Search Results: Authors starting with A from Bruce McKittrick Rare Books

Paris: N. Talon, 1643. CONTEMPORARY FLEXIBLE IVORY VELLUM TOOLED IN BLACK (a small spot on each cover), double-rule outer frame and A CROWNED L in the center of each panel, flat spine with fleurons and lilies. Only Edition. The binding's somber tooling mirrors this meditation on Louis XIII's final hours by his almoner, Abra de Raconis (?1580-1646), who dedicated this eulogy to the widowed Queen, Anne of Austria (1615-43). I have found one copy in the U.S. In good condition (a few quires lightly browned), contemporary title inscription of père Rech, bookplate of D.C. ¶Bourgeois & André, Les Sources de l'histoire de France: XVIIe siècle 1776.

Naples: B.-M. Raillard, 1714. CONTEMPORARY GILT AND PAINTED BROWN MOROCCO (rubbed, tips worn, minor defects). Gilt rules and blooms border the outer foliage frame, which has been touched with ?silver paint. The partly pointillé volutes massed in the corners have also been highlighted with ?silver as have the volutes enclosing the circular central medallion with THE ARMS OF THE CUNNING AND RICH CESARE MICHELANGELO D'AVALOS. Repetitions of an open leaf tool fill the surrounding. The spine (crown defective) is similarly gilt and painted, all edges gilt.             The only publication by the first scientific academy, "including such original minds as Viviani (pupil of Galileo and Torricelli), the anatomist Borelli, mineralogist Steno, embryologist Redi and astronomer Cassini. Their combined efforts...served as a model to other groups in the use of methods they evolved and instruments they developed" (Dibner). Daumas points out the importance of the Accademia in the construction and distribution… Read More

Ingolstadt: A. II and S. Weissenhorn, 1560. Contemporary blind-decorated pigskin over pressed paper boards (soiled). THE PIGSKIN FIRST COVERED ONE PANEL OF A FOLIO. At that time, it was decorated with three roll-frames and a central rectangle. FOR ITS SECOND LIFE it was turned ninety degrees and decorated as a quarto with a four-rule outer frame, then repeatedly diapered to obscure the earlier tooling. With: Ziegler, Hieronymus.             Illvstrivm Germaniæ Virorvm Historiæ.  Ingolstadt, A. II and S. Weissenhorn 1562. 4to. [xii], 96 leaves. Full-page woodcut arms of the dedicatees, the Counts of Ortenburg.             Ad I: Only Edition of this extended dramatization of the Flight into Egypt - Jesus, Mary, and Joseph's escape just before Herod's Massacre of the Innocents. The Bible skimps on the details, so Agricola's imagination fills in the gaps. The trio travels to Heliopolis only to be sabotaged by Herod's allies, saved but separated, then reunited in Memphis under the… Read More

Grenoble: J. Nicolas, 1676. Calf-backed marbled boards, gilt-lettered flat spine. Only Edition (second issue). Beaumont and Dupuy were cruel 16th-century Huguenot military captains. Calignon was President of the Dauphiné parlement at Grenoble. This is the only published volume of Allard's grand project - Biographie Dauphinoise - that was to cover the 12th to the mid-17th century.      Contentious, disbarred and disgraced, he published some sixty works, slim pamphlets to fat bibliography. Copies of this edition are variously dated 1675 or 1676 (here 1671; the "V" having dropped out). In good condition, a couple of dozen lower margins uncut and two leaves still conjugate at the outer margin. ¶Haag, La France protestante II: 115; Maignien, L'imprimerie à Grenoble 630; Cioranescu 6893.

Paris: Simon de Colines, 1534. 18th-century vellum over stiff paper boards (neatly repaired), red edges.             The ninth and most important and influential book of Rhazes' towering medical encyclopedia, this contains his teachings on disease arranged by body part. It was "the most famous textbook of Arabic pathology and therapy in the Middle Ages" (Choulant, tr.) and remained a touchstone long after the Renaissance. The work's popularity meant is was regularly published separately, as here. In good condition, modern bookplate. ¶Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science I: 609-10; Choulant, Handbuch der Bücherkunde für die Ältere Medizin 342-44; Schreiber, Simon de Colines 121; Renouard, Bibliographie des éditions de Simon de Colines 235.

Modena: Heirs of G. Cassiani, 1690. Contemporary tan calf (worn) decorated with ten tools. The wide outer frame has gilt rules around a daisy roll, interrupted in the middle of each side with blind impressions of drawer handles and at the corners with interlacing vines and foliage. A narrow gilt vine roll sets off the large partly azured inner corner ornaments in blind. The center of the blind scrollwork central cartouche is gilt. The flat spine has drawer handles repeated in the four compartments (crown and base repaired); evidence of four leather ties, edges mottled red.             Only Edition. "One of the finest works written on the subject...of excessive rarity" (Fétis, tr.), the book is rarely found complete with all three engravings, as here. It deals with chant - alone and as the basis of new polyphonic compositions. Its five parts and some eighty-five chapters of increasing complexity cover the basics of plainchant, the eight standard church modes and practical aspects of singing.  … Read More

Paris: Henri I Estienne, 1512. Richly gilt red morocco (Simier; rubbed), dots, fronds, foliage and lettering on the spine, gilt turn-ins, BLUE SILK DOUBLURES - one gilt-lettered C.A. WALCKENAER, blue silk free endleaves, all edges gilt. EDITIO PRINCEPS, "REMARKABLE FOR THE BEAUTY OF ITS EXECUTION" (BERNARD). The ancient Antonine Itinerary lists over two hundred fifty land and sea routes of the Roman Empire in c. 300 C.E. - some 53,000 miles - from Samsat to Mauritania and Hadrian's Wall to Aswan.             Contemporary soldiers, diplomats, pilgrims, traders, scoundrels and refugees consulted it for travel, medieval cartographers for maps and modern scholars to study networks.             GEOFFROY TORY EDITED THE TEXT from a manuscript of Christophe de Longueil (1480-1522). The book is "undoubtedly the tiniest production of Henri Estienne's press" (Schreiber).             A fine copy, canceled early signatures of Angelus Maria ?Bonati (with a few annotations),… Read More

Paris: Jeanne de Marnef (widow of Denis Janot), 1546. Gilt-ruled dark blue morocco (Trautz-Bauzonnet), spine gilt and gilt-lettered, marbled endleaves, all edges gilt.             FIRST EDITION. THIS PICTURE BOOK OF PASSION, CURIOSITY, PUNISHMENT AND REDEMPTION "CONTAINS VERY MANY OF THE INGREDIENTS OF A FAIRY-TALE" (Meunier, tr.).             The woodcuts have their genesis in Raphaël's frescoes of Cupid and Psyche in the Villa Farnesina (completed 1518). In the early 1530s, the Flemish artist Michel Coxie added twenty earthly scenes creating a suite of thirty-two drawings. Shortly after, the Master of the Die cut these in copper above anonymous image-specific Italian verses. The print suite inspired forty-four stained-glass panels at Château d'Écouen (1542-44) captioned by French versions of the Italian text. This pocket book, in turn, provided patterns to artists of the next generation.            With not a word of Apuleius in them, the parallel poems in Italian and French… Read More

Antwerp: L.-P. Delacroix, 1824. Stabbed as issued in original printed wrappers (spine gone, first recto and final verso soiled). THE BELGIAN JURIST'S AUCTION CATALOG IS DIVIDED INTO THOMAS JEFFERSON'S THREE CATEGORIES OF KNOWLEDGE: Memory, Reason and Imagination. Our thanks to Mme. Meghan Constantinou for drawing our attention to this connection. Arbeltier had a good run of English literature in French translation. The other two recorded copies are in Belgium. In original condition. ¶Blogie, Répertoire des catalogues de ventes de livres I: 69.

Lyon: [T. Payen for Dominique de Portonariis at Aix], 1540. 20th-century vellum over thin flexible boards, spine title lettered in black. First Edition. From printed and manuscript sources, jurist and poet Antoine Arena compiled the privileges, duties and wages of every court office in Provence and the fees levied by them for services, including the preparation and execution of documents. in provençal, the final five pages list the towns and fortified castles in Provence under the French crown's authority.      Lyonese printer Payen struggled to cast off copy or made a stop-press correction. To fit the text, he began one medial quire with 45 lines per page, jumped to 49 lines in the middle and settled back to 45 at the end. In good condition (small portion of the first blank margin neatly supplied). ¶Davies, Catalogue of...Early French Books...Fairfax Murray 411(2); Bechtel, Catalogue des gothiques T-26; Cioranesco 2608; Dollieule, Antoine Arena 70-71; Répertoire bibliographique des livres… Read More

Basle: Michael Wenssler [and Bernhard Richel], 1479. Late 18th-century gilt-ruled green sheep (scuffed), spine and title gilt, all edges gilt. THE GREAT APOLOGIA FOR CHRISTIANITY and the supreme exposition of A CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.  Here in its third edition with the commentaries of Englishmen Thomas Waleys and Nicolaus Trivet, The City of God examines paganism and the struggle between faith and unbelief. It guided medieval mystics and anchored both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. It remains vital in Christian thought today.  Wenssler and Richel collaborated on this imposing volume, employing a type font they jointly owned. A beautiful book (upper inner corners lightly stained), bookplate of P.L. van der Haegen, the historian of early Basle printing. ¶See Printing and the Mind of Man 3 (first edition, 1467); ISTC ia01241000; Goff A-1241.

Paris: G.-F. Debure, 1782. Retrospective mottled calf (nicely done), spine and title gilt, red edges. One finds in this catalog the best French vernacular books in all areas...the best editions, printed on large paper" (p. [iii], tr.). The duc d'Aumont oversaw official and theatrical state entertainments for Louis XV and Louis XVI and was an outstanding collector of objets d'art. His library was rich in literature, theater, history, the decorative arts, print suites, festival books, priced copies of art auctions and architecture. In this copy, PRICES ARE SUPPLIED IN CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT AND LOTS PURCHASED BY PARISIAN BOOKSELLER PIERRE-MICHEL LAMY (fl. 1777-1813) HIGHLIGHTED. In good condition (a few upper corners lightly stained, outer margin of the title neatly supplied), some outer and lower edges uncut. ¶North, Printed Catalogues of French Book Auctions 304.

?Milan: s.n., 1786. Original printed wrappers (spine slightly defective), uncut. These thirty-three articles propose municipal administrative reforms in Austrian Lombardy - Milan, Mantua, Cremona, Pavia, Lodi, Como, Gallarate and Bozzolo. This covers zoning, street and building maintenance, quartering of troops, price caps, police, sanitation, fire companies, victuals, investigatory powers.... Penalties are set for various transgressions. The folding tables (with printed paste-over corrections) are to be completed by the person in charge of transportation. A folio edition appeared the same year. I have located one example of either outside Italy (Regensburg). ¶Bibliografia delle edizioni giuridiche antiche in lingua italiana II(3): 1024; Bertarelli, Inventario I: 170.