Highlights

ARANEA, Vincenzo. In praecepta decalogi secundae tabulae dicta tractatus.
Including: [ARANEA, Vincenzo]. Disputationes de sacramentis novae legis.
[L'Aquila, ca. 1640]. 2 volumes. 4to. Written in a neat Italian cursive hand, some parts in other hands. Uniformly bound in contemporary vellum. [8], 270, [4] ll.; [4], 655, [10] pp. Full description

[ASSAROTTI, Ottavio Giovanno Battista]. Dottrina Christiana. [Manuscript in Italian].
[Genoa, ca. 1815/20]. 8vo. With 117 (of 118) full-page hand-coloured drawings, each in a frame of double rules (20.5 x 14 cm), with lively illustrations of the Christian doctrine, and text in Italian. Contemporary half calf, gold-tooled spine. 117 (of 118), [3 blank] ll., including the last 3 blanks. Full description

AUGUSTINE of Hippo (Saint AUGUSTINE). Explanatio Psalmorum. [Incipit:] Annotatio principaliu[m] sententiariu[m]/ principaliu[m] sente[n]tiariu[m] in expla-natione psamo[rum]...
(Colophon:) Basel, Johann Amerbach, 1489. 3 parts in 1 volume. Folio (ca. 31 x 21.5 cm).
Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards, with 1 brass clasp and remnants of a 2nd. [1 blank], [14], [1 blank]; [146]; [192]; [192], [5 blank] ll. Full description

BONAVENTURA (pseudo) [= Conradus de SAXONIA]. Speculum beate Marie virginis: compilatum ab humili fratre Bonauentura.
Augsburg, Anton Sorg, 1476. Folio (26.5 x 21.2 cm). Set in a Gothic letter in 40 lines to the page, printed in 1 column. Rubricated throughout. With a large Maiblumen woodcut-initial and 16 smaller initials (of which 11 hand-coloured in red). Modern vellum, with a manuscript title on the spine. [48] ll. Full description

BRETON, Raymond. Petit catechisme ou sommaire des trois premieres parties de la doctrine chrestienne. Traduit du françois, en la langue des Caraibes Insulaires.
Auxerre, Gilles Bouquet, 1664. 8vo. With a small woodcut on the title page showing the Virgin and a woodcut of the Crucifixion on p. 16. Modern half maroon morocco, gold-tooled spine. 70 pp. Full description

[CIVIL AND CANON LAW]. [Methodus utriusque juris].
[Cologne], (colophon:) Johann Koelhoff the Elder, 24 December 1481. Folio. With an anonymous engraved portrait in a sprinkled frame on the verso of the second flyleaf, the whole rubricated in red. 18th-century gold-tooled beige calf. 34 ll. Full description

[DOM SEBASTIÃO, King of Portugal and Giovanni STROZZI (attributed)]. Oratio habita serenissimi Portugaliae Algarbiorumque Regis Sebastiani Nomine, in Concilio Tridentino. Die IX. februarij. M.D.LXII. Unva cum responsione Sanctae Synodi.
Ripae [= Riva del Garda], Italy, Pietro Antonio Alciatis, 1562. 4to (18.2 x 13.4 cm). With the woodcut coat-of-arms of the Medici popes and a woodcut head-piece on the title-page, 2 large woodcut decorated initials in the text, a woodcut head-piece at the start of the text and two ornaments at the start and end of the text. Mid 19th-century marbled paper wrappers. [1], [1 blank], [6] pp. Full description

[HEROLT, Johannes], edited by Guillermus PARISIENSIS. Postilla super Epistolas et Evangelia.
[Cologne, Ulrich Zell, 1483/87]. Small folio. Printed in 2 columns, each with 49 lines to the page. Set in a late example of a hybrid form type, with lombardic initials in red gouache. Rubricated on c4v-d2r. Mid- or late-18th-century gold-tooled French(?) red goatskin morocco, the spine with a dark green gold-tooled morocco label in the 2nd of 6 compartments, gold fillets on the board edges, gold-tooled turn-ins, gilt edges, French marbled endpapers. With the first page (the only preliminary page) in facsimile, but further complete. [130] ll. Full description

HULSIUS, Bartholomaeus. Den onderganck des Roomschen Arents, door den Noordschen Leeuw ...
Amsterdam, Crispijn vande Passe, 1642. 4to. Engraved allegorical title page with engraved title in a central panel below Fame sitting on a swan. Beautifully bound in 19th-century light brown gold-tooled calf (1850s or 1860s?), each board with triple along the edges, decorated spine with red and green labels lettered in gold, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, signed "PETIT SUCCr DE SIMIER": Charles Petit operated a Paris bindery from 1848 to 1873 as successor to René Simier (1772-1843), relieur du roi from 1815, and his son. [12], 91, [1 blank] pp. plus engraved title page. Full description

[ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT - ALTAR CANON]. Accipiendo in manibus hostiam dicat[!].... Initium Sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem. ... Cibavit illum dominus pane vitæ et intellectus.
[Belgium?], [ca. 1790?]. Three illuminated manuscript wall panels in matching style, forming a three-part altar canon lettered in blue and red ink on parchment (one 47.5 x 57 cm & two 31 x 22 cm; image sizes 46 x 54.5 cm & 29.5 x 21 cm), the larger stretched over a wooden frame and each of the smaller two over a wooden panel. All three panels meticulously and finely lettered in the style of roman printing types with 1 line in italic capitals, all 12 initials and some of their decoration in gold. All three panels richly illuminated around and between the text blocks with a gold background and extensive gold highlights, the illumination including decorated cartouches. The principal scenes at the head (miniatures in a wide variety of colours) show the Last Supper, Saint John the Evangelist and Christ washing his apostles' feet; the central scenes at the foot (ink and ink wash drawings, probably emblematic, that on the large panel in grey and those on the small panels in red) show a lamb and cross on an altar, 4 standing figures with long staffs around a table with a platter (of bread?: some of the figures are eating something) and herald angels before a kneeling figure (it doesn't look like a shepherd or the Virgin Mary). Full description

[INCUNABLE - COLOGNE EDITION OF THE ARS MORIENDI]. Speculu[m] artis bene morie[n]di [= Ars moriendi].
[Cologne, Heinrich Quentell, ca. 1493/97]. Small (Chancery) 4to (20.5 x 14.5 cm). With a large woodcut on the title page. Set in a single column, with 36 lines to the page, in a rotunda gothic type, with a larger textura gothic for the first line of the title. With spaces left for manuscript initials with manuscript guide letters in black ink. Most pages with a few words underscored in black ink. Recent marbled paper over boards by the Geneva bookbinder Jean-Luc Honegger (signed with his "honegger" stamp in blue ink at the foot of the back paste-down), the marbled paper in an antique spot pattern, black morocco spine label with the title in gold roman capitals, reading up the spine. [31], [1 blank] pp. Full description

JEROME (HIERONYMUS), Saint. Explanationum in Esaiam prophetam libri IX-XVI
[Southwestern Germany, 825-850 CE]. Folio (34.2 x 26.3 cm). Latin manuscript on vellum, written in an admirably elegant, clear Caroline minuscule in brown, black, and red ink, with large initials. Leaf dimensions 32.7 x 25.1 cm., written in 2 columes (9.4 x 25.5 cm.) of 30 lines each, ruled in drypoint. 15th-century half-calf and wooden boards, manuscript-waste pastedowns, with text written in a Caroline minuscule. Stored in a custom-made half morocco case. [101 (of 139)] ll. Full description

LA SERRE, Jean-Puget de. Le breviere des courtisans, enrichy d'un grand nombre de figures.
Paris, Jeremie Boüillerot, 1642. 8vo. With woodcut vignette on title page and 7 engraved plates depicting contrasting double-scenes, after designs by Nicolaas van der Horst. Gold-tooled red morocco attributed to Henry Gaillard (active in the third quarter of the 19th century), richly gold-tooled turn-ins, gilt edges. [6], 304 pp. Full description

MAJORICA, Girolamo, Nicolas TRIGAULT and Alvaro SEMEDO. Lettere annue del Giappone dell'anno MDCXXII e della Cina del 1621 & 1622 al molto Reu. in Christo P. Mutio Vitelleschi preposito generale della Compagnia di Giesu.
Roma, Francesco Corbelletti, [1627?]. 8vo. With a woodcut "IHS" Jesuit device on title-page, woodcut headpiece, tailpiece and decorated initials. 18th-century flexible boards. 312 pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - SERVICE BOOK - DIVINE OFFICES]. Ordine da osservarsi nell'oratorio di Santa Maria di Passione, circa gli Essercicii Spirituali delle feste cavato dalla Regola maggiore.
[Milan], [18th-century]. Folio (27,5 x 18,5 cm). With 5 full-page and 2 half-page, hand-painted religious illustrations and 9 hand-painted initials on a blue background, heightened with gold and silver. 18th-century gold- and blind-tooled parchment, each board with a blind ornamental centre-piece ornament in a blind-tooled frame, in a larger frame of gold fillets, with a gold flower in each of the 6 spine compartments. [1 blank], [1], 66 pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - PRAYER AND HYMN BOOK - LATIN]. [Devotionarium].[Incipit leaf 2r:] Or[ati]o deuota q[ue] debet dici[t] i[n] ficem diei ante dormitione[m].
[Northern Germany(?), 15th century]. 8vo. Written in Latin on relatively thin parchment (leaf 11.5 x 8.5 cm, text block 7.8 x 5.2 cm), in a gothic hand in one column of 17 lines per page using black/dark brown ink. The manuscript is rubricated throughout, with a 3-line red and blue initial at the start of each part, and 2- or 1-line lombards, alternating in red and blue, at the start of each smaller section, ruled in pencil. Early 19th-century(?) gold-tooled vellum showing a gold-tooled floral frame on both boards, with a leather closing tie on the front, gold-tooled board eges, gilt edges. [131] ll. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - PRAYER BOOK - GERMAN]. Geistlicher Seelen-Wecker. Allen in Gott Christlich glaubenden Seelen zu Nurz[!] und grösserem Eyfer zusam[m]en getragen. Darin[n]en Schöne auserlösene Morgen- Abend- Mess- Beicht und Communion Gebetter.
[Germany, Franconia, diocese Würzburg?, ca. 1780]. 8vo (17.5 x 11.3 cm). Written in a clear German cursive in brown ink with chapter titles and captions in Fraktur script in gold, blue, black, and red with red pen flourishes; the text is written within a manuscript double-lined frame in brown ink. With two mezzotint engravings of Christ carrying the cross and Christ's Vera effigies with a crown of thorns, mounted on p. [6] and p. 7; both engravings show Christ's wounds and blood painted red. The engravings are by Johann Martin Will (1727-1806), engraver and art dealer in Augsburg. Contemporary gold-tooled dark brown leather. [1], [3], 307, [9], [4 blank except for the text frames] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - RELIGION - DUTCH - KLAUBER, Joseph Sebastian and Johann Baptist KLAUBER (engravers)]. [Stigtelyke uytbreiding der Litanie van O.L. Vrouwe van Loretten. Op rym gestelt tot geestelyk vermaak en vermeerdering der devotie tot de selve alder-heyligste Maget en Moeder Godts Maria. In 't ligt gegeven door M.V.D.L.].
[Flanders?, 1792]. 8vo. With 56 tipped in numbered engraved plates, and a hand-drawn frame in brown ink on every page, in which the text is written. Contemporary gold-tooled mottled calf in a clear plastic protective sleeve. [8], [1 blank], "55" [= 90] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - SPANISH - Vincent MORALES]. Compendio de la exemplar vida, y santa muerte, [d]el p[adre] Juan de S[an]tiago...
[Córdoba?], ca. 1770. 8vo. With a large engraving of Juan de Santiago on the second leaf and a pen drawing on page 102. Contemporary limp parchment. [4], "159" [= 162] pp. Full description

[MINIATURE - GERMAN]. [The Arrest of Christ].
[Flanders (Bruges?), or Nürnberg, ca. 1520]. Miniature painted on vellum (7.8 x 5.6 cm) in numerous colours, highlighted with gold and in a gold border, probably from a book of hours, but with no text. Full description

NEWMAN, John Henry. [Autograph manuscript excerpt from "Lead, Kindly Light"].
18 February 1871. Oblong 8vo (15.2 x 21.1 cm) With a calligraphed title page in red and black, the manuscript leaf mounted in a passe partout. Twentieth-century (after 1901) gold-tooled red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, with the title, author and date lettered in gold on the spine, on the front board a cardinal's galero and cords surrounding a shield bearing the initials "JHN" (John Henry Newman) which are surrounded by six small gilt roundels, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, gilt edges, brown endpapers. The work is kept in a red cloth folding case with the title lettered in gold on the spine. [3 blank], [1], [1 blank], [1], [15 blank] ll. Full description

OTTO VAN PASSAU. Boeck des gulden throene of der xxiiij ouden.
Utrecht, [printer with monogram "tC"], [30 March] 1480. Folio. With 24 illustrations in text (ca. 9 x 6.2 cm), printed from 1 complete woodcut (plus 4 repeats) and 15 components assembled in different combinations, all rubricated and with architectural frames. The book has no printed initials, but spaces for manuscript initials, which have been filled with letters in the uncial style. Each of the 24 chapters begins with a large manuscript initial (the first 5-line with a penwork face in profile and further 4-line), 11 with two or more colours (mostly with penwork decoration extending into the margin), and others with interior white decoration. A smaller (2-line) initial with penwork extending into the margin opens the book's first page and there are numerous further 1-line and 2-line initials. Set in a textura type with capitals rubricated throughout. Woodcut printer's device at the end: a date palm tree with monogram "tC" (6.5 x 5.5 cm), the "t" perhaps also (or instead) representing a cross. Contemporary (Utrecht?) blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, each board in a panel design with the central part ruled in a lozenge pattern with about 200 impressions of 4 small separate stamps; re-backed, with modern morocco title label. [4], 197 ll. Full description

[PEIKHART, Franz (original compiler)]. Andachtsübungen eines Christen vor die Morgens- und Abendszeit, Heilige Mess, Beicht und Communion: mehrentheils aus denen Psalmen Davidis gezogen.
[Vienna?, ca. 1800]. 8vo. Manuscript in German on laid paper. 19th-century elaborately gold-tooled green morocco, spine with raised bands and red morocco label lettered "A.M.C.Z." in gold, gold-tooled turn-ins, paste-paper endleaves, gilt edges. [62] ll. Full description

PETRUS DE NATALIBUS. Catalogus sanctorum & gestorum eorum ex diversis voluminibus collectus: ...
(Colophon: Strasbourg, printed by Martin Flach, 1513). Folio (22.2 x 32 cm). Title-page with a woodcut decorated initial and a 4-piece woodcut border by Hans Wechtlin, 1 full-page woodcut by Urs Graf, hundreds of woodcut decorated uncial initials. Set mostly in rotunda gothic types. Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards, in a panel design, with 2 brass clasps on leather straps with brass catchplates and anchorplates. [4], 253 ll. Full description

[PRAYER BOOK]. Piae precationes ad missas devote celebrandas, et sacrosanctam eucharistiam sumendam. Cum variis orationibus ex bonis & probatis authoribus collectis.
Rome, Aloysius Zannettus, 1604. 8vo. With a woodcut title page and some ornamented woodcut initials in the text. Contemporary richly gold-tooled brown morocco, with gauffered edges. 272 pp. Full description

[PROPAGANDA FIDE]. Africa [-] Greci - Italo Greci [-] Armeni di Venezia [-] varie.
[Rome and perhaps elsewhere, ca. 1758-1764 (transcribing original documents going back to at least 1664)]. 4to. Collection of manuscript transcriptions of about 30 letters and other documents. Contemporary Italian sheepskin parchment over flexible boards. [416] pp., including about 15 blank leaves. Full description

[REBOUL, Guillaume]. La cabale des Reformez, tiree nouvellement du puits de Democrite.
Montpellier [= Lyon?], "chez Le Libertin, imprimeur juré de la saincte Reformation" [= Jacques Roussin?], 1597.
With: (2) REBOUL, Guillaume. Apologie ... sur La cabale des Reformez.
[Lyon?, Jacques Roussin?], 1598. 2 works in 1 volume. 8vo. 17th-century gold-tooled calf; rebacked, preserving most of the backstrip. 224; 141, [1 blank] pp. Full description

ROVENIUS, Philippus. Reipublicae Christianae libri duo, tractantes de variis hominum statibus, gradibus, officiis, & functionibus in ecclesia Christi, & quae in singuils (sic) amplectenda, quae fugienda sint. ... accessit ejusdem auctoris tractatus de missionibus instituendis.
Antwerp, Arnold à Brakel, 1668 (=1648). 2 works in 1 volume. 4to. With the title page printed in red and black. With:
(2) ROVENIUS, Philippus. Tractatus de missionibus ad propagandam fidem et conversionem infidelium & haereticorum instituendis, in partes quinque distributus, omnibus qui animarum curam gerunt perutilis.
Louvain, Henrick van Haestens, 1626. Contemporary full parchment. [48], 587, 62 (=52) pp. Full description

SABUNDE (SEBONDE), Raymond of and Michel de MONTAIGNE (translator). La theologie naturelle ... traduite en François ...
Rouen, Jean de la Mare, 1641. 8vo. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [1], [1 blank], [13], [1 blank], 891, [49] pp. Full description

SAN JUAN DEL PUERTO, Francisco de Jesús María de. Mission historial de Marruecos, en que se trata de los martirios, persecuciones, y trabajos, que han padecido los missionarios, y frutos que han cogido las missiones, que han cogido las missiones, que desde sus principios tuvo la Orden Seraphica en el Imperio de Marruecos, y continùa La Provincia de San Diego de Franciscos descalços de Andalucia en el mismo Imperio.
Sevilla, Francisco Garay, 1708. Folio. With an engraved allegorical frontispiece by Joannes Carolus Allet in Rome after Pietro de Pietri (with an allegorical martyrdom scene flanked by portraits of 12 martyrs and with 2 emblems), title printed in red and black in a border built up from cast fleurons, woodcut tailpieces and initials, further decorations built up from cast fleurons. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [44], 829, [19] pp. Full description

SENAULT, Louis (calligrapher & engraver). Heures nouvelles tirées de la Sainte Ecriture. Ecrites et gravées par L. Senault.
Paris, for the author and Claude De Hansy, [after 1690]. 8vo. With the text fully engraved and set within a double fillet border, a richly engraved title, 5 full-page engraved plates including a frontispiece, numerous engraved historiated initials and decorative head- and tailpieces. Contemporary brown Morocco, with the text "Heure de cour" lettered in gold on the spine. [2], 1-46, 48-223, 223-260 pp. Full description

[SERVASANCTUS DE FAENZA and others] (spuriously attributed to Saint BONAVENTURA). [Sermones de tempore et de sanctis].
(Colophon: Zwolle, [Johannes de Vollenhoe], 1479). Small (Chancery) folio (27.5 x 20.5 cm). With one 5-line and hundreds of 2- and 3-line spaces left for initials, filled in with manuscript "Lombardic" capitals in red; manuscript paragraph marks in red; and capitals rubricated throughout. Set entirely in a single textura gothic type (103 mm/20 lines) in 2 columns of 39 lines to the page. Early 18th-century tanned sheepskin. [1 blank], [340] ll. Full description

SICHEM, Christoffel II van. 't Schat der zielen, dat is: Het geheele leven ons Heeren Jesu Christi naer de vyer Evangelisten. Naer vervolgh des tijdts by een ghevoeght, in seven stucken verdeelt. Met seer schoon figuren verciert, gesneden door C. van Sichem, voor P. J. P[aets].
Amsterdam, Pieter J[acobsz]. P[aets], 1648. With 686 woodcuts, many full-page, by Christoph van Sichem (many with his monogram), after his own designs and after drawings and paintings by Aldegrever, Goltzius, Dürer, Bloemaert, the Wierix brothers, Lucas van Leyden, Maarten van Heemskerck, Joannes Stradanus, etc. 17th-century vellum, manuscript title on smooth spine. 800, [4] pp. Full description

[VERVOORT, Frans]. Dat vyants net, der booser wercken raet, visioenen, ende met alder sijnder verholender stricken, leerende hoe wi de werelt, den vyant, ende ons selven sullen sterven, kennen, ende leerende hoe wi die werelt, den vyant, ende ons selven sullen sterven, kennen, ende overwinnen.
Antwerp, Jan van Ghelen, (colophon: 1561). 8vo. With the title in a four-piece woodcut border by Pieter van den Borcht (with his initials at the foot), Jan van Ghelen's woodcut device on verso of last leaf, a full-page armorial view (dated 1552) on the last leaf, and 20 mostly full-page woodcut illustrations by Pieter van der Borcht in text. Modern half vellum. [88] ll. Full description

VIGERIUS, Marcus. Decachordum Christianum Julio II. Pont. Max. dicatum. Controversia de excellentia instrumentorum Dominicae passionis, per eundem Dn. Marcum Vigerium discussa.
[Hagenau, printed by Th. Anselm & Joh. Albertus for Joh. Koberger, Nuremberg, 1517]. Folio. With title in woodcut border by Urs Graf and 10 beautiful full-page woodcuts (ca. 13.9-14.4 x 9.7-10.2 cm) by the "Master I S with the shovel", a pupil of Hans Schäufelein. Contemporary calf over wooden boards, blind-tooled side, two brass clasps. Leaves from a 14th-century liturgical manuscript pasted on the inner sides of the boards. From the "Koberger Werkstatt". [6], 204, [14] pp. Full description