742. 4to. With 7 folding copper-engraved plates of plants, an engraved printer's device on the title-page, an engraved coat-of-arms of François-Joseph de Klinglin, baron de Hattstatt etc. as a headpiece above the dedication, 3 woodcut initials, a headpiece made up of typographical ornaments at the start of the main text and the index, a woodcut tailpiece at the end of the main text, and the title-page is printed in red and black. Contemporary gold-tooled, mottled, polished calf. [8], 335, [32] pp. Full description

[MAP - PYRENEES]. SANSON, Nicolas. Les Monts Pyrenées, ou sont remarqués les Passages de France en Espagne.
Paris, Hubert Jaillot, 1719. Engraved map on 2 assembled sheets (54.5 x 88 cm). With title in decorated cartouche (signed F.C.) in upper right corner and scalebars in decorated cartouche in the lower left corner. Coloured in outline. Full description

MARCHESE, Duca Annibale. Tragedie Cristiane.
Naples, Felice Mosca, 1729. 2 volumes in 1. Large 8vo. With two title-pages in red and black, an engraved frontispiece by Jeremias Jakob Sedelmayr after Francesco Solimena, an engraved author's portrait by Antonio Baldi and 11 engraved plates by Sedelmayr and Baldi after Solimena, accompanying the 10 tragedies and the dedication. Also with some engraved initials, woodcut tailpieces and 40 pages of engraved polyphonic music for the choruses. Contemporary gold-tooled brown goatskin morocco, gilt and gauffered edges with an intricate fore-edge painting, incorporating both a closed and fanned design for the fore-edge. The head and foot edges are painted with floral and botanical designs. [4], [16], 502; [4], 504, [2]; pp. plus 40 pp. of engraved music. Full description

MARTINET, Jean. Emblesmes royales a Louis le Grand.
Paris, Claude Barbin, 1673. 8vo. With 60 numbered half-page engraved emblems and one unnumbered emblem on extra inserted leaf. Modern marbled boards. [10 (of 12)], 219, [3] pp. Full description