{"title":"Language \u0026 Linguistics","description":"\u003cp\u003eLanguage, grammar, phonetics, and etymology.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"perotto-niccolo","title":"PEROTTO, Niccol√≤","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of the third Aldine edition of this monumental collection of grammars, including one of the most important Renaissance Latin dictionaries, by Niccolo Perroto, together with three influential classical grammars by Varro, Festus and Nonius Marcellus, dedicated to the condottiere Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino. Although the date 1513 is shown on the final colophon as if it was the second Aldine edition, this is in reality a reprint carried out in May 1517, as the colophon at the end of Perotti's work indicates (col 1064 [i.e. 1054]). The largest section of the work is taken up by Perroti s Cornucopia. Written as a commentary on book I of Martial, it includes a discussion on almost every word of Martial's text, becoming a standard work of reference on the Latin language.  a massive encyclopedia of the classical world. Every verse, indeed every word of Martial's text was a hook on which Perotti hung a densely woven tissue of linguistic, historical and cultural knowledge  Brian Ogilvie,  The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe.   The work was revised and expanded by Perotto's son Pyrrhus and the first edition was published in Venice by in 1489; the first Aldine in 1499. The text has been carefully numbered by page and by line so that the index can be precisely keyed, marking the inception of a modern scholarly system of reference. Niccol√≤ Perotto (1429-1480) was an Italian cleric and humanist, born and died in Sassoferrato. From 1451 to 1453 he taught rhetoric and poetry at the University of Bologna. In 1452 he was made Poet Laureate by the Emperor Frederick III, in acknowledgment of his speech of welcome to the city. He was the papal secretary from 1455 and archbishop of Siponto in 1458. Although his later career was as a papal governor, he continued his scholarly pursuits, editing the works of the Roman writers Pliny and Martial. Apart from his Cornucopia, he wrote a Latin school grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (Pannartz and Sweynheim 1473), one of the earliest and most popular Renaissance Latin grammars, which attempted to exclude many words and constructions of medieval origin. To the Cornucopia are added the three most important classical texts on the grammar and etymology of the Latin language.  Varro s treatise is the earliest extant work on Grammar. This great work which was finished before Cicero s death in 43 BC, owes much to the Stoic teaching of Aelius Stilo. .. The first three of the surviving books are on Etymology, book V being on names of places, VI on terms denoting time and VII on poetic expressions.  Sandys I p. 179. Sextus Pompeius Festus  epitome in 21 books of the encyclopedic treatise  De verborum significatione  of Valerius Flaccus is added next. Festus gives the etymology as well as the meaning of many words, and his work throws considerable light on the Latin language, mythology and antiquities of ancient Rome. The work ends with Nonius Marcellus s compendia. A lovely fresh copy of these important texts.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PEROTTO, Niccol√≤","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816085528911,"sku":"L1543","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_5651.jpg?v=1781795319"},{"product_id":"varro-m-terentius","title":"VARRO, M. Terentius","description":"\u003cp\u003eA rare edition from an almost equally rare press; the identity of the printer is unknown, the style of his Greek type may indicate he came from Venice; the total known output of the press is only six titles, however the layout and typeface are handsome and accomplished. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An early edition of Varro s pioneering work on Latin grammar (including inflexion and syntax) or more accurately of books V to X (of 25) which are all that have come down to us. It was regarded as a work of considerable importance by no lesser authorities than Cicero (the dedicatee), Quintilian and St Augustine, who wonders at the author s learning in the De Civ. Dei, book VI; the text was edited for the press by Pompinius Laetus and Francisus Rolandellus and first printed in that form by an unknown press in Venice in 1478. It has a comprehensive index.  Varro s treatise is the earliest extant Roman work on grammar. This great work, which was finished before Cicero s death in 43 BC, owes much to the stoic teaching of Aelius Stilo, and also to that of a later grammarian who combined the Stoic and Alexandrian traditions. The first three of the surviving books are on Etymology, book V being on names of places, VI on terms denoting time and VII on poetic expressions. To ourselves the value of these books lies in their citations from the Latin poets, and not in their marvellous etymologies. The next three books are concerned with the controversy on Analogy and Anomaly: VIII on the arguments against Analogy, IX on those against Anomaly and X on Varro s own view of Analogy , Sandys I p.179. Of Varro s vast literary output his three books  De Rustica  is the only other survivor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VARRO, M. Terentius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120820047,"sku":"L276","price":5950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L276-7.jpg?v=1781795292"},{"product_id":"greek-thesaurus","title":"GREEK THESAURUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of the first edition of Aldus' collection of grammatical works for students of ancient Greek, including many previously unpublished essays such as those of the Homeric commentator Eustathius of Thessalonica. This  Treasure of abundance  was one of the founding pieces of the Aldine printing programme, devised in the first place to spread the knowledge of Greek in Italy and the rest of Europe. It consists of a well-considered selection of writings and lexicons by Byzantine Greek grammarians, referring especially to the Homeric poems. In compiling this book, Aldus was helped by exceptionally skilled teachers of the subject, like Urbano Bolzanio (1442-1524), Arsenios Apostolios (1465-1535), Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494) and Poliziano s pupils Guarino Favorino (1450-1537) and Scipione Carteromaco (1466-1515). Aldus  Latin preface to  every scholar  is of great interest. Not only does it provide key evidence for dating the beginning of his own activity   he states that he has worked for 7 years with barely an hour of solid rest  , but it also announces what was to be his most famous achievement, the complete Greek edition of Aristotle s works. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy bears six corrections made in the Aldine workshop straight after printing. Only two of them have been already recorded and concern the very last words of ff. 197r and 207r, which were crossed out with a pen stroke. A third and more extensive emendation involves the declension of the term  shame , as illustrated in the second essay of the collection (f. 6v). The passage was expunged and the manuscript internal reference to leaves 268 (  268 ) added instead. A couple of lines above, a vowel was amended twice in the same word and an accent and a subscribed iota were added. The faulty numeration of leaves 187, 188 and 213 was also consistently rectified, alongside the incorrect  K  in the title of f. 227r, replaced with    . These corrections were made in many copies of this edition, but often have been washed out or even deliberately erased as insignificant marginalia, even the most important one   that in f. 6v with the internal reference in Greek.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GREEK THESAURUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816130945359,"sku":"K47","price":37500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8128.jpg?v=1781795262"},{"product_id":"davies-john","title":"DAVIES, John","description":"First edition of Davies' great Welsh- Latin, Latin-Welsh dictionary; though the second part was the work of Thomas Williams of Trevriw, the whole work was edited by Davies. Davies was of humble origin but had the inestimable advantage of a village education in his native Denbighshire by William Morgan, the translator of the Bible into Welsh. He later in turn assisted Parry in the preparation of his great Welsh Bible (1620). He was held in high esteem as a clergyman and magistrate and the present work gained him a high reputation as a scholar also. The separate glossary of Welsh botanical names remains of particular interest.\"The author was 'esteemed by the academicians well vers'd in the history and antiquities of his own nation, and in the Greek and Hebrew languages, a most exact critic, an indefatigable researcher into ancient scripts, and well acquainted with curious and rare authors' - Ant. à Wood\" Lowndes cit. infr. “The greatest scholar until modern days was John Davies of Mallwyd, editor of the 1620 Bible, whose grammar (in Latin in 1621) and Welsh- Latin, Latin-Welsh dictionary (1632) are among the most influential works of Welsh scholarship.”. J. T Koch Celtic Culture, A Historical Encyclopaedia. “His analysis of the modern literary language is final; he has left to his successors only the correction and amplification of detail.” John Morris Jones. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Porkington or the Brogyntyn Library at Brogyntyn Hall in Shropshire contained a hugely important collection of Welsh books and manuscripts. It is known that Sir Robert Owen of Brogyntyn (d. 1698) was a bibliophile who continued the family's traditional patronage of poets, and a collection of printed English literature was developed by his grandfather Lewis Anwyl of Park. Nevertheless, the early history of the library at Brogyntyn is obscure. Some of the family had collected early printed books during the nineteenth century but this does not account for the fine collection of manuscripts that the library held. There is some evidence contained within the manuscripts which suggests that the collection was formed circa 1700 from other manuscripts collections in the surrounding area. The thirty Welsh language manuscripts that the third Lord Harlech deposited in the National Library of Wales in 1934 was, at the time, the largest collection of manuscripts in Welsh that was still privately owned. The fourth Lord Harlech deposited a further fifty-nine manuscripts in the National Library in 1938 and subsequently donated most of the deposits in 1945. They include a medieval psalter and a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ, both from the thirteenth century, a fifteenth century miscellany in Middle English, a volume of the Welsh laws of Hywel Dda, and pedigrees, genealogy and heraldry of familes in Wales.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe autograph Howell Vaughan that appears n the margins of the work was probably that of Sir Robert Howell Vaughan (1723 - 1792) the possessor of of the estates of Nannau, Hengwrt, Ystumcolwyn, and Meillionydd in Wales. A most appropriate provenance for this work, a rare first edition.","brand":"DAVIES, John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816133828943,"sku":"L2187","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"miranda-de-juan","title":"MIRANDA de, Juan","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition, first issue, of this important Spanish grammar written for Italians by the religious Juan De Miranda, a writer and grammarian from Valladolid living in Venice, which served as a model to scholars from all over Europe and was reprinted several times, as being the most effective and complete early pedagogical grammar of Spanish written for speakers of other languages. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The address to the reader highlights the difficulties in learning Spanish and the usefulness of the work which deals with general morphology and some peculiarities of Castilian grammar and especially usage. It is divided into 4 parts: I, pronunciation and inflected parts of speech (article, noun, adjective and pronoun); II, the verb (regular and irregular) and its conjunction; III, the non-inflected parts of speech (adverb and prepositions) and a section on proverbs, anecdotes and short stories to illustrate colloquial Spanish; IV, orthography. Miranda s grammar was influenced by Mario Alessandri D Urbino s   Il paragone della lingua Toscana et Castigliana  (1560) but expanded on it. The work contains 2 indexes to help readers and  explanations, given in plain and easy terms, are contrasted on the same page to the Tuscan language so the learner can easily understand rules, variants and similarities of Spanish. Of great interest is the book 3, where the author discusses Spanish conversation on various cultural topics (customs, clothing, knowledge, etc.) through short didactic examples according to three groups: comparisons, exclamations and particularly witty proverbs, largely using common words with ambiguous meaning, such as  loco  (mad),  judio  (Jewish), in relation to the concept of honour, and  necio  or  moro  (Moorish, ignorant). The selection is significant, showing peculiar aspects of politics and culture of Spanish society. Miranda refers to Castiglione s  Cortegiano  and Girolamo Garimberto s  Concetti divinissimi  (1551), as models of learned conversation for courtiers, politicians and scholars, and recounts real episodes that happened in Venice at that time to notable Spaniards, such as Giovanni de Spinosa, secretary to the Emperor Carlo V. The comments on pronunciation provide valuable data for chronologies of sound change.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MIRANDA de, Juan","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816137695567,"sku":"L2569","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2024-08-06-at-12.15.45.png?v=1781795199"},{"product_id":"junius-hadrianus","title":"JUNIUS, Hadrianus","description":"\u003cp\u003eExcellent edition of this important polyglot dictionary, finely printed in Geneva by Jacob Stoer, and edited by Hermann Germberg. The arrangement is alphabetical by topic, then alphabetically within each topic; polyglot entires are arranged under Latin terms, with preliminaries in Latin. Hadrianus Junius (1511 1575), also known as Adriaen de Jonghe, was a Dutch physician, classical scholar, translator, lexicographer, antiquarian, historiographer, emblematist, school rector, and Latin poet. He attended both the Crown Prince of Denmark and the Duke of Norfolk, and was singled out by Lipsius as the most learned Dutchman after Erasmus. This polyglot dictionary was Junius  most successful and influential book, often re-edited with many further adaptions. It is thematic, and especially strong on terms used in medicine, zoology, botany, etc., but also music, architecture, warfare, gastronomy, dress, weights and measures and the book world.  In early modern Europe, two main types of onomasiological dictionaries can be distinguished. The first type primarily has practical and didactic objectives. In spite of Junius  didactic claims presented in his preface, the Nomenclator belongs to a second group of topical dictionaries, which are less practical and more scholarly orientated. In comparison to the first type, these dictionaries, which often included old Greek, tend to be more comprehensive in volume and more methodical in classification and systematisation. Many dictionaries of the second type are called Nomenclator, and Junius  Dictionary probably ranks as it s best known exponent. .. In addition to the Latin headwords, Greek, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, and English translations are offered.   Of course, Junius made use of several sources (which are listed in the preface), but his dictionary is by no means derived from an existing one. As in many other early modern topical dictionaries, the overwhelming majority of concepts included as lemmas are concrete objects (resulting in a considerable number of substantive nouns). It is interesting to note that the number of technical concepts (especially in connection with diseases and illnesses) is considerably larger than the amount of  normal  vocabulary that is included. As Gabriele Stein suggested, this is most likely the result of Junius  training as a physician. ..In only a small number of lemmas do the eight languages occur together. English is included in no more than about 250 entries. As knowledge of English on the European continent was very limited in the sixteenth century, this is perhaps not surprising. .. Apart from the headworks and the translations, Junius enriched many lemmas with supplementary information, moving in the direction of encyclopaedic dictionary. In addition .. some entries feature an etymological explanation  Dirk van Miert  The Kaleidoscopic Scholarship of Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JUNIUS, Hadrianus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139432271,"sku":"L2690","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5676-e1507732858845.jpg?v=1781795186"},{"product_id":"stephanus-of-byzantium-with-pollux-iulius","title":"STEPHANUS OF BYZANTIUM [with] POLLUX, Iulius","description":"\u003cp\u003eFine, handsome, and uncommon editions of two most important ancient works of Greek lexicography. Sixteenth-century editions of Stephanus of Byzantium s  Peri pole n  offered an abridged version of the original sixty-book text entitled  Ethnika  (      ) fragments of which could be found in the works of other ancient authors like Eustathius, as often highlighted by the anonymous and learned annotator of this copy. The  Ethnika  was a compendium of ethnic names of gentile peoples from places spanning Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Ireland, enriched with material on topography, local history, and mythology drawn from ancient authors. The  Onomastikon , composed by the Greek grammarian Ioulios Polydeukes in the second century AD, is a lexicon of phrases and synonyms in Attic dialect. It is divided by subject, and includes invaluable information on ancient customs, mythology, and everyday life, touching on themes as varied as oracles, poetry, horses, trees, and navigation. The  Onomastikon  is prefaced by a dedication from the Humanist Antonio Francini to Henry VIII s doctor Thomas Linacre, one of the first scholars of Greek in England and a member of Aldus Manutius s Venetian Academy.    Printed by the Giunti of Florence, both editions reprise, with a few layout variations and the addition of fine typographical ornaments, the first impressions published in 1502 by Aldus, who intended  Peri pole n  and  Onomastikon  to be bound together. The beautiful typeface, usually found in Giunti Greek texts and based on Francesco Griffo s work, sought to compete with Manutius s distinctive font, for which he had been granted a papal privilege contested by the Giunti. These rare editions testify to the way in which Pope Leo X resolved this long-standing dispute between the two printers, by conceding a similar privilege to the Giunti as long as they printed in a slightly different style to Aldus s.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"STEPHANUS OF BYZANTIUM [with] POLLUX, Iulius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139694415,"sku":"L2347","price":5250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_3858.jpg?v=1781795186"},{"product_id":"lentulo-scipione","title":"LENTULO, Scipione","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery rare, beautifully printed, first edition of the translation into English of this Italian grammar, from the library of Sir Edward Coke, finely bound with his monogram on the covers. The work is a translation of Lentulo s  Italicae grammatices praecepta  by Henry Grantham, a popular Italian grammar, republished in 1587.  One other Grammar was issued in England just prior to the publication of [Florio s]  Firste Fruits , a translation of Scipione Lentulo s  Italicae gramatices praecepta ac ratio  by Henry Grantham (who in 1567 also published a translation of a fragment of Boccaccio s Philocolo,  A pleasaunt disport of divers noble personages ), the original of which Migliorini notes was written specifically with foreigners in Italy in mind. An  Italian grammer  appeared first in 1575 (reprinted in 1587) and provided a solid basis for the beginners acquisition of Italian, based as it was upon  the most servicable among the many [such] works then available in Italy   it is not only extremely clear, but completely unadorned, even more so than Thomas, for the most part schematic, with little commentary of exemplification, to the point that it often seems more a grammatical survey than a grammar   Michael Wyatt.  The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Hassel catalogued 1,237 items from the library of Sir Edward Coke, which reveal the great variety of his reading; apart from the expected yearbooks, Reports and Registers of Writs, there are such diverse items as Diodorus Siculus and Dante, a Welsh grammar and works on Husbandry. Hassel states in his letter inserted with this copy  This would be one of the very few Italian books included in Sir Edward s collection in its original binding which does not contain marks of having been derived from Sir Christopher Hatton. Hardly any of the Italian books have Coke s autograph or binding: and nearly all the Italian books (when this evidence has not been destroyed by 18th century rebinding) have either the binding or autograph of Christopher Hatton.  Hailed by Sir Robert Phelips as  that great monarcha juris , and by Richard Cresheld as  that honourable gentleman to whom the professors of the law, both in this and all succeeding ages are and will be much bound , Sir Edward Coke was the finest lawyer of his generation. Sir Roger Wilbraham thought his legal talents were  above all of memory , while Sir Julius Caesar ranked him as  one of the greatest learned men amongst the common lawyers of England . Even James I, who grew to detest him, acknowledged Coke as  the father of the laws . Much of Coke s legal skill relied upon a sharp intellect and a prodigious capacity for work ..but it was also the product of immense learning. Coke collected a huge library of books and manuscripts, and by his death he owned around 1,200 volumes, considerably more than most college libraries of the period. Naturally many were law books, but the largest part of the collection was concerned with historical matters. Although not a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, Coke regarded it as essential to study the past in order to comprehend England s laws and constitution. He applauded Edward I as  our Justinian, the wisest prince that ever ... [was] till our king , and was almost as much in awe of Edward III, whose reign he regarded as the golden age of Common-Law pleading. Through historical study, Coke concluded that ultimate sovereignty lay with the Common Law. Not merely was this superior to Civil or Canon Law, but both Parliament and the king were subject to its authority. In an era when the Crown increasingly operated outside the strict parameters of the Common Law, this was a dangerous view to hold.  Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris  The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629.  \u003cbr\u003e\n A beautiful copy of this rare work with exceptional provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LENTULO, Scipione","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816140841295,"sku":"L2520","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2520.jpg?v=1781795180"},{"product_id":"busbecq-ogier-ghislain-de","title":"BUSBECQ, Ogier Ghislain de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of these remarkably important letters on Turkey, written in the 1550s, with the only surviving glossary of a long-extinct Germanic language. Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522-92) was a scholar, keen herbalist and diplomat in the service of the Austrian monarchy; he spent several years in Constantinople where he negotiated the boundaries of disputed territories and was involved in politics at the court of Suleyman the Magnificent. First published without authorial licence in Paris in 1589 as  Itinerarium Constantinopolitanum ,  Epistolae  is his most famous work and one of the earliest Western testimonies on the Ottoman world. It gathers letters which Busbecq sent to the Hungarian diplomat Nicholas Michault. In addition to observations on the natural environment, he included in his work the first and only recorded glossary (80 words), as well as the excerpt of a song, in a Crimean dialect. Having heard of a Germanic language being spoken in Turkey, he managed to have an interview with a native speaker noting words close to Dutch (e.g.,  tag   day ,  plut   blood ), others which differed, and cardinal numbers (Considine,  Dictionaries , 140-41). Busbecq also expresses strong opinions on the conquest of the New World, as colonisers  seek the Indies and the Antipodes through the vastity of the ocean because there the booty is easy to take from na√Øve and gullible natives, without bloodshed . One of the English annotators of this copy, who wrote in English, Greek, Latin and Arabic, was a scholar at University College, Oxford, as per ex-libris on t-p. He wrote in Arabic the word  sherbet  to gloss a sentence on  sorbet , a cooling fruit drink typical of Eastern territories; according to the OED, the word was first recorded in English in 1603. He was also interested in Busbecq s observations on Turkish flora and fauna, as he glossed  glycyrrhiza  as  liquorish  and  sicedula  as  nightingale  and  beccafico . The Latin verse on the fly reprises some of the epigraphs which Busbecq used to conclude his accounts, e.g., the Tacitean  religion is the pretext, the object is gold  in his discussion of the conquest of the New World. A very influential work in the history of Western perceptions of the Ottoman world. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A jeweller named William Leedes took part in expeditions of the Turkey Company in 1579 and 1584, with other merchant adventurers, arriving as far as Baghdad.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BUSBECQ, Ogier Ghislain de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816167645519,"sku":"L3181b","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3181b-2.jpg?v=1781794864"},{"product_id":"hulsius-levinus-1","title":"HULSIUS, Levinus.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis copy was purchased in Basle by Luigi Rusca (fl. first half of the C17), a poet from Como. His compositions were influenced by the Renaissance pastoral tradition; his  Pastor Infido , printed in Como in 1622, was deemed  for stylistic elegance not inferior to [Guarini s]  Pastor fido   ( Il rusco , 7). The long inscription on the fep, written by Rusca in 1627, provides an account of the reconquest of Wolfenb√ºttel during the Thirty Years  War. He writes that on August 15 he was travelling on the boat of General Pappenheim heading towards Wolfenb√ºttel,  the fortified city of the Duke of Brandenburg  then occupied by the army of Christian IV of Denmark. The siege started on August 28 and they entered the city on Christmas Eve. Rusca was injured on January 1, being on the verge of death for a month; he was  martyrized  ( fui martirizato ) with three blood-lettings to treat his high temperature, and had to live on beer for eight days as it was the only nourishment he managed to retain. It was impossible to find chicken or veal even by promising good money. Due to his health he was first left at Wolfenb√ºttel and only later sent for by his fellow soldiers even though he was still unwell. The uninviting ointment recipe on the fep may therefore relate to his illness: olive oil, jasmine, oats, a drop of urine, rat s blood and willow leaves. His full account of the siege, not including his later illness, was published in the same year, in Como, as  Historia di Luigi Rusca dell assedio della fortissima citt‚àö‚Ć di Volfenbutel , dedicated to Cardinal Borromeo. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Rusca would have made good use of his dictionary during the military expedition an important linguistic instrument, here in the scarce first edition, and one of several, including some for French, produced by Levinus Hulsius. Born in Belgium, Hulsius (1546-1606) settled in Nuremberg in the late 1580s, became a notary, one of the earliest traders in mathematical-astronomical instruments, and, from 1596, also a writer and publisher of scientific books, dictionaries and geographical works such as a Latin and German edition of Sir Walter Raleigh s  Description of Guiana . This dictionary included a short grammatical introduction to Italian and German, here removed probably by Rusca as it would have been of less practical use and two sections (German into Italian and Italian into German) with words commonly used in everyday conversation. Of great use to Rusca would have been the dozen kinds of fevers listed ( erratic ,  daily ,  tertian , etc.) in Italian, with their German translation, and specific military terms like  soldiers in a garrison .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HULSIUS, Levinus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820340879695,"sku":"L3292","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190828_131718.jpg?v=1781794845"},{"product_id":"calepinus-ambrosius","title":"CALEPINUS, Ambrosius.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFinely bound, very good copy of the first edition of this scarce, abridged version, in no less than nine languages, of the most influential early modern polyglot dictionary. This is variant A, with the imprint  in Bibliopolo  (Jones,  German Lexicography , 261). Ambrogio Calepino (1440-1510) was an Italian lexicographer renowned for his Latin dictionary of 1502; known as  il Calepino , it was reprinted dozens of times in the course of the C16. Despite the changed  intellectual climate  beginning from the second half of the C16,  with vernacular languages throughout Europe conspiring to defeat the humanists  project and make classical Latin an irredeemably foreign language to all, Calepino s dictionary became the main translation dictionary in use  (Moss,  Renaissance Truth , 24), especially thanks to the subsequent enlargements by sundry European scholars, which turned it into a polyglot dictionary featuring up to 13 languages.3 This 1654 Leiden edition included additions by Jean Passerat (1534-1602), the successor of Ramus to the professorship of Latin at the Coll√®ge de France, and was edited by Cornelis Schrevel (1608-64), professor at Leiden and author of a Latin-Greek lexicon. Extremely successful thanks to its portable format, it features definitions in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, German, Spanish, English and Flemish. The preface remarks indeed that  the weight of the original work, and the crowding of the numerous examples, had become very confusing, and made reading tedious . In layout, format and content, Schrevel s edition made it a more useable instrument for private study. A solid reference work in a handsome binding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CALEPINUS, Ambrosius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820342354255,"sku":"L3318","price":2500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_7157-scaled.jpg?v=1781794839"},{"product_id":"bentzius-johannes","title":"BENTZIUS, Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn elaborately bound copy of the second, substantially enlarged edition of this scarce Latin-German lexicon. The lovely contemporary binding of German influence, as shown by the traces of green, black and red paint on the vellum, suggests this was a present. Johann Bentz (fl. late C16-early C17) from Brussels was professor at Strasbourg, and the author of Latin textbooks on rhetoric and grammar. This is the second, much enlarged edition ( alterum ), published by the same printer in the same year as the first ( primum ). Like the first, it is divided into subjects (or  loci ), e.g., God, the soul, justice, temperance, history, the state, geometry, medicine, astronomy, the graphic crafts and the  evil  arts. Under  De graphicis artificiis  are  typographia ,  typographus ,  excudere ,  operae typographicae ,  typus ,  loculi  or  capsulae  (the printers  type drawers),  praelum ,  sphaera ,  atramentum typographicum  (blank ink),  minium  (red ink),  fusor typorum  (the type founder),  bibliopegus  (bookbinder), and  compingere  (to bind). In most sections, Latin words are listed alphabetically, with a German translation. This second edition was reset in double column, and substantially revised with additional Latin and German synonyms, and long lists of related Latin phrases (either adjectives or verbs), so that the young owner could learn how to write in Latin on specific subjects (traditional and contemporary) using an idiomatic language. A detailed subject and a diagrammatic index were added as preliminaries, and the work concluded with an 83-page dictionary of all the German words mentioned in the work. A scarce work of linguistic and typographical interest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BENTZIUS, Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820344648015,"sku":"L3193b","price":7950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/spinebook.png?v=1781794823"},{"product_id":"pollux-julius","title":"POLLUX, Julius","description":"\u003cp\u003eHandsome copy of the  editio princeps  of this important Greek dictionary, from the library of a Milanese humanist who funded, in the 1490s, the printing of Greek incunabula. Bartolomeo Squassi (or Squasso, fl. 1490-1510) was secretary of Lodovico Sforza, then regent for Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan. With the ducal secretaries Vincenzo Aliprandi and Bartolomeo Rozzone, he contributed to the printing expenses of the  editio princeps  of Isocrates (Milan, 1493) and the Latin  Erotemata  (Milan, 1494), prepared by the major Greek scholar Demetrios Chalcondylas. In the colophon of the  Isocrates , as in the ex-libris in this copy, he appeared as . In 1494, Gian Galeazzo granted Squassi, Calchondylas, Aliprandi and Rozzone a ten-year privilege to print Greek and Latin works, which suggests that, like Calchondylas,  they too had acquired an excellent reputation as scholars of the classics  (Calvi,  Castello , 75). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The  Onomastikon , composed by the Greek grammarian Ioulios Polydeukes (Julius Pollux) in the second century AD, is a lexicon of phrases and synonyms in Attic dialect. Divided by subject, it includes invaluable information on ancient customs, mythology, and everyday life, touching on themes as varied as oracles, poetry, horses, trees, and navigation. This edition is prefaced by two indexes, in Latin and Greek. Squassi used it for practical purposes as he annotated sections on specific subjects including gods  names, temples, the eyes, body parts, the arts, musical instruments, dance, singing, games and theatre. He wrote on the margins the names of the ancient authors thereby mentioned (especially Aristophanes, Isocrates, Herodotus, Homer, Xenophon and Plato) as well as interesting nouns or verbs, sometimes in different grammatical forms. A handsome Greek Aldine of bibliographical interest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"POLLUX, Julius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820347924815,"sku":"L3391\/b","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9325.jpg?v=1781794806"},{"product_id":"pallet-jean","title":"PALLET, Jean.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good, clean copy of the second edition of the first French-Spanish bilingual dictionary, originally published in Paris in 1604. The French Jean Pallet (or Palet, fl. late C16\/early C17) was physician to Henry IV of France and translator from the Italian of  Discours de la beaut é des Dames (1568). An influential lexicographer, he published his bilingual dictionary only a few years after Hornkens s French-Spanish-Latin of 1599. Even more than Hornkens, Pallet was catering to the  Belgian  aristocracy, generals and officers who, upon the Infanta s marriage with Archduke Albert in 1596 and the greater administrative autonomy over the Low Countries granted to them by her father Philip II, found themselves having to deal with a Spanish-speaking court ( W√∂rterb√ºcher , 2977). The printer Velpius was granted a privilege by the Archduke. Whilst the French-Spanish part was mostly based on Hornkens, the Spanish-French section drew on Antonio de Nebrija s Spanish-Latin dictionary (1492-5) and Crist‚àö‚â•val de Las Casas s popular Tuscan-Castilian dictionary of 1570. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In 1607, this copy was in the library of the Flemish physician Sebastianus Egbertus, professor of anatomy at Amsterdam and author of a commentary on Dodoens s  Herbal  (1640); he was deemed  a man of great learning  by the anatomist Nicolaes Tulp, famously portrayed by Rembrandt. In 1638, it was in the possession of the lawyer Johannes Carlier (c.1612-48), owner of a substantial library of which the inventory unusually specifies the colour of the shelves and their arrangement in the room (de Jong, p.151); in 1649, the copy was inherited by Johannes Spillieurs, probably the same registered as a student at Leiden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PALLET, Jean.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820349071695,"sku":"L3519","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-1-3_55d260c7-f77d-44ec-86c4-6dd8afbc07a3.jpg?v=1781794801"},{"product_id":"mellema-edouard-leon","title":"MELLEMA, Edouard Leon.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of the scarce first edition in Dutch of this popular Dutch-French dictionary. It was edited by the Frisian Edouard Leon Mellema (c.1552-22), schoolmaster in Haarlem and author of  Arithmetica  (1586). This edition (with Dutch being here interchangeable with Flemish) is in fact a posthumous reissue, with Dutch t-p and preliminaries, of the first 1587 French edition printed by Jan van Waesberghe s father in Antwerp as  Dictionnaire ou Promptuaire Flamand-Français . The French-Flemish (or French-Dutch) volumes were published separately. The work comprises French translations spanning basic adjectives, verbs and pronouns, and phrases, Netherlandish and French place names, kinds of oxen, measurements, and thousands of words useful for everyday life.  His dictionary became a reference work and went through 11 editions in the C17.   here, the word  woordn-boec  [dictionary] appeared in a dictionary for the first time  (Sterkenburg, 38). It provided the basis of Hexham s Dutch-English dictionary of 1648.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MELLEMA, Edouard Leon.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820349104463,"sku":"L3473","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-1_193471b1-7564-4220-9828-426121a1acda.jpg?v=1781794801"},{"product_id":"las-casas-cristobal-de","title":"LAS CASAS, Cristobal de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very scarce Venetian edition of this important Italian-Spanish dictionary, with fascinating expunctions by an early prudish owner. The work of the obscure Sevillian lexicographer Crist‚àö‚â•bal de las Casas (d.1576), it was originally published in 1570 the first such bilingual dictionary, praised in the preface by the famous author Fernando de Herrera.  It was the first dictionary worthy of this name by which the Spanish language was compared to any other Romance language, excluding the polyglot dictionary of Ambrosio Calepino  (J.M. Lope Blanch). Las Casas probably learnt Tuscan during a stay in Italy, and his dictionary filled a major gap in the book market, the last Spanish (to Latin) dictionary having been published by Nebrija in 1495. Las Casas provided a way for Spanish-speaking readers to appreciate the wealth of the Tuscan language and literature, and to make it easier for Italians to learn Spanish, for diplomacy, trade, etc. The two parts, Tuscan-Castilian (15,000 lemmas) and Castilian-Tuscan (10,000 lemmas), were reliant on Calepino and Nebrija, but also featured numerous terms which had never been previously listed in a dictionary: e.g., desenquedernar \/ squadernare, that is, to have a book disbound and broken up into its constituent gatherings or sheets; salcizzo \/ salchichon (sausage); Berlingozzo \/ tortilla de huevos (a kind of flatbread); and turbante \/ turbante tocado turco (Turkish turban). The contemporary (most likely Italian) annotator of this copy carefully covered in ink, in the Tuscan-Spanish section, everyday words he deemed vulgar or inappropriate, concerning, that is, prostitutes (bagascia, bagascione, puttana), sexual intercourse (bugiarare, sodomitico, coito, fottere, sperma) and related body parts (coda, coglioni, cotale, fica, fregna), physiological functions (cacare), related body parts (chiappe, culo) and premises (cesso, cacatoio), and circumcision (circuncidado, preputio). He also corrected two inoffensive Italian translations.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LAS CASAS, Cristobal de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820349137231,"sku":"L3518","price":1000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3518-3.jpg?v=1781794801"},{"product_id":"cheradame-jean","title":"CHÉRADAME, Jean","description":"\u003cp\u003eA handsome, well margined copy of this uncommon first edition Greek-Latin etymological dictionary and Greek grammar by Jean Ch éradame, a 16th century Hebrew and Hellenist scholar. A large folio organised into three sections, which comprise  Ars etymologica ,  Etymi paedion    an alphabetical dictionary of the Greek language   and  Farrago libellorum    a collection of booklets by Greek grammarians on subjects such as  De Notis Arithmeticis  and  De Numero Graecorum . The preface contains a reflection on linguistic history, with reference particularly to Hebrew as well as Latin and Greek. Ch éradame considers the origin of language to be the utterances of God, which were then heard and learnt by Adam to create a  lingua sancta . In  Farrago libellorum , Ch éradame includes expositions on different forms of the Greek language, including  De Ionica Lignua ,  De Attica Lingua , and  De Lingua Dorica , among others. These sections are in both Latin and Greek. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Ch éradame is the author of numerous titles, including Alphabetum linguae sanctae (1532), and Rudimenta quaedam Hebraicae grammatic_ (1523). Gabriel-Henri Gaillard said of Ch éradame:  We don t know his French name; that of Ch éradame is an allegorical Greek name by which he claimed to express his ardour to overcome the difficulties of study; he also took the name Hippocrates, apparently because he had studied medicine. This man does not appear to have been modest; he is too little known for the names and praise he gives himself  (Gabriel-Henri Gaillard, History of François the First, Saillant and Nyon, Paris, vol. VII, 1769, p. 332-333). In this medical capacity, Ch éradame published one of the first treatises on syphilis in 1519 (Codo‚àö¬±er, J., 2016, page 261). One of the first Greek teachers at the Coll√®ge de France, he also published a number of grammars of Greek, as well as Lexicon Graecum (Paris, 1523). The present work, dedicated to King Francis I, followed 20 years later and was intended to supplement the Lexicon Graecum.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CHÉRADAME, Jean","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820351168847,"sku":"L3528","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/2021-09-29-15.01.47-1.jpg?v=1781794796"},{"product_id":"hulsius-levinus-2","title":"HULSIUS, Levinus.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.This copy belonged to the young Johannetta Elisabeth (1593-1654) von Nassau-Dillenburg, aged ten in 1603, the date of the ex-libris. That her father s arms were stamped on the upper board suggests it was a gift for her French lessons. Her ex-libris casts her as  fr‚àö¬ßulein zu Nassau Catzenelnbogen . Her father from whom the later House of Orange-Nassau, including William III of England, descends was Johann VI, Graf (Count) of Nassau-Dillenburg (and Katzenelnbogen-Diez), and brother of William the Silent, first Prince of Orange.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n . .A very good, unsophisticated copy of the scarce second edition of this French-German dictionary, with a four-verse prefatory poem by Pierre de Ronsard. .Born in Belgium, the polymath Levinus Hulsius (1546-1606) settled in Nuremberg in the late 1580s, became a notary, one of the earliest traders in mathematical-astronomical instruments, and, from 1596, a writer and publisher of scientific books, dictionaries and geographical works such as a Latin and German edition of Sir Walter Raleigh s  Description of Guiana . The scant copies that survive, especially of the early editions, suggest Hulsius s dictionary was extremely popular, and copies were quickly worn out by use. Whilst the 1596 edition of this French-German dictionary was in quarto, with a German preface, this second was a pocket version, with a French preface. The French material is based on Mellema s French-Dutch dictionary (1592); Hulsius s became, in turn, the main source for subsequent trilingual and quadrilingual dictionaries. The interesting first section comprises a study of French and German pronunciation, which sheds light on their phonetic changes over time, and the history of their teaching for practical use. It is followed by a brief survey of French and German grammar and syntax, and the two lexical parts. Among the everyday words included are  Alchymie, autrement dite Chymie  translated as  die kunst Golt zumachen  (the art of making gold),  Alcoran des Turcs  as  das Gesezbuch der Turcken  (the law book of the Turks), and colours among the most difficult concepts in translation (e.g.,  Himmelblaw  rendered as  Asur Celestin  or, more literally,  couleur du Ciel ). The young owner highlighted only one word:  espouantable  (dreadful).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HULSIUS, Levinus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859629285711,"sku":"L3539","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-14_2888c0ac-2a2c-4cba-8a35-f7e14aa9fb1c.jpg?v=1781793798"},{"product_id":"alunno-francesco-1","title":"ALUNNO, Francesco.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Attractive second edition, improved and enlarged, of Alunno s important concordance of Petrarch s vocabulary, handsomely bound for the English diplomat and bibliophile Sir William Pickering (1516   1575). Pickering was  Knight Marshal to Henry VIII ( ) He was educated at Cambridge. In 1539 he was a Gentleman in Waiting to Henry VIII and is said to have served in the war at Calais. He was knighted at the coronation of Edward VI, and sent on a special embassy to France in 1551. Later that year he returned to Paris as a permanent Ambassador, being recalled a month after Mary s accession in 1553. Involved in plots against the Spanish marriage, he found it prudent to travel in Italy and Germany, returning in 1555. Elizabeth employed him as her ambassador to the Netherlands and Germany in 1558 1559, and he was even mentioned as a possible husband for the Queen.  (BAB, Pickering, William, Sir). Pickering was a noted collector with a particular taste for Italian books   these constitute the majority of his surviving library   many of which he probably acquired during a trip to Venice in the 1550s.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Francesco Alunno (or De Bailo, 1485-1556) was an Italian grammarian and writer of Ferrara. While working as a teacher of arithmetic and calligraphy in Udine and then in Venice, Alunno composed and published a series of impressive lexicographic works, culminating in his  La fabbrica del mondo  a comprehensive vocabulary of Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio and other Italian writers.  Le osservationi sopra il Petrarca , first published in 1539, is Alunno s first work. A vast glossary of Petrarchan words in alphabetical order,  Le osservationi  provides definitions for each word or difficult expression, a quotation from Petrarch showing its use in context, advice on when to use different spellings, and page reference numbers to the printed edition of Petrarch s works published by Gherardo the same year. This second edition was considerably enriched with more entries and corrected in many places by the author. Also added are a few of letters attesting to Alunno s relations with Venetian writers and printers (e.g. Girolamo Ruscelli), as well as an entertaining fictitious epistolary exchange between Petrarch and the author, with Petrarch s letter at the beginning and Alunno s response at the end of the work. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The woodcut portrait of the author was employed for various works by Alunno and designed for the first edition of  Le osservationi ; for this edition, the cartouche title was recut. The beautiful full-page allegorical woodcut depicts Mercury, bent over a plow pulled by Pegasus by the light of an oil lamp suspended from the branch of a laurel tree. In the foreground, a dog and a crane stand at the sides of a dry trunk. This enigmatic image, which only appears in a handful of books, has been identified as the mark or emblem of the venetian printer Marcantonio Magno (c. 1480-1549), which was then adopted by Paolo Gherardo after Magno s death. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Remarkably, not all books from Pickering s library had armorial bindings, and  most of the surviving books have the armorial stamps in a strangely mutilated state, in which the hurts [roundels] have been scratched from the chevron and the resulting gaps have been filled with liquid gold  (BAB). The binding of this copy is beautifully preserved, with the original gilt stamp (BAB, Stamp 3) in clean and clear impression. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Philip Dormer Stanhope (1694-1773) was a British statesman, diplomat and man of letters. He is  chiefly remembered as the author of Letters to His Son and Letters to His Godson   guides to manners, the art of pleasing, and the art of worldly success. ( ) Chesterfield s winning manners, urbanity, and wit were praised by many of his leading contemporaries, and he was on familiar terms with Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Voltaire. He was the patron of many struggling authors but had unfortunate relations with one of them, Samuel Johnson, who condemned him in a famous letter (1755) attacking patrons. Johnson further damaged Chesterfield s reputation when he described the Letters as teaching  the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.  Dickens later caricatured him as Sir John Chester in Barnaby Rudge (1841)  (Encyclopaedia Britannica).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ALUNNO, Francesco.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859655139663,"sku":"L3740","price":13500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_1923.jpg?v=1781793714"},{"product_id":"erasmus-with-erasmus-with-solinus-and-wildenberg-hyeronimus","title":"ERASMUS. [with] ERASMUS. [with] SOLINUS. [and] WILDENBERG, Hyeronimus.","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery good, unsophisticated copies of four works, in three scarce and one incunabular edition, extensively annotated by students from the time of the Reformation and for a few decades. The binding decoration points to southern Germany, and the latest recorded owner, Hannibal Schmid von Wellenstein (1601-73) was Prince of F√ºssen, in Bavaria, the state where this sammelband appears to have remained at least until the C19. A marginal gloss says  1528 post pascha , i.e., 1528 Second Sunday after Easter. .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Pupils in early modern Germany were under no formal obligation to stay at one school and follow a particular programme of study through from beginning to end, [...] pupils picked and chose from the offer of early modern schools. Apart from the differences in tuition apparent from curricula, the textbooks used also differed widely from one school to the next, allowing teachers to employ quite different teaching methods. This was even more so the case as far as private tuition was concerned (often taught by the schoolteachers themselves and without which it was very difficult at some institutions to pass the end-of-year exam)  (Ross, pp. 316, 328). The present copy may have been a  Latin  (or grammar) school library s copy, used by different students in the course of several decades; or it may have been in the library of the Princes of F√ºssen - which would explain the sudden presence of a Venetian incunable among cheap student editions - and used by generations of Wellenstein boys under the supervision of a private tutor. All annotators mostly followed the same programme, including Book I of  De copia verborum ,  Querela pacis  and  Encomium matrimonii ; a later annotator slaved over Solinus s work. Erasmus was  the most influential textbook writer in the C16  (Chomarat). This sammelband includes his widely-read  De copia verborum , first published in 1512 and suggesting textual embellishment based on tropes and rhetorical figures, as well as  Querela Pacis , a complaint of personified Peace, and three orations on death, marriage and the medical profession. Sold and printed separately, these last four were here published together probably following the most common school curricula. Solinus s  De mirabilibus mundi  - a compendium of the ancient wonders of the world   was a favourite for teaching, with a chapter on the peoples of remote countries. Hieronymus Wildenberg s (fl. C16) dictionary of synonyms was the perfect instrument for schoolboys, providing half a dozen Latin synonyms for each German word.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy sheds light on how different C16 students tackled the same passages, in the course of a couple of decades. The earliest annotator provided glosses or short summaries, interlinear Latin paraphrases, as well as reference to Quintilian, Sallust, Ovid and Cicero, which he was likely studying at the time. He noted the occasional Greek word with its Latin meaning. He was especially interested in grammar, syntax and rhetoric, e.g., the four types of  consolatio , the interpretation of Homeric or Virgilian passages (e.g., on Ulysses, Circes s poisons). He glossed  Querela Pacis ,  De morte  and  De matrimonium  extensively, also with what may be a rigmarole on Latin names for animals:  Elephanti oves \/ Boves et granchi , etc. Two other contemporary annotators, writing in clear cursive, focused on Book I of  De copia verborum , using previous annotations as guidelines, and adding to them, with a focus on grammar and rhetoric (e.g., what is an  argumentum ). One added  Papista papisticus Lutheranum  to one margin. A third, who signed a gloss  1528 , also wrote in red ink and is probably responsible for the careful rubrication and underlining of previous annotations   an interesting instance of how students interacted with their predecessors  work. He slaved over Erasmus s list of names and related adjectives used for  comparatio , with detailed cross-references to Homer, Euripides, Pliny, Plato, and others. The c.mid-C16 hand of the Solinus annotator appears nowhere else. The rubrication and red underlining in the same ink as the notes make us wonder whether this was somehow part of the school exercise, to make the text clearer. He added occasional interlinear paraphrases, and appears to have been as interested in the chapter on the antiquities of Rome as that on menstruation and human birth, and on the history of Italy. A unique sammelband.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ERASMUS. [with] ERASMUS. [with] SOLINUS. [and] WILDENBERG, Hyeronimus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859668672847,"sku":"L4116","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4116-1.jpg?v=1781793681"},{"product_id":"xavier-hieronimus-de-dieu-lodewijk-with-xavier-hieronimus-de-dieu-lodewijk-and-de-dieu-lodewijk","title":"XAVIER, Hieronimus; DE DIEU, Lodewijk. [with] XAVIER, Hieronimus; DE DIEU, Lodewijk. [and] DE DIEU, Lodewijk.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA most interesting C17 sammelband for students of Persian, including the first-ever printed grammar of Persian, and Persian translations of the lives of Christ and St Peter, all overseen by Lodewijk de Dieu. ‘The Elzevirs had 8 special journeymen and 5 correctors working only for the oriental press. They were all inscribed as students of the university. […] Between 1626 and 1642 they produced 13 well-printed books, most of which were published for the students of Hebrew and oriental languages at the university’ (‘Leiden’, 38-9). The Persian type, like the Arabic, was probably purchased by Isaac from the press of the great orientalist Thomas Erpenius, together with Syriac, Ethiopic and Samaritan types; the Hebrew type was the same used at the Plantin press under Franciscus Raphelengius, former professor of Hebrew at Leiden (McKitterick, ‘History’, 184).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLodewijk de Dieu (1590-1642) was a Dutch Protestant minister and a major scholar of oriental languages trained at Leiden and, in Persian, by the collector Jacob Golius. For the Leiden students and scholars for whom it was produced, his Persian grammar – here the third work, printed on large paper – was the first such reference work available, as other important projects, undertaken at the Medici Oriental Press in Rome, had remained in ms. Most importantly, Dieu understood that ‘the verbal system of Persian is completely different from that of Arabic’, as well as ‘the fundamental structural difference between those two languages’ (‘Or. Suec.’, 175). The work comprises sections on the basic elements of Persian, verbs, tenses, conjugations and aspects, nouns, cases, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections (with the odd translation into ‘Belgice’ using Gothic type). The last four ll. contain the first two chapters of Genesis translated by Jacob Tawusus (fl. C16), as they appeared in the first Persian edition of the Pentateuch (Constantinople, 1546).\u003c\/p\u003e \n\n \u003cp\u003eThe first and second works are Persian translations of the lives of Christ and St Peter, for the use of missionaries. Edited and translated into Latin by de Dieu, they were written, in collaboration with Abdu-s-sattar al-Qasim, by the Jesuit Jerome Xavier, born Jerónimo de Ezpeleta y Goñi (1549-1617). Xavier lived at the Mughal court of Akbar (1542-1605), who commissioned the works, and later under Akbar’s son Jahangir. De Dieu added a preface explaining that Xavier had added numerous ‘heretical’ passages to the life of Christ, from apocryphal material, seeking to undermine the Jesuit approach to the (not always faithful) translation of sacred texts.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"XAVIER, Hieronimus; DE DIEU, Lodewijk. [with] XAVIER, Hieronimus; DE DIEU, Lodewijk. [and] DE DIEU, Lodewijk.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868681773391,"sku":"L4305","price":5950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5003-copy.jpg?v=1781793475"},{"product_id":"percival-richard-with-minsheu-john","title":"PERCIVAL, Richard [with] MINSHEU, John.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good edition of the first significant Spanish-English dictionary and English language Spanish grammar, appearing for the first time here with Minsheu s Pleasant and Delightfull Dialogues. The former two works were originally paired by Percival in his  Bibliotheca Hispanica  of 1591, for which much of the preliminary work was completed by Dr Thomas D Oylie (c. 1548-1603) of St Bartholomew s, brother-in-law of Francis Bacon and acolyte of Robert Dudley. Percival (1550-1620) was a politician and scholar of Spanish whose extravagance and choice of wife catalysed his disinheritance by his father. He lived only four years in Spain, with any prospect of return dashed by the onset of war, but made himself useful during the conflict as a negotiator, interrogation interpreter, and translator of secret documents, which included packets containing the first sure intelligence of the forthcoming Armada. He was later secretary to Robert Cecil and went on to hold a range of courtly and parliamentary positions. Minsheu (1560-1627), who greatly expanded Percival s work, was an impoverished lexicographer whose own writings saw publication only thanks to the patronage of his wealthier friends.  \u003cbr\u003e\n The comprehensive grammar section commences with an interesting list of general observations, showing the evolution of  modern  Spanish words from the earlier Latin, and Minsheu s dialogues contain phrases from Spanish texts popular in late C16 England. Although the works are now more commonly found separately, they should ideally be together, as here.  \u003cbr\u003e\n This edition has passed through the libraries of Algernon Capell (1670-1710), 2.nd. Earl of Essex and Privy Counsellor to Queen Anne, and William Alfred Westropp Foyle (1885-1963), co-founder of Foyles bookshop,  The People s Bookshop . Foyle owned of one of the largest English private libraries of the 20.th. century, at Beeleigh Abbey, whose contents became the single most valuable collection of books ever sold at auction, by Christies in July 2000.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PERCIVAL, Richard [with] MINSHEU, John.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868707365199,"sku":"L4364a","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20250123_184141-copy.jpg?v=1781793429"},{"product_id":"cresci-giovanni-francesco","title":"CRESCI, Giovanni Francesco.","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne of the most superb, perhaps the finest, of the Italian writing manuals  (Osley, p.72). This is its second edition, all early eds surviving in less than a dozen copies. At least two undated issues of the second edition are recorded, priority not established. This copy is without the 1571 papal privilege, confirming its 1570 printing date. Giovanni Francesco Cresci (fl. 2..nd.. half of the C16) was appointed papal scribe in the Vatican Library in the 1550s, which he left in 1570. In 1560, he published his first calligraphic manual,  Il Perfetto Scrittore , first printed in 1570, being his second. His fame rested on popularising a revised style of cancelleresca, developing from Palatino s. The woodblocks were cut by the Spaniard Francesco Aureri da Crema. The final alphabet was engraved on copperplates, and it is  apparently the first example of copperplate engraving in an Italian writing book  (Osley, p.78). \u003cbr\u003e\n Part I comprises dozens of samples (texts, alphabets, and abbreviations) of the most important handwriting style and an introduction to good teaching methods for calligraphy. Among the scripts, each prefaced by a short introduction, are the cancelleresca, tonda, ecclesiastica (used for missals, antiphonaries, etc.), bollatica (used solely by Apostolic Scribes), mercantile bastarda (for letters and account books), and the lettera francese (for legal documents). His handwriting manuals were immediately popular throughout Europe, hence their scarcity.  From the late C16 onwards, Cresci s cancelleresca formatella tended to be used in England instead of formal Palatinian Italic [...] identified as  Roman . [...] [It] performed a very similar cultural function to that performed by Palatinian italic: the association with women, children, and scholars remained in place' (Gibson, pp.43-5). Part II is devoted to Roman and decorated initials, with an initial introduction on the subject   23 cut white-on-black, 23 cut white-on-grey, and 23 engraved. The difference in inking between the black-on-white and grey-on-white letters of Part II was the result of careful thinking in terms of perception and production. Cresci was aware that the white-on-black letters were  vulnerable to the excess inking of the day  and was perhaps aware that  the white-on-black alphabet, with its dazzling contrasts, interfered with perception  (Anderson, p.xxi). The engraved letter B was pricked with a needle early on, likely by an early owner transferring it onto fabric for embroidery or onto card for painting. A very attractive work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CRESCI, Giovanni Francesco.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868708741455,"sku":"L4550","price":5250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/23-cresci-1.jpg?v=1781793422"},{"product_id":"sennert-andreas","title":"SENNERT, Andreas.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA most interesting copy of the first edition of this famous Arabic grammar printed in Wittenberg   with extensive annotations from a learned scholar c.1680-90. Western annotations in Arabic at this date are most uncommon. Son of the physician Daniel Sennert, Andreas (1606-89) was a pupil of the renowned Arabist Johannes Golius, and professor of Oriental Languages and librarian at Wittenberg from 1640 until his death.  [He] had a significant impact in shaping the further course of studies in Hebrew and Oriental languages [...]. He had a special interest in Arabic [...] not only as an additional philological tool for interpreting the Old Testament but also because of its importance as a still living language and a means for direct access to the scientific writings of the Arabs  (Miletto, p.17).   Arabismus  is an Arabic grammar explained comparatively. It includes chapters on the Arabic script, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and numbers, and is followed by an Arabic-Latin dictionary, based on Germanus   Fabrica Linguae Arabicae  (1639) and al-Firuzabadi's C14  Qamus . The copious annotations, produced by a knowledgeable scholar c.1680-90, are a treasure trove on early Arabic studies. The closest appears to be the hand of Adriaan Reland (1676-1718), the famous Dutch orientalist, professor at Utrecht.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Among the (Protestant) sources mentioned by the annotator are Edward Pococke s  Oratio  in  Carmen Tograi  (1661), Wasmuth s (1654) and Erpenius  grammars, Cappel s  Arcanum punctuationis  (1624), but also the Arabic Gospels (Rome, 1590\/1). The first notes discuss Arabic script in relation to the Hebrew, with a focus on the original absence of dots on Arabic letters. The annotator added Wasmuth s subdivision of the  awzaan  into three classes, and integrated a great number of examples (e.g., the use of  fatha  in the negated future, diptote noun rules, plurals, a reference to a word used in the Tamimi dialect, etc.) from Erpenius  grammar, which he cross-referenced so frequently and carefully as to make it possible to identify the edition, that of 1656. The annotator even compared a section on the plurals of nouns with quadriliteral roots mentioning that Erpenius, Golius, Wasmuth, and Sennert himself used examples 'not to the point , unlike E. Castell in  Lexicon Heptaglotton  (1669) (p.48). He profusely annotated the chapter on apophonic vowel changes of ya, waw and alif, commenting on Wasmuth s explanation and Giggeius  in  Thesaurus linguae arabicae  (1632). He had access to a very specialised library, including books not present at Wittenberg (as per Sennert s catalogue dated 1678), e.g., T. Hackspan s  Fides et leges Mohammaedis  (1646) (of which he mentions p.27  if one adds the page numbers ; indeed, the book s pages are unnumbered).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SENNERT, Andreas.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710314319,"sku":"L4724","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4724-titlepage.png?v=1781793409"},{"product_id":"germanus-domenicus","title":"GERMANUS, Domenicus.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first Arabic-Italian grammar and phrasebook, produced by the Propaganda Fide press in Rome   formerly in the library of the Franciscan mission in Egypt.  In 1630, Friar Paolo da Lodi was nominated the first prefectus missionis Aegypti. He [...] took up residence in the Venetian embassy and succeeded in setting up residence for the friars in a house just outside the diplomatic compound. [...] The friary of Cairo became the seat of the prefect, and at the end of the century, an institute for the study of Oriental languages was opened there. In 1632 the Congregation de Propaganda Fide established a Franciscan prefecture in Ethiopia [...]. Upon their arrival in Egypt, they approached the Coptic patriarchate and visited the monasteries of St Antony and St Macarius to perfect their knowledge of Arabic' (Van Zeelst). \u003cbr\u003e\n The Polish Franciscan Domenicus Germanus (1588-1670) was a missionary and teacher of Arabic in Rome, at the Monastery of San Pietro in Montorio.  Fabrica  was intended as an introduction to colloquial Arabic in relation to Italian, for Germanus  own students and future missionaries in the Middle East. He begins by stating that  those who wish to learn a foreign language must needs become children again ; in particular, for Arabic, it is important to pronounce it correctly, due to the numerous difficult letters. The work begins from the basics   letter forms, pronunciation, diacritics   followed by the Holy Father, the Commandments, Salve Regina, the Confession, the Professio Fidei, in Arabic and Latin (not the  Protestant  Italian here!). The second part discusses nouns, participles, pronouns, and verbs, adjusting the three Arabic grammatical cases to the six Latin ones, with examples involving a man named Zaid, as found in medieval Arabic grammars such as Sibawayh s. In so doing, Germanus introduces everyday vocabulary which the students could assimilate whilst learning the grammar.  The  vernacular Arabic\" was considered by these authors as a spoken and written language. In order to explain the relationship between the two forms of Arabic to their students, they also referred to the parallel between Latin and Italian. This  vernacular Arabic  seems to be a hybrid language, mixing up the characteristics of standard Arabic and specificities of the Near Eastern dialects: a form of the language known as  middle Arabic , widely used in the Near East until the Nah¬∑‚àèça (Arabic awakening)  (Girard, pp.205-6). Germanus  colloquial was based on the Levantine. Whilst it preserves here some of the classical grammar (e.g.,  lan  to negate the future), it displays constructions and vocabulary, such as  lamma  for  when  and  b ad m∆í√Ö  for  b ad  an , which are more frequent in Levantine. A final section explains how to read Arabic when diacritics (short vowels) are absent, which will happen nearly most of the time. A most interesting, important work. \u003cbr\u003e\n Formerly in the collection of Juan P érez de Guzm‚àö¬∞n y Boza, Duque de T Serclaes (1852-1934), Spanish historian, politician, and bibliophile. He amassed one of the most important private libraries in Spain, dispersed after his death. After the Civil War, the part donated by the family to the National Library of Spain was reclaimed and later dispersed (BNE).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GERMANUS, Domenicus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710936911,"sku":"L4758","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/germanus-L4758-1.jpg?v=1781793404"},{"product_id":"germanus-domenicus-1","title":"GERMANUS, Domenicus.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first Arabic-Italian grammar and phrasebook  produced by the Propaganda Fide press in Rome   formerly in the library of the Franciscan mission in Egypt.  In 1630, Friar Paolo da Lodi was nominated the first prefectus missionis Aegypti. He [...] took up residence in the Venetian embassy and succeeded in setting up residence for the friars in a house just outside the diplomatic compound. [...] The friary of Cairo became the seat of the prefect, and at the end of the century, an institute for the study of Oriental languages was opened there. In 1632 the Congregation de Propaganda Fide established a Franciscan prefecture in Ethiopia [...]. Upon their arrival in Egypt, they approached the Coptic patriarchate and visited the monasteries of St Antony and St Macarius to perfect their knowledge of Arabic' (Van Zeelst). \u003cbr\u003e\n The Polish Franciscan Domenicus Germanus (1588-1670) was a missionary and teacher of Arabic in Rome, at the Monastery of San Pietro in Montorio.  Fabrica  was intended as an introduction to colloquial Arabic in relation to Italian, for Germanus  own students and future missionaries in the Middle East. He begins by stating that  those who wish to learn a foreign language must needs become children again ; in particular, for Arabic, it is important to pronounce it correctly, due to the numerous difficult letters. The work begins from the basics   letter forms, pronunciation, diacritics   followed by the Holy Father, the Commandments, Salve Regina, the Confession, the Professio Fidei, in Arabic and Latin (not the  Protestant  Italian here!). The second part discusses nouns, participles, pronouns, and verbs, adjusting the three Arabic grammatical cases to the six Latin ones, with examples involving a man named Zaid, as found in medieval Arabic grammars such as Sibawayh s. In so doing, Germanus introduces everyday vocabulary which the students could assimilate whilst learning the grammar.  The  vernacular Arabic\" was considered by these authors as a spoken and written language. In order to explain the relationship between the two forms of Arabic to their students, they also referred to the parallel between Latin and Italian. This  vernacular Arabic  seems to be a hybrid language, mixing up the characteristics of standard Arabic of the Near Eastern dialects: a form of the language known as  middle Arabic , widely used in the Near East until the Nah¬∑‚àèça (Arabic awakening)  (Girard, pp.205-6). Germanus  colloquial was based on the Levantine. Whilst it preserves some classical grammar (e.g.,  lan  to negate the future), it displays constructions and vocabulary, such as  lamma  for  when  and  b ad m∆í√Ö  for  b ad  an , which are more frequent in Levantine. A final section explains how to read Arabic when diacritics (short vowels) are absent, which often happens. A most interesting, important work. \u003cbr\u003e\n Formerly in the collection of Juan P érez de Guzm‚àö¬∞n y Boza, Duque de T Serclaes (1852-1934), Spanish historian, politician, and bibliophile. He amassed one of the most important private libraries in Spain, dispersed after his death. After the Civil War, the part  donated  by the family to the National Library of Spain was reclaimed and later dispersed (BNE).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GERMANUS, Domenicus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868712804687,"sku":"L4555","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/germanus-L4555-1.jpg?v=1781793392"},{"product_id":"chevallier-antoine-rodolphe","title":"CHEVALLIER, Antoine Rodolphe","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this Hebrew alphabet compiled by the French Huguenot humanist Antoine Chevallier (1523-72), the first book printed by Henri Estienne using Hebrew type. \u003cbr\u003e\n Following the alphabet, which gives the forms of the individual letters, the pronunciation and force of the syllables, their likely conjunctions and their different accents, as well as punctuation and the Hebrew numbers, Chevallier gives the Hebrew versions of the decalogue or ten commandments, Lord s Prayer, creed, and various Jewish and Christian prayers, all glossed in Latin. The  colophon  is Christ s INRI title given in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.   \u003cbr\u003e\n Chevallier was made Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge University in 1569, lectured in Hebrew at St. Paul s Cathedral, and had been tutor in French and Hebrew to Queen Elizabeth I before her accession. He escaped the St. Bartholomew s Day Massacre in Paris in 1572 but died in Guernsey in the same year.    \u003cbr\u003e\n The work s rarity is attested by the lack of information in the bibliographies: Steinschneider had not seen a copy, since he lists it within brackets in his Catalogus Bibliotheca Bodleiana.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CHEVALLIER, Antoine Rodolphe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868717883727,"sku":"L4836","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4836-Chevallier-1.jpg?v=1781793366"},{"product_id":"carochi-horacio","title":"CAROCHI, Horacio.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition of this influential grammar of the Nahuatl or Aztec language by the Jesuit Horacio Carochi (1586-1666), dedicated to Juan de Ma‚àö¬±ozca y Zamora (1580-1650), Archbishop of Mexico. The book deals with names, prepositions, verbs, comparatives and superlatives, adverbs and conjunctives and contains a wealth of Nahuatl vocabulary. It was instrumental in visualizing the  saltillo,  i.e. the Nahuatl glottal stop, with a grave accent, e.g. √®. It remained a standard work on the language and was reprinted in Mexico in 1759...\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n..The first book printed in the New World was in Nahuatl:  One of the main reasons for the establishment of a printing press in Mexico centred around the need for materials to aid in the  spiritual conquest  of the area, the conversion of the conquered Aztec empire to Christianity. Thus it should come as no surprise that one of the first, if not the first, book printed in Mexico would be in Nahuatl. Throughout the next three centuries, the Nahuatl language continued to occupy a position of importance in the output of Mexican presses  (John Frederick Schwaller,  A Catalogue of pre-1840 Nahuatl Works Held by the Lilly Library  in The Indiana University Bookman, No. 2 (1973), p. 69. ..\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n..There are legal records dating to the late C17th and early C18th in city of Toluca referring to a man by the name of Domingo Martinez de Castro; there is also a record of a man by this name whose sister, a nun, applied for custody of a slave.  .. .\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAROCHI, Horacio.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868719620431,"sku":"L4768","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4768-carochi-2.jpg?v=1781793360"},{"product_id":"kircher-athanasius-3","title":"KIRCHER, Athanasius.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher s (c.1600-80) groundbreaking linguistic study on the derivation of the Coptic language from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the first printed grammar of the Coptic language, with the Lord s Prayer in parallel Coptic and Latin, a typographical tour-de-force comparing Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Chaldean, Samaritan, Estrangelo and even Chinese scripts, with illustrated examples of the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptians. It preceded by more than a decade his magnum opus on ancient Egypt, the Oedipus Aegyptiacus, for which Kircher provides a detailed 6-page plan or  idea  at the end of this work.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Kircher used his study of Coptic to slip in a recent and exciting discovery. In 1625, much excitement had been generated among Jesuit missionaries in China by the excavation of an C8th AD stone tablet, the Xi An Stele, with a long inscription in Chinese and shorter texts in Syriac, giving a history of the activities of Syriac Christians in China. This extraordinary discovery seemed providential: the Jesuits had been searching for proof of ancient Christianity in China ever since Matteo Ricci s arrival in 1582, and considered the stele to be divine justification of their mission. Kircher, in the Prodromus, not only illustrated for the first time a small part of the stele, the plaquette at the top with nine Chinese characters, but was the first to bring widespread attention to the text, despite his being unable to read Chinese. He provided a complete translation of the text into Latin, derived from an original translation into Portuguese, and also reproduced, transliterated and translated the Syriac inscriptions, which contain a few Chinese characters reproduced in woodcut. Kircher simply noted that they represent  names and offices.    \u003cbr\u003e\n Kircher slightly fudged the origins of the ancient Chinese Christians to create a narrative in which Coptic had influenced other early Christian languages and even Chinese, thus tracing the origins of many of these Christian languages to the ancient Egyptians. This was also the basis for Kircher s interesting comparison between Christian theology, the Jewish Cabbala, and ancient Egyptian symbology, based on his reading of hieroglyphs. He notes for example that the resurrected Christ was like the Egyptian scarab beetle, that  most vile, foul and repulsive insect,  which is in the Egyptian cosmology eternally reborn, as he illustrates in a wonderful woodcut of the Egyptian cosmos. It is unclear from where Kircher derived these hieroglyphs, but his sources for Coptic included biblical texts in the Vatican Library, which he describes here, several Coptic manuscripts given to him by his friend and patron, the French astronomer Nicolas Claude Fabri de Pereisc (1580-1637), and an Arabic-Coptic vocabulary brought from Egypt by the Italian composer and traveller Pietro della Valle (1586-1652).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"KIRCHER, Athanasius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868722241871,"sku":"L4812","price":7950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"gesner-conrad-with-sabbio-stefano-da","title":"GESNER, Conrad. (With) SABBIO, Stefano da.","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-GB\"\u003eFascinating sammelband of two closely related works on ancient linguistics, one a first edition of Conrad Gesner’s work on the development of languages, including the gypsy dialect Rotwelsch, dedicated to John Barclay, Bishop of Ossory, the other the extremely rare third edition, first published 1527, of the first dictionary of vernacular Greek, from the library of the French historian and bibliophile Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1533-1617). \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-GB\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second work, by the Venetian printer da Sabbio, under the Greek name of Stephanos Chrysimos, constitutes the first attempt to produce a dictionary of modern, vernacular Greek. It is unsurprising that Venice should have been the locale for such an effort, given the Republic’s frequent trading contacts with Greek merchants. It contains an alphabet with phonetic pronunciation, a brief description of vowels, diphthongs (of which there are twelve, divided into ‘proper,’ i.e. those known to be used in ancient times, and ‘improper,’ i.e. those introduced through modern custom), and consonants. There then follow Greek versions of the Lord’s prayer and Hail Mary transliterated phonetically into Roman script, and Latin versions transliterated back into phonetic Greek, the former providing a useful indication of contemporary pronunciation and corresponding orthography. Designed principally for Italian users, the dictionary is arranged alphabetically by Italian words, which are then provided in transliterated ‘vulgar’ or vernacular Greek, Latin, and finally literary or ancient Greek, below which all four words are transliterated phonetically into Greek script. Occasionally the Greek terms coincide (as do the Italian, Latin and literary Greek), but in many instances they differ entirely. ‘Horse,’ for example, is rendered as ‘alogo’ in vernacular Greek and ‘hippos’ the ancient language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGesner’s work is a suitable accompaniment, being a study of the development of ancient languages into various dialects, from which modern languages are derived, He notes in the introduction that many languages are simply corruptions of ancient Hebrew, and divides languages into classical and ‘barbarian,’ divine and ‘brutish.’ The work itself, an attempt to delineate the origins of every modern vernacular and ancient language, takes the form of an alphabetical catalogue of entries, often very brief and containing a few examples of words transliterated into Roman script. These include, inter alia, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Armenian, Babylonian, Scottish, Welsh, English, Persian, Sabine, Rhaetic or ‘Alpine,’ Punic, Hebrew (using Hebrew script), Etruscan, Cappadocian, Chaldaean, Circasian, Moscovite, Turkish, and ancient and vernacular Greek. Aimed at a scholarly audience – Gesner acknowledges the influence of contemporary authors including Sebastian Münster, Guillaume Postel and Theodore Bibliander – this work nonetheless (like the Corona) addresses a modern vernacular context: the longest entry by far is on the German language and the ancient Scythian origins of the German tribes, as well as its derivation from Gothic. At the rear Gesner reprints a glossary of words in high German and ‘Rotwelsch,’ a slang or thieves’ cant used by gypsies as well as beggars, vagabonds and drifters, designed to illustrate the development of dialects. Gesner includes Rotwelsch in his catalogue of fictitious or invented languages, alongside Thomas More’s verse tetrastichon in Utopian, transliterated here into Roman script, with the Latin translation. Gesner quotes Münster’s assertion that this ‘barbaric’ dialect was invented by gypsies, whom Gesner calls ‘misshapen people, blackened by the sun,’ appearing in Germany in 1417 and pretending to possess ancient origins. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe majority of de Thou’s books were simply bound with his coat of arms. After 1587 he ordered a new block to include the arms of his first wife, Marie de Barbançon-Cany (1587-1601), as well as a cipher joining their initials, IAM, which appears on the spine of this copy. De Thou’s library of around 9000 volumes was left after his death to his children, under the care of his fellow bibliophile Pierre Dupuy. In 1642 de Thou’s eldest son, François Auguste, was executed for his role in the Cinq-Mars conspiracy, after which possession of the library passed to his younger brother Jacques-Auguste II de Thou (1609-77), but in 1669 his creditors took possession of the library and commissioned a catalogue for sale, published eventually in 1679 as Catalogus bibliothecae Thuanae, where the book appears, with only the Gesner mentioned, on p. 209. In 1680 the library was purchased en bloc by the Marquis Jean-Jacques Charron de Ménars (1643-1714), then sold in 1706 to Cardinal Armand-Gaston-Maximilien de Rohan-Soubise (1674-1749), and finally dispersed after the death of Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise (1715-1787), through auction in 1789. The Soubise library shelfmarks and notation can be found in this copy on the pastedown and front board, and the book appears in the catalogue of the Soubise sale, again only with mention of the Gesner, as item 4311, p. 293.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-GB\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GESNER, Conrad. (With) SABBIO, Stefano da.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868722504015,"sku":"L4150","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"bocanegra-juan-perez","title":"BOCANEGRA, Juan P érez.","description":".Rare first edition of this guide to the ritual of the Catholic church in Lima in Spanish and Quechua, the Indigenous Peruvian language, with  the first piece of vocal, polyphony printed in any New World book,  the Quechua hymn to the Virgin Mary, Hanaq pachap kusikuynin, in four voice parts, composed sometime before 1622 (Robert Stevenson, Music in in Aztec \u0026amp; Inca Territory (Berkeley: 1968), p. 280). Plainchant notation had been printed in Mexico as early as 1556, anticipating by 142 years the publication of the 1698 edition of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book published in North America to contain printed music, but only monophonic bass parts. The first Quechua texts were printed around 1584-85, by the first printing press in Lima by the Jesuits in 1581. .\n.\n..Juan P érez Bocanegra (d. 1645) was a Spanish Franciscan who became expert in the Indigenous languages and culture of Peru. He taught Latin in Lima before moving to Cusco, where he served as cantor at the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, before becoming a parish priest in Andahuaylillas, where he commissioned extravagant baroque decorations for the church. When this manual was published, the Jesuits controlled his parish, and he crucially disagreed with them over doctrinal questions such as whether entire Indigenous communities should be confessed, as well as over translation into Quechua. The Jesuits preferred Spanish loan words that would avoid doctrinal confusion, while Bocanegra was sensitive to the Andean context, for example choosing to translate Dios into the name of the sacred mountain Huanacari. He possibly sought to avoid detection by preventing his Quechua and Spanish translations from aligning perfectly, providing simple Spanish paraphrases, or no Spanish translation at all (see Bruce Mannheim,  A Nation Surrounded  in Native Traditions in the Postconquest World (Dumbarton Oaks: 1998), p. 392). .. .\n.\n..The manual includes prefatory Latin poetry and a sonnet in Quechua, the Nicaean creed in Quechua, and the forms for the sacraments in parallel Quechua and Spanish: baptism; confirmation; penitence, with forms of confession for different sins including luxury, envy, etc., and against those who do not pay debts, commit incest, etc.; the Eucharist, including masses for Easter and the dead; extreme unction; and marriage. There follow forms for writing parish records, a brief catechism of Catholic doctrine in Quechua, prayers and hymns in Quechua, with the printed music, and a calendar of festival days.  .\nThis rare volume   is not noticed by Brunet, Ternaux, or Ludwig  (Sabin).","brand":"BOCANEGRA, Juan Pérez.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868722602319,"sku":"L4503","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage-2.png?v=1781793339"},{"product_id":"rosselli-cosimo","title":"ROSSELLI, Cosimo.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition of this fascinating and wonderfully illustrated treatise on memory, utilising visual aids including Heaven, Hell, and the celestial spheres   illustrating a memory system inspired by Dante s Divine Comedy   anatomical and zoological illustrations, and tables of contemporary objects and rebuses, as well as Persian and Hebrew alphabets, and an alphabetical sign language employing the hands. The author was a Dominican friar from Florence who died the year before this work, apparently his only output, was published. This copy has been extensively annotated by a contemporary, likely monastic reader, including four alphabetical memory lists, of ecclesiastical dignities, place names, body parts and corporeal qualities, and instruments and apparatuses... . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The Ars memoriae or art of memory has a history stretching to antiquity; the Greek poet Simonides is supposed to have invented it to memorise poems. Aristotle wrote extensively on memory, which the medieval scholastics understood as necessary for comprehension by the intellect and a useful tool for use in disputations. The Renaissance humanists, similarly, via Cicero and Quintilian, understood memoria as one of the five crucial parts of rhetoric. Rosselli s work precedes the most famous Renaissance works of memory, by the Italian polymath Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), by several years. Bruno s earliest book of memory, De umbris idearum, published in 1582, included a Dantesque vision of Hell, the celestial and terrestrial orders, and Heaven. Both Dominicans, Rosselli and Bruno were participating in a tradition of memory treatises associated with the religious order, the earliest being Johannes Romberch s Congestorium artificiosae memoriae of 1520, which also contained a Dantesque mnemonic system. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Rosselli begins with a prose description of Hell, accompanied by mnemonic Latin epigrams and quatrains by a fellow Dominican who was also an Inquisitor,  giving an impressive air of great orthodoxy to the artificial memory  (Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London: 1966), p. 122). Hell is illustrated with a superb woodcut (C4r) showing Lucifer in the centre surrounded by concentric circles of heretics, Jews, idolators, hypocrites, those guilty of the seven deadly sins, all encompassed by the river Styx, various Limbos, and Purgatory.  As Rosselli cheerfully observes,  the variety of punishments, inflicted in accordance with the diverse nature of the sins, the different situations of the damned, their varying gestures, will much help memory and give many loci  (Yates, p. 122). This is accompanied by descriptions with woodcut illustrations of the celestial and terrestrial spheres, and of Paradise or the Heavenly Jerusalem, the latter illustrated with a woodcut (K1v, duplicated N3r) showing Cherubim and Seraphim, the Tree and Fountain of Life, the Throne of Christ, Seat of the Virgin, and regions inhabited by children, Hebrew saints, martyrs, virgins, angels, princes, etc. The remainder consists of lists and sub-lists, often alphabetised: planets, the zodiac signs and months of the year; precious stones, gems and minerals derived from Albertus Magnus; animals, including those that live underground, quadrupeds, birds and insects, etc.; trees and plants, including fruit, gum, legumes and common names for herbs; the names of artificers and workmen; and ancient philosophers and thinkers, physicians and poets.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The contemporary reader (or readers) of this copy employed an elegant script possibly in two iterations, one of which is miniscule and barely legible. Evidently returning to the book on several occasions (see different tones of ink), they frequently corrected the woodcuts, headers and content of the book, and cross-referenced its various sections. The annotator using miniscule script extensively glossed Rosselli s lists of philosophers and gemstones, while the main annotator, in large script, not only added to the author s lists and annotated the woodcut tables, but also created their own alphabetical lists for memorisation. These are of ecclesiastical benefices; learned positions such as orator, jurisconsultus, etc.;  corporeal qualities  such as gibbosus, obesus, splendidus, etc.; and a fascinating and extensive list of hundreds of words, spreading over several pages, of  various instruments,  apparatuses, buildings, materials, tools, body parts, etc., apparently demonstrating some extremely obscure Latin vocabulary, and including baptisterium, candelabrum, enchiridion, forceps, membrana, refrigeratorium, tormentum, vinum album, xystus (colonnade) and zythus (a kind of liquor)..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ROSSELLI, Cosimo.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868722962767,"sku":"L4299","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage-1.png?v=1781793338"},{"product_id":"dieu-lodewijk-de-and-tawus-jacob","title":"DIEU, Lodewijk de and TAWUS, Jacob.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition of this Persian grammar printed with the first two books of Genesis in Persian, followed by two parallel Latin-Persian texts, apparently issued together (though often treated as separate works). The Genesis extracts are the first printed translation of any part of the Bible into Persian using Persian script, and this is only the second ever book printed in Persian. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.Dieu s grammar, written in Latin but with occasional examples given in Dutch, begins with the Persian alphabet, noting in particular those letters that are easily confused with one another, as well as the similarities and differences between Persian and Arabic orthography, noting pronunciation. The second book discusses verbs, third cases, tenses and adjectives, names, numbers and pronouns, while the fourth discusses adverbs, negations, demonstratives, interrogatives, prepositions, conjugations and interjections. The translator of the Genesis extracts was Jacob Tawus, a Persian translator who worked in Constantinople in the sixteenth century; his biblical translations had been printed in the Polyglot Bible published in Constantinople in 1546, but transliterated into Hebrew letters. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.The second part is a life of St. Peter derived from a  contaminated  source, while the final work, an equally corrupted account of the life of Christ, uses the Latin translation from a Persian text by Jeronimo Xavier, grand-nephew of Francis Xavier, who assisted in the foundation of the Jesuits. Jeronimo was a missionary in the Mughal courts in the first years of the C17th, where he learned Persian and spent time translating Persian texts. To both works, Dieu provides an extensive textual commentary, which criticises the accuracy of the text and in the latter case, Jeronimo s translation. With the second part are included two letters sent from Lahore in 1598, the first containing Jeronimo s brief history of the Mughals, the second an account by a fellow Jesuit of Jeronimo s describing the conversion of Muslims there to Christianity. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n. The history of early Persian printing with moveable type is inextricably intertwined with the development of Arabic types. Apart from the matter of stylistic preferences, a sixteenth-century Arabic type could be used to print Persian books merely by the addition of three dots to the existing (non-dotted) letterforms. For this reason, the gap of over a century between the publication of the first Arabic and the first Persian books cannot be due only to the lack of available printing types. It is better explained by   the role of Arabic as the prime language of Islam  (Borna Izadpanah,  Early Persian Printing and Typefounding in Europe  in Journal of the Printing Historical Society, 29 (2018), p. 89). Early efforts by Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1536-1614) at the Medici Oriental Press in Rome were never published. In 1633 (often erroneously dated earlier) the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide brought out a small   and very scarce   Persian grammar, Alphabetum Persicum, making Dieu s only the second book to be printed using Persian type.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..William Aspin was admitted a pensioner at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1652 and gained his DD in 1683. He was rector of Emberton in Buckinghamshire until his death in 1714. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DIEU, Lodewijk de and TAWUS, Jacob.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723552591,"sku":"L4813","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"mercier-jean","title":"MERCIER, Jean.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition of Jean Mercier s (1510-70) grammar of Chaldaean or biblical Aramaic, expanded from a work with a similar title that Mercier published in 1550 (only 18 ll.). This was the first full grammar of Aramaic to be published in France. Mercier was professor of Hebrew at the Coll√®ge Royale, where he succeeded François Vatable. He went into exile because of his Protestant sympathies but eventually returned to France, where he died of plague. The grammar begins with a brief note on the transliteration of Aramaic words into Hebrew script. After a quick summary of the alphabet, Mercier dives straight into verbs, which occupy the majority of the grammar, before eventually moving onto pronouns and numbers, etc. The grammar itself is followed by a work on abbreviations of Aramaic words as they appear in Talmudic and rabbinic texts. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MERCIER, Jean.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723618127,"sku":"L4837","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"cleynaerts-nicolas-with-caligny-alain-restauld-de","title":"CLEYNAERTS, Nicolas. (With) CALIGNY, Alain Restauld de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwo very rare Hebrew grammars, the first a scarce edition of Cleynaert s extremely popular Hebrew grammar, first published 1529, bound with the second recorded edition ( tertia editio  on title-page) of a rare grammar first published 1541. Both are aimed at beginners, starting with the alphabet. However, while Cleynaert spends a great deal of time on nouns and their declinations - his book must have been useful to learners principally because of its extensive tables of declinations, with attention to the changes in accents or punctuation - before moving onto verbs, de Caligny moves straight onto verbs, only then dealing with nouns as they are used in relation to verbs, adverbs, pronouns and prepositions, etc..\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCleynaerts, a wonderfully prolific author, was an eccentric figure who saw linguistic scholarship as a means of peaceful mediation between Christians, Jews and Muslims, as well as a means to proselytization. Educated at Leuven in his native Brabant, he first travelled in Spain, where he applied in vain to read Arabic manuscripts in the library of the Inquisition, before going to Fez in Morocco, where he insisted on living in the Jewish (rather than the official Christian) quarter. Despite suffering abuse from local Jews, he found some who were willing to teach him Arabic in return for tuition in Latin, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to buy Arabic books from the bookstalls of the Great Mosque, since non-Muslims were banned. He returned to Granada after just over a year, having suffered a great deal, and died there in 1542. He is buried in the Alhambra. De Caligny, about whom much less is known, was a Hebraist of Vatable s and Mercier's circle in the Coll√®ge Royale de Paris.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis copy shows engagement by several readers. One contemporary annotator demonstrates an understanding of Hebrew grammar, expressed in contradictions of Cleynaert, notably over pronunciation of diphthongs and certain syllables (p. 16). Another, the most extensive, clearly applied his studies to Talmudic or biblical scholarship, given references to the Psalms, Book of Ruth, etc.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CLEYNAERTS, Nicolas. (With) CALIGNY, Alain Restauld de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723716431,"sku":"L4835A","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"biancuzzi-benedetto","title":"BIANCUZZI, Benedetto.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this scarce Hebrew grammar including an examination of ancient and modern Hebrew scripts, illustrated in a woodcut table. The Roman Hebraist and theologian Biancuzzi evidently believed that study of biblical Hebrew could be a tool in proselytization and conversion of Jews; on one occasion, at the request of Pope Paul V, he delivered a sermon to Rome s Jewish community. The work was sponsored by, and is dedicated to, Bernardino Paulino, a high-ranking papal official whose arms are most likely those on the t-p, and was written in part for the benefit of his nephew, according to the dedicatory letter, which also refers to the recently established Scots College in Rome. There follow laudatory Latin poems addressed to Biancuzzi by two Paulinos, presumably the nephews of Bernardino. The other beneficiaries of Biancuzzi s work were the students at the gymnasium in Rome, where he was professor of languages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis grammar is more extensive than most, and deals with the pronunciation of Hebrew and reading of Hebrew texts, verbs, the  first part  of Hebrew speech, followed by nouns, the  second part , after which Biancuzzi discusses suffixes and prefixes, with changes that occur to nouns and verbs, followed by prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns, the servile or changeable letters, accents, numbers, etc. There is a section on the difficulties of poetic composition in Hebrew, with examples of Hebrew verse translated into Latin, and another on Hebrew syntax. Finally, Biancuzzi goes through the alphabet giving abbreviations commonly found in Rabbinic texts. There are extensive tables of examples of Hebrew words with Latin glosses or transliterations, with their biblical or Talmudic appearances provided where appropriate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe two pages of woodcut alphabets show Hebrew scripts as written by modern Jews in Arabia, Spain and Italy; Hebrew used in sacred texts; and antique Hebrew, both  ante  and  post transitum fluvii , i.e. before and after Abraham crossed the Euphrates. These apparently fanciful alphabets, supposedly derived from ancient coins - Biancuzzi invokes the famous numismatic collection of the Roman antiquarian Lelio Pasqualini (1549-1611) - must represent one of the very earliest attempts at the visual representation of antique, Abrahamic Hebrew, the existence of which had enticed scholars towards the end of the sixteenth century. There are also reproductions of Yahweh s name in the  post-Euphrates  script, examples of texts from coins and inscriptions, and from rabbinic texts from Italy, Arabia and Thessalonica in Greece. In reality these were probably Syriac, Amharic or Greek inscriptions from ancient Latin and Greek coins that scholars were eagerly adapting to their conception of a proto-Hebraic script.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BIANCUZZI, Benedetto.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723781967,"sku":"L4839c","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"cinquarbres-jean","title":"CINQUARBRES, Jean.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this scarce Hebrew grammar by Jean Cinquarbres (1514-87), also known as Quinquarboreo, a French Hebraist at the Collège Royale de France in Paris, where he worked alongside Jean Mercier (c.1510-70). They were part of a second generation of Hebrew studies following François Vatable (d.1547) and his circle. The grammar goes through the alphabet and its accents, nouns, verbs and their tenses, and pronouns, with sections on changes of punctuation and the function of the seven  servile  or changeable letters, finally dealing with numbers. Cinquarbres  examples have a distinctly royalist tone, perhaps chosen to indicate his loyalty and that of the Collège, e.g.  purple robes ,  King of France ,  royal lands ,  royal sceptre , etc., as well as his fixation on wine:  wine, or sicera ,  adulterated wine ,  vinitor vinearum , i.e. viticulturist, etc., and, perhaps related,  sleep of the teacher.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CINQUARBRES, Jean.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723814735,"sku":"L4839a","price":2350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"p-j-c-i-e-povel-jensen-colding","title":"P.J.C. [i.e. Povel Jensen Colding].","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery rare first and only edition of the first published Danish-Latin dictionary, by Tycho Brahe s (1546-1601) young assistant, who was briefly with Brahe in the last year of his life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe preface is dedicated to the Bishop of Zealand Hans Poulson Resen, who had placed his library collections at Colding s disposal. It refers to Colding s earlier work, Etymologicum Latinum, a folio work published at Rostock in 1622, begun before his appointment. The dictionary, like the Etymologicum, is significant for the wealth of Danish words that it collected. The preface argues for the virtues of the Danish language, which Colding worries has been corrupted by invasive foreign influence. Latin is posited as the language best suited do express Danish because of its applicability to both domestic words and to the technical and mechanical arts. One interesting entry, for example, is for Bisspe paa Skackspil, i.e. bishops in chess, for which Colding gives the Latin definition saggitarius, i.e. archer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to Danish sources, in 1601 Colding (1581-1640) travelled to Prague, serving Brahe from June until his final illness in October. Brahe was at the time working on the Rudolphine Tables, but not all of Brahe s servants helped with his astronomical work, and there is no evidence that Colding was proficient in such matters. Colding then travelled in Europe, visiting Rome and Germany, before returning home in 1604. Fulfilling various ecclesiastical and administrative offices, in 1622 he was chosen as headmaster of Herlufsholm, a gymnasium in Naestved founded in 1565 by Herluf Trolle and his wife Birgitte G‚àö‚àèye, the declining fortunes of which he dramatically improved. It was here that Colding wrote his Danish-Latin dictionary (for which it is also named), designed primarily for the use of his students. He resigned his post in 1638.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"P.J.C. [i.e. Povel Jensen Colding].","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723913039,"sku":"L4810","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"kimchi-david-ed-baines-ralph","title":"KIMCHI, David, ed. BAINES, Ralph.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this scarce Latin compendium of Hebrew grammar, edited  for the first time  from the famous medieval Jewish grammarian David Kimchi by a Cambridge Hebraist, Ralph Baines (c.1504-59), Catholic bishop of Lichfield and Coventry under Mary I. He was professor of Hebrew at the Royal Coll√®ge de France in Paris between 1549 and 1554. This book is a Latin abstract or paraphrase of the first part of Kimchi s Hebrew grammar, dealing with the alphabet and accents, nouns and their conjugation, verbs, changes in punctuation, some account of pronunciation and reading, prefixes and suffixes, and numbers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRalph Baines was  one of the chief restorers of Hebrew learning in [England]  (Gillow). He was educated at St. John s College, Cambridge, where he opposed Latimer. He returned from Paris on the accession of Mary, became Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1554, and received his DD from Cambridge the following year. After Elizabeth ascended the throne, he was deprived and imprisoned in 1559, and died the same year.  Dodd, in his Church History, states that he was  a divine of great note, very dexterous in expounding the Scriptures, and remarkably skilled in the three sacred languages   (Gillow)..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"KIMCHI, David, ed. BAINES, Ralph.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723945807,"sku":"L4839b","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"bude-guillaume-with-priscian","title":"BUDÉ, Guillaume. (With) PRISCIAN.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare edition of Budé’s De asse et partibus eius, on Roman weights, measures and coinage, extremely popular and one of the most influential works of sixteenth-century humanism, bound with the rare first Badius Ascensius edition of the works of Priscian, which contains his treatise on Roman weights and measures. The Budé is the ‘definitive’ authorised edition, being the last to contain changes made during Budé’s lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBudé’s work on Roman weights and measures was more than just an antiquarian treatise; it was a sweeping reconstruction of ancient Roman culture, based on Budé’s expert knowledge of Latin and Greek as well as Roman law, that inspired generations of humanists. It became the standard textbook for those interested in Roman coinage. As stated in the colophon, this is the last edition on which Budé himself had any influence, augmented and enlarged with corrections made by him prior to his death in 1540. A first issue was printed 1 November 1541, with this, the second issue, in January 1542, according to the colophons. At the end are reprinted Josse Bade’s notes from the prior edition, published by him in 1532, which also carried a colophon declaring its authorisation by Budé.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePriscian was the most significant Latin grammarian to survive from antiquity. His most important work is this famous Latin grammar, the 18 books of the Institutionis Grammatices. This is followed by a number of shorter works, one on Roman weights and measures, along with: the elements of rhetoric, De constructione et ordinatione partium orationis; on Latin accents; his commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid; his translation of Hermogenes of Tarsus on rhetoric; his commentary on comic verses; works on the metre of Terence, metre used in rhetoric, and his commentary on Rufinus; and on the declination of nouns and pronouns, conjugations, and participles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eI: ‘… beaucoup corrigée et augmentée … un beau volume’ (Renouard).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BUDÉ, Guillaume. (With) PRISCIAN.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868724142415,"sku":"L4806","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-18_at_5.19.24_PM.png?v=1781799580","url":"https:\/\/sokol-books-ltd.myshopify.com\/collections\/language-linguistics.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}