{"title":"Poetry","description":"\u003cp\u003eVerse, poetic forms, and collections of lyrical works.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"vergilius-maro-publius","title":"VERGILIUS MARO, Publius","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first collected edition of the works of Vergil in French, in the verse translation of Guillaume Michel de Tours for the Eclogues and Georgics and Octovien de Saint-Gelais for the Aeneid. The individual titles had been published in separate editions, all three of which are exceptionally rare; 'Les Eneydes' by Octovien de Saint-Gelais in 1509, 'Les Bucoliques' in 1516 and 'Les Georgicques' 1519 both by Guillaume Michel. This collection of the works was republished in 1532 and 1540. Both the translators were poets of some note, both Rhetoriqueurs, the name generally given to the group of poets active from approximately 1450 to 1530, between Villon and Clement Marot (including Chastellain, Meschonot, Molinet, Gringore, Cr étin, Jean Lemaire de Belges, Jean Marot, and Jean Bouchet, who was still writing in 1550). St.-Gelais and Michel shared an intense preoccupation with rhetoric; it was as 'l'art de seconde rh étorique' that they classified poetry. Both were prolific and extremely influential translators of classical texts. Octovien de Saint-Gelais had considerable, knowledge of the literature of antiquity, and an eagerness to display it, sometimes leading to an excessive use of Latinisms in pursuit of a high style. His work in general concentrates on purely formal devices, such as elaborate rhyme schemes (rimes l éonines, couronn ées, encha√Æn ées,  équivoqu ées), alliteration, puns, rebus, and other types of puzzles. All this is sometimes (inevitably) at the expense of clarity. The Rhetoriqueurs influence on Renaissance poetry, with all its formal experimentation, was considerable. Rabelais too, with his love of puns and lists, can be seen as a direct heir. There had been an earlier anonymous translation of The Aeneid published before Saint Gelais' but it was really a reworking of the text rather than a translation. \"Influenced by the philological impulse of the earlier Humanists, sixteenth-century translators are almost universally concerned to demonstrate the fidelity and accuracy of their versions. The prose 'remaniement' of Vergil, close to a romance, which appeared anonymously in 1483 was challenged in 1509 by the posthumous publication of Octavien de Saint-Gelais' verse translation composed with the intention 'to translate this book from its lofty distinguished Latin word-for-word and as closely as possible'.\" The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. The works of Vergil had been published numerous times in France but no edition was more influential on French Renaissance literature than this poetical translation that brought Vergil's work to a much wider audience. It was unequalled until Clement Marot's version was published in 1577.  Most, if not all, of the woodcuts used in this volume are incunable blocks from V érard's general stock, giving the work immense visual charm. The large and fine woodcut depicting an author at his desk that accompanies the prologue to the Aeneid had also been used by Couteau in 'La l égende des Flamens' in 1522. The present work is very rare, Renouard cites thirteen copies in public libraries worldwide (mostly in provincial France) but we have been able to locate far fewer and no copies at auction in the last thirty years. An important, rare and extremely influential work from the exceptional library of the Earls of Macclesfield.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VERGILIUS MARO, Publius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816068325711,"sku":"L871","price":14500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_00112.jpg?v=1781795325"},{"product_id":"byron-lord","title":"BYRON, Lord","description":"\u003cp\u003eExcept for the Lament of Tasso, and possibly the Bride of Abydos, all works are first editions. The Poems and Corsair are in first issue, Monody, the second. The Monody on the Death of Sheridan is particularly uncommon. This volume is not for the discriminate book collector, but for a student of literature or the specialised library to complete its collections.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BYRON, Lord","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816092836175,"sku":"X12","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/X12-Byron-3.jpg?v=1781795314"},{"product_id":"somerville-william","title":"SOMERVILLE, William","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is the second issue of the 8vo edition (1802) with Wooden engravings by Thomas Bewick after the designs of his brother John Bewick. The most uncommon of the two 8vo issues, which followed the 4to edition of 1796. The vignettes in this pendant to the \"Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell\" (8vo edition in 1804) are usually thought to be among the best work executed by Thomas Bewick.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SOMERVILLE, William","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816102764879,"sku":"X61","price":250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC0044.jpg?v=1781795312"},{"product_id":"walton-izaak","title":"WALTON, Izaak","description":"","brand":"WALTON, Izaak","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816103911759,"sku":"X67","price":450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/X67-Walton-1-e1520948582473.jpg?v=1781795311"},{"product_id":"nostredame-jean","title":"NOSTREDAME, Jean","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition in Italian. The original French version was published in the same year; it was translated into Italian for this edition by Giovanni Giudici, with many additions and corrections. The second Italian edition was not published until 1722. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Nostredame or Notredame, was the younger brother of the celebrated astrologer Nostradamus, and a 'procureur' to the Parlement of Aix. He was very early drawn to poetry and wrote a large number of songs. He was also a great connoisseur of Provencal poetry and amassed a large collection of books on the subject, from which the present text was compiled. Nostredame gives a short biography (typically a few pages long) of 76 early Provencal poets, with selected examples of their work. The Troubadours had most influence in Italy, and Nostredame mentions a number of them referred to by Dante in the Divine Comedy - Bertran de Born, Arnaut Daniel, Folquet de Marseille and Sordello. The work starts with the 12th-century poets Jaufre Rudel and Marcabru, and goes on to the golden age of the Troubadours, with such figures as Bernart de Ventadorn and Raimbaut d'Orange; making the work a 'who's who of Troubadours' - for whose often ephemeral careers this is both the earliest and the pre-eminent source.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NOSTREDAME, Jean","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816118755663,"sku":"L605","price":1750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Nostreadame-L605-2.jpg?v=1781795300"},{"product_id":"catullus-tibullus-propertius","title":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond, improved Colines edition, derived from the Aldine by Aldus the elder and Jer. Avancio. Each beginning with biographical extracts from the Florentine Petro Crinito's guide to the Latin poets, the work is divided into three sections, respectively comprising Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius. The first comprises the complete works of Catullus, (c.84-54 BC), 117 poems ranging in scope from the famous two-lined 'odi et amo' to the vigorous obscenities of poem 16, when Catullus wrathfully proclaims: \"Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi\". The second presents four books which are attributed to Tibullus (c. 54-19 BC), (probably only the first two are genuine), including elegies to his first love Delia, his patron Messala, the god Priapus, and to his last love, the courtesan 'Nemesis'. Book three is attributable by internal evidence to the otherwise obscure Lygdamus, while book 4, thought to have been completed only in the 16th C, begins with a discourse on Messala's achievements, followed by poems telling of the love of his sister Sulpicia and Cerinthus. The section concludes with a passage about the death of Tibullus, drawn from Ovid. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Section three presents the four books of Propertius (c.50-14BC); the first is a passionate love elegy to 'Cynthia', a unique work that documents the affair as it progresses, and which gained Propertius immediate fame as an innovative poet. Further poems to Cynthia with more general musings on love follow, while the third book - marking the end of the affair - diversifies into avarice, death and new friends. Book four explains the origin of various Roman rites and landmarks, and discusses the great seabattle of Actium.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816122458447,"sku":"L854","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L854.jpg?v=1781795287"},{"product_id":"johnston-john","title":"JOHNSTON, John","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this rare work by Johnston (?1570-1611) Scottish poet, who styled himself  Aberdonensis  and whose family hailed from Crimond near Aberdeen - where Johnston studied at Kings College, before spending eight years at various continental universities. He became a friend of Justus Lipsius and doubtless of the other scholars whose epigrams preface the present work - among them Joseph Scaliger, Jan Dousa and Daniel Heinsius. He was also closely attached to Andrew Melville, who probably helped him to obtain the professorship of divinity at St. Andrews c1593, when he was  Maister of the new college . The present work is a series of epigrammatic addresses to the Scottish Kings from Fergus I to James VI (to whom it is dedicated) highlighting their characteristics, exhibiting their virtues and referring to the principal events of their reigns. The verses are more interesting for their historical perspective than their poetry. The anonymous portraits - of Robert II, Robert III, James II, James III, James IV, James V, Mary, James VI and Anne are very finely executed and in excellent strong impression. Neither their source nor maker has been identified. In mid C19 hand on inserted fly  A very rare book. The Roxburghe copy sold for ¬£13.13. In addition to the 10 portraits this copy has a plate of the arms of James VI ... which has not been mentioned by Lowndes, + 1 leaf of preliminary matters (beginning with the verses of J.C. Scaliger) seldom found. At a sale in 1854 or 5 (I think at W. Duncan Gardiner s) a copy was sold for ¬£10 to Lord Breadalbane .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JOHNSTON, John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816122655055,"sku":"L119","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0001_2fe970be-4bc6-4ee3-841b-5567342b9cf6.jpg?v=1781795285"},{"product_id":"bouchet-jean-1","title":"BOUCHET, Jean","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare and beautifully printed edition of the most successful work of the  Rhetoriqueur  poet Jean Bouchet, first published in 1530, a mystical romance in prose and verse on divine love, in which the 'amoureuse dame' represents the human soul. Bouchet, 1476-c.1550 was a prolific author of great intelligence and imagination. He acquired fame at the court of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany, had a successful career as a lawyer, was tutor to the Prince de Talmont and became centre of the literary circle in his native Poitiers. He was one of the few poets of his era to live off his writing, without patronage, and thus had great control over the printing of his own works.  in this respect, despite his relative conservatism as a poet, Bouchet anticipates the more apparently personal and less overtly formalist poetics of the mid and late sixteenth century.  Adrian Armstrong  Script, Print, and Poetics in France, 1470-1550 . Among his friends was François Rabelais who addressed to Bouchet his first verses in French.This Parisian edition seems to have been shared by Jean Longis and Jean Mac é.  Brunet mentions that  ces triomphes sont un ouvrage mystique, en vers et en prose, o√π il s agit de l amour de Dieu: L amoureuse dame est notre √¢me. On le voit donc, il n y a l√† rien de bien  érotique . However, he omits to state that much of the matter is of more human interest than may be at first supposed. There are chapters on matrimonial conduct, the bringing up of children, ( Comment mary et femme doivent converser en leur lict de mariage; instruction pour les femmes grosses; comment les meres doyuent nourrir leurs enfans en enfance  etc). Choice of foods, Anatomy of the human body etc.  Fairfax Murray I 60, the 1541 edition. In this guide for proper moral and social conduct are found many advices addressed to women.... the work also contains dietetic advice for a healthy life and an extensive chapter on anatomy, in which are also described the reproductive organs . Erdman, My Gracious Silence 57 (later edition). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n William Thomas Beckford (1760 1844) extraordinarily wealthy English novelist, art critic, travel writer and politician, now chiefly remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek and builder of the remarkable Fonthill Abbey, the enormous gothic revival country house, largely destroyed. Beckford's fame rests as much upon his eccentric extravagances as a builder and collector as upon his literary efforts. The opportunity to purchase the complete library of Edward Gibbon gave Beckford the basis for his own library, which was extensive, and dispersed over two years in 1883-4.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOUCHET, Jean","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816123998543,"sku":"L1551","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/wholebook_9954e68c-9c8a-4b86-96e9-1d87caf353ab.png?v=1781795282"},{"product_id":"de-medici-lorenzo","title":"DE MEDICI, Lorenzo","description":"\u003cp\u003eFIRST EDITION of the poems and poetic commentary of Lorenzo de'Medici, some of which are were written as early as age 17. The sonnets, sestinas, and songs are almost entirely preoccupied with love for beautiful women, in a style both imaginative and lively that strives toward the lyric of Dante and Petrarch. In his \"Comment\" on the poems, Medici expounds on life, love, his philosophical influences, and even current events that inspired him. For instance, he describes the death of Simonetta Vespucci, \"la bella Simonetta\" after his own nickname for the model for Boticelli's Venus, and its influence over his work: throughout Florence her early death produced sadness and 'a most ardent longing for her. And therefore she was taken uncovered from her house to the burial place, and moved all who crowded around to see her to copious tears'. Poems written later in life are also included in the volume, of a more serious and religious nature: on the virgin Mary, and the Crucifiction and Resurrection of Christ. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Lorenzo de'Medici \"The Magnificent\" (1449 - 1492), scholar, politician, and poet, was the driving force behind the flourishing culture of 15th century Florence through his patronage of the arts. Walter Pater's characterization of Lorenzo's age with that of Pericles is perhaps most apt: \"It is an age productive in personalities, many-sided, centralized, complete. Here, artists and philosophers and those whom the action of the world has elevated and made keen, do not live in isolation, but breathe a common air, and catch light and heat from each other s thoughts. There is a spirit of general elevation and enlightenment, in which all alike communicate.\" \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n George Fortescue (1791-1877) son of the first Earl Fortescue, was member of Parliament for Hindon, who supported many pro-catholic bills in parliament. Although little noticed a a collector, he had a fine library, particularly of Aldines.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DE MEDICI, Lorenzo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816126554447,"sku":"L1815","price":8750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1815-4.jpg?v=1781795275"},{"product_id":"baudius-dominicus","title":"BAUDIUS, Dominicus","description":"A very amusing collection of Neo-latin poetry and essays published by the main competitors of the Elzevier press. The first work is the editio princeps (variant B of the imprint) of a sammlung of love writings, mainly by Domenicus Baudius. Baudius (1561-1613), probably a nickname for Dominique Baudier, was a prominent poet, historian and professor at the University of Leiden. Graduate in law in 1585, he received encouragement from Joseph Justus Scaliger and De Thou to engage in Latin poetry and later befriended Philip Sidney, Daniel Heinsius and Hugo Grotius. He started teaching at the University of Leiden in 1602, first as professor of rhetoric and then of history. For this reason, he was entrusted with the composition of a chronicle of the Dutch war between 1609 and 1611. His Amores were edited posthumously by Peter Schrijver (1576-1660), a younger colleague of his in Leiden as well as a Neo-Latin poet and historian in his own right. They gather several of Baudius s letters and verses recounting his erotic often-failing adventures, along with a great number of other pieces related to love and marriage by both his erudite friends (Hensius, Grotius, Schrijver, Scaliger and Salmasius) and earlier humanists such as Erasmus, Lelio Capilupi, Giovanni Carga and even Thomas More with his Qualis uxoria deligenda. Schrijver took the opportunity to include some annotations by himself, Salmasius, Pithou and Lipsius about the famous anonymous poem of late antiquity Pervigilium Veneris. This edition, printed by George Vander Marse, was published jointly in Leiden by Hagerus \u0026amp; Hackius and in Amsterdam by Louis Elzevier.\r \r The other half of the volume is taken up with the second edition of a collection of scholarly divertissements, bearing a new title in respect of the princeps issued in 1623 as Argumentorum ludicrorum scriptores. It comprises short smart essays in praise of swimming, laughing, fleas, elephants, donkeys, ants, cows, lice, flies, blindness, malaria and gout. Among the authors are Melanchton, Willibald Pirckheimer, Celio Calcagnini, Marco Antonio Maioraggio, Jean Passerat and again Lipsius, Hensius and Scaliger.\r \r The voluminous ms binder s waste is a potential feast for scholars.","brand":"BAUDIUS, Dominicus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127930703,"sku":"L1941","price":1450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Last-Import-12.jpg?v=1781795271"},{"product_id":"dionysius-periegetes-1","title":"DIONYSIUS Periegetes","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the original Greek text of Dionysius, first edition of the Latin translation of Remmius Palaemon and first edition of the commentary and additions of Celio Calcignini: the whole was edited by the printer, together with Ludovicus Bonaciolus. Dionysius, fl. probably in Alexandria in the first century B.C., produced this elegant and terse description of the habitable world in Greek hexameters. It was probably intended as a school geography, and certainly was used as such in the ancient world; it achieved great popularity as one of the earliest descriptions of far away places, both in antiquity and again, in translation, in the first decades of printing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DIONYSIUS Periegetes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816128454991,"sku":"L2135","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2135-Dionysius-733.jpg?v=1781795269"},{"product_id":"more-st-thomas","title":"MORE, St. Thomas","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first French translation of Sir Thomas More s  Utopia,  by Jean Le Blond d Evreux, lawyer, poet, and champion of the French language. Le Blond s one great chance, as he recognized, was to bring himself to the attention of the elite of the French-speaking world; it did not succeed and Le Blond is only gradually being rediscovered. His translation includes also the prefatory address from Bud é to Thomas Lupet. \u003cbr\u003e\n By far the most important of More's Latin works was the Utopia, the pre-eminent humanistic dialogue, appealing for the application of wisdom in the life and government of men and at the same time a delightful work of entertainment and irony. The origin of a new word in the English language (and subsequently in many others), the work was the model or source for innumerable 'Utopias' or 'distopias', from Bacon's 'New Atlantis' in the C17, to Swift in the C18, to Huxley and Orwell in the C20. It was More's greatest literary work, achieving immediate international success, probably the most significant and enduring by any Englishman of the age. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n \"It was written, like Gulliver's Travels (...) as a tract for the times to rub in the lesson of Erasmus; it inveighs against the new statesmanship of an all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education. (...) Utopia is not, as often imagined, More's ideal state; it exemplifies only the virtues of wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice. It reflects the moral poverty of the states which More knew, whose Christian rulers should possess also the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. (...) [More] is both a saint to the Catholic and a predecessor of Marx to the Communist. His manifesto is and will be required reading for both, and for all shades of opinion between.\" Printing and the Mind of Man 47, on the first edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORE, St. Thomas","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816130519375,"sku":"K40","price":29500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K40-More-2.1.jpg?v=1781795264"},{"product_id":"accademici-timidi","title":"ACCADEMICI TIMIDI","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn interesting collection of rhymes written by the members of the Academy of the Shy Men, celebrating the graduation in law of one of their fellows. This important intellectual academy was active in Mantua from the beginning of seventeenth century. In folding box.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ACCADEMICI TIMIDI","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816131076431,"sku":"L954","price":1250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6980-scaled.jpg?v=1781795262"},{"product_id":"scot-sir-john","title":"SCOT, Sir John","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the largest anthology of Scottish neo-Latin poetry ever produced, edited by the Fife laird Sir John Scot of Scotstarvit and the Aberdonian poet Arthur Johnstone. The two volumes were printed at the sole cost of Scot and preserved the last fruits of Scottish latinity. Scottish neo-Latinists saw themselves first and foremost as part of an international community of renaissance humanists fascinated by the Classical past. Despite James VI s accession to the English throne in 1603, and subsequent negotiations over closer Anglo-Scottish Union, the majority of the Scots featured in the Delitiae poetarum Scotorum identified much more closely with the cultural and intellectual life of Continental Europe than they did with that of England. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The Delitiae Poetarum ltalorum opened the floodgates to a series of national anthologies, all in Latin, all entitled Delitiae, all printed in Frankfurt. Along came collections for France, Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Denmark. ( ) There was a strange irony in all this. Neo-Latin was, of course, the international language par excellence, transcending national boundaries. ( ) Yet the collections clearly had competitive, nationalistic ambitions. It was as if the new chauvinism and confidence of the Renaissance vernacular languages had been diverted into Neo-Latin. ( ) (John Scot of Scotstarvet) had the time, motivation and, most importantly, the money to undertake the Herculean labor. John Scot of Scotstarvet, a Fife laird and a dilettante poet himself, had the education and finances to win friends and influence people, particularly in Europe. What makes the subsequent enterprise of special interest is the fact that we have a detailed account of its progress, for Scot scrupulously preserved all incoming mail. The correspondence, now in the National Library of Scotland, reveals a great deal: how Scot accumulated and edited the material and why it took almost twenty years before the Delitiae found its way into print. ( ) \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n From about 1619, Scotstarvet had been collecting and receiving specimens of Scottish latinity. ( ) Work by thirty-seven poets was finally chosen. Many of those included had made a name for themselves abroad: James Crichton in Italy, George Crichton in Paris, Thomas Dempster almost everywhere; John Barclay s Latin novels were widely read in Europe; John Johnston used European presses almost exclusively; Andrew Melville was well-known among Continental Calvinists; James Halkerston wrote witty epigrams on the Pope and Henri III. ( ) The work avoided overt antiquarianism which by this time would probably have lacked popular appeal. Still Scotstarvet could be proud of his labours; the text was sound and Blaeu did it justice. In the next century, Samuel Johnson would call it  a collection to grace any nation.  Perhaps the greatest satisfaction to those who produced it was that the English never had the like.  Christopher A. Upton.  National Internationalism: Scottish Literature and the European Audience in the Seventeenth Century . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very good copy of this important national anthology.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SCOT, Sir John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816131567951,"sku":"L2140","price":1750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2140-Scot-1.jpg?v=1781795260"},{"product_id":"catullus-tibullus-and-propertius-with-juvenal-and-persius","title":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS [with] JUVENAL and PERSIUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine volume with two clean and remarkable editions of Latin classic poetry. The first is an early reprint of the 1502 ground-breaking Aldine edition in octavo of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, who were, together with Ovid, the main lyric poets of the first century BC. In their innovative verses, they focused on personal matters and day-to-day images, dwelling on the passionate feeling for their lovers. This is the first edition published by Simon de Colines (c.1480 -1546), a highly skilled printer who was trained by Henry Estienne, led the Estienne workshop until Robert entered the business in 1526 and then became an independent and distinguished publisher in Paris. He was renowned for the beauty of his Roman, Greek and Italic fonts, often modelled on Aldus s types. In this book, he employed the famous Saint Augustin flourished italics. The second part of the volume comprises an exceptionally bright copy of the genuine 1501 Aldine edition of two masters of Latin satire, Juvenal (c.55-127 AD) and Persius (34-62 AD). This publication (not to be confused with an almost identical imprint issued some twelve years later by the Aldine) was the fourth ever printed classic in the renowned octavo series with Griffo s italic font, soon after Virgil, Petrarch and Horace. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The book has an interesting early English provenance connected to the seventeenth-century academia in Oxford. Henry Bracegirdle bought it in Oxford on 6 December 1660 and then read it over and over, drafting marginalia extensively throughout and compiling a detailed index of topics; this suggests he used the book for his university studies and perhaps as source of inspiration for his own writing. He must be the BA who graduated at Merton College in 1667, the son of Richard Bracegirdle from Wolverhampton and the owner of two manuscript miscellanies of English poetry (Cambridge, King s College, Hayward Collection, H. 11. 13-14). Below Bracegirdle s price note, one can see another seventeenth-century inscription ( Ed. Palmer e Coll. Reg. Oxon. ) written by probably the subsequent owner of the book, that is Edward Palmer, son of Sir William of Warden in Bedfordshire, BA at Queen s College in 1668 and poet. In 1667, he published An elegy on the death of Mr. James Bristow, late fellow of All-souls (A. Wood and P. Bliss, Fasti Oxonienses, II, London 1820, p. 301). The sale of his library was advertised in 1681 (cf. ESTC, R221392).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS [with] JUVENAL and PERSIUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816134451535,"sku":"L2265","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2265-1-1.jpg?v=1781795215"},{"product_id":"massolo-pietro","title":"MASSOLO, Pietro","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Pietro Massolo s collected poems, and one of the few published by Antonio Manuzio in Bologna between 1556 and 1557 (Ascarelli-Menato, p. 60). Pietro (1520-1590) was son of Lorenzo Massolo and Elisabetta Querini, the beautiful noblewoman praised by Bembo and portrayed by Titian. In 1537, shortly after the marriage, for unknown reasons Pietro murdered his wife, the young daughter of Stefano Tiepolo, a senator and procurator of Venice. To expiate his crime, he found refuge in the Convent of San Benedetto in Mantua and became a monk with the cloister name of Lorenzo, in the Congregation of Monte Cassino. He met the most learned men of his age and composed numerous poems.   The work is dedicated to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and consists of 400 sonnets addressed to different historical personalities. Among them are politicians (the Emperor Carlo V; Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara; Cosimo de  Medici, Duke of Florence; Henry, King of France; Lorenzo Priuli, Governor of Venice; Ferdinand Hapsburg); religious (Daniele Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia; Giovanni della Casa, Archbishop of Benevento; Pope Paul III) and scholars (Annibal Caro, Sperone Speroni, Pontano, Lodovico Dolce, Girolamo Ruscelli, Lodovico Castelvetro, Gian Giorgio Trissino, Benedetto Varchi). The volume also includes sonnets devoted to Pietro Massolo s parents (322) and to his father-in-law, the Captain Stefano Tiepolo (302), honoured for his military successes against the Ottoman Empire. They seem to have forgiven his crime. The second part (372-400) includes funeral poems for Pietro Bembo and other friends and relatives, such as his wife, where the author reveals his intensive suffering and repentance (P. Molmelli,  Un poeta uxuricida del secolo XVI , in  Nuova Antologia , 151, 7, 1927: 129-141). Pietro Massolo was the first author to use the term  moral  in a poetical book title. Expanding on Petrarch s model and mainly focusing on moral and religious contents, his work reflected the new trends of the post-Tridentine age, which absorbed the contemporary culture into the Catholic cosmos. The book contains a deep meditation on mortality and combines the genres of courtly praise, penitential speech and moral satire, with quotations from Petrarch, Bembo, Della Casa and many other philosophical and classical sources. Several sonnets concern the topic of Virtue which conquers Death and Fate, making men closer to God, especially the first, which serves as an introduction to the entire collection. Others describe the Stoic figure of the Wise Man (Christian hero), free from Fear and Desire, or deal with spiritual values (knowledge, happiness, poverty and freedom), as well as with the issue of life after death. Most interesting are sonnets on the cities of Venice (2), the poet s mother land, compared to a pitiful mother, and Rome (92), decadent Empress of the World. Sonnet 299 is a patriotic exhortation to Italy, the servant of many peoples, to wake up from her long sleep and rebel against her enemies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MASSOLO, Pietro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816136810831,"sku":"L2571","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_3068-e1504181940706.jpg?v=1781795204"},{"product_id":"walther-johann","title":"WALTHER, Johann","description":"\u003cp\u003eCrisp copy of a German poem written to commemorate the death of Martin Luther in 1546, when the volume was first printed in five impressions (no priority has been established). Johann Walther (or Walter) (1496 1570), the  father of Lutheran church music , was composer and then director of the chapel choir of Frederick III, Duke of Saxony. In 1524, he published  Geistliches Gesangbuechleinin , a hymnal for Lutheran choirs, with a foreword by Martin Luther himself; the  Deutsche Messe  followed in 1527. For two decades, Walther worked incessantly with Luther to adapt Catholic church music to the needs of Lutheran liturgy, for instance, by introducing hymns into the mass and encouraging people to sing them at home and make them part of their everyday lives. The  Epitaphium  is Walther s tribute to a religious personality who had also become a close friend. The poem depicts Luther as a heroic figure whom Death cannot overpower and the Devil s bite cannot hurt, a soul who has escaped from the hellish torments reserved to Papists to revive in the teachings of God s word and the light of Christ. The fine woodcuts after Lucas Cranach the Younger immortalise Luther and Frederick III, one of the earliest defenders of Lutheranism and founder of the University of Wittenberg, where Luther taught. \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n  The striking binding is made of two non-sequential leaves from the same manuscript in superb condition. It is probably a C15 German lectionary, with excerpts from the Acts of the Saints and Martyrs, associated with their calendar dates of worship. The front cover features passages from the acts of St Mathias (February 24) and the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (March 10), while on the back are extracts from the lives of St Peter and Paul (including Acts 1:21-26 and 12:2-8), interspersed with orations.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WALTHER, Johann","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816138580303,"sku":"L2748","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/frontcover_2d4127df-f89c-4889-9c1d-2abc3a65732f.png?v=1781795192"},{"product_id":"catullus-gaius-valerius-tibullus-albius-propertius-sextus","title":"CATULLUS, Gaius Valerius, TIBULLUS, Albius, PROPERTIUS, Sextus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe attractive, gilt armorial binding was produced c. 1700 for Nicolas Lambert, seigneur of Thorigny and Vermont. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very good, crisp copy of this Aldine first edition, edited by Hieronymo Avantio, of the immortal poems of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius the three most important elegiac authors of the late Roman republic and early imperial era. Catullus, Propertius and Tibullus s poems revealed a new poetic feeling rejecting the heroic character of the epic tradition in favour of a more familiar tone and intimate subjects like love, erotic desire, rejection and mourning. Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54BC) spent most of his life in Rome where he was acquainted with important authors and politicians. His most famous  carmina , 116 of which are extant, include verse on his love and desire for  Lesbia , and lampoons against public figures like Julius Caesar. Albius Tibullus (55-19BC) was part of the circle of the Roman orator and politician Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. His verse survives in four books, only the first two of which are of safe attribution, and is mostly devoted to his intense and star-crossed love for the married  Delia . Sextus Propertius (c.50-15BC) enjoyed the protection of Maecenas and Augustus and is most famous for his four books of poems, many written for his beloved  Cynthia . This  elegiac collection  format was successfully republished in Europe throughout the century; in the 1590s, several editions appeared in which the texts were  castigati  and  expurgati  of their most obvious sexual references. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy was once part of the Bibliotheca Lamoniana. First acquired by Guillaume de Lamoignon in 1650, the library was augmented from 2500 to over 6000 volumes in the following century, especially by Chr étien François II de Lamoignon. Upon his death in 1789, it was sold to the English bookseller Thomas Payne. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Nicolas Lambert (1659-1729) de Thorigny and Vermont was a French politician and bibliophile. Like several members of the Lamoignon family, he held office as a Parliamentary councillor and then president of one of the chambers. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Robert Dalrymple (also Hamilton) (b. 1716) was probably the third son of Sir Robert of Castleton (d. 1734) and grandson of Sir Hew Dalrymple, 1st Baronet of North Berwick. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Fredrik Wulff (1845-1930) was professor of philology at Lund.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, Gaius Valerius, TIBULLUS, Albius, PROPERTIUS, Sextus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816141889871,"sku":"L2711","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2711.jpg?v=1781795173"},{"product_id":"rogers-samuel","title":"ROGERS, Samuel","description":"","brand":"ROGERS, Samuel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816144740687,"sku":"X58","price":750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/X-58-1-1.jpg?v=1781794950"},{"product_id":"more-st-thomas-1","title":"MORE, St. Thomas","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of the verses written by the champion of English Catholicism. Thomas More (1478-1535) was the most skilled and appreciated scholar of Henry VIII s reign prior to the latter s break with Rome. His refusal to join the king s reformation cost him his life. His visionary depiction of the perfect government on the island of Utopia inspired generations of thinkers and politicians. Despite More s hesitations, the Epigrammata first appeared into print as part of the collection issued by Froben in March 1518 under Erasmus  and Beatus Rhenanus  supervision, together with Utopia and Erasmus s poems. A few months later, between November and December, Froben published the same three-part collection, apparently after some revision by the author. Fairfax Murray points out that  more often than not the three parts (either edition) are found separately . Indeed, the BL has an independent copy of the Epigrammata of March (11409.g.47.). The book opens with a letter from Rhenanus to Willibald Pirckheimer, followed by the Progymnasmata, an erudite dialogue in Greek and Latin verses between More and the grammarian William Lily (c.1468-1522).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORE, St. Thomas","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816145363279,"sku":"L2232","price":4750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2232-More-Thomas-1-e1541260156980.jpg?v=1781794946"},{"product_id":"petrarca-francesco","title":"PETRARCA, Francesco.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe strawberry leaf coronet over the monogrammed  P  demonstrates a Ducal provenance. During the period in which this binding could have been made, there were only two British Dukedoms, the Cavendish -Bentincks of Welbeck Abbey, supporters and favourites of William of Orange, created 1716 and Louise de K érouaille, beloved mistress of Charles II, created Duchess in her own right in 1673 (age 24) and who lived another 60 years. Remarkably, she is an ancestress of Princess Diana, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Sarah, Duchess of York. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A good copy of the first of two Lyon counterfeit editions of 1501 Aldine Petrarch, and one of the earliest piracies of the Aldine octavo series. The Aldine edition of the  Canzoniere  and  Trionfi  was edited by the humanist scholar Pietro Bembo using Petrarch s autograph (Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3197). It was one of the first vernacular text to be printed in Griffo s Italic type and had an immediate success, attracting the attention of competitors and counterfeiters. The  Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta , as Petrarch had called them, became during the 16 th century a European bestseller which influenced Italian, French and English literary cultures. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Lyonese counterfeit contains the index of the poems at end but omits the colophon and the four leaves with Aldo s address to the reader and errata. The book consists of two sections: 1)  Canzoniere  including chants, madrigals, sestinas and sonnets, inspired by Petrarch s love for Laura, and divided into two parts, part 1 consisting of 227 poems focused on Laura during her lifetime, and part 2 of 108 sonnets about Laura after her death, with a final plea to the Virgin to end the author s suffering; 2)  Trionfi , a long allegorical poem in six parts (Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Eternity) that portrays the spiritual journey of the soul from the temporal world to eternity. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The book collector William O Brien was an Irish judge and nationalist. His collection, which was housed within Milton Park Library since 1899, included, among many others, a number of Aldine imprints, along with some counterfeits produced in Lyon and Florence.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PETRARCA, Francesco.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816145559887,"sku":"L2704","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8433.jpg?v=1781794944"},{"product_id":"heywood-thomas","title":"HEYWOOD, Thomas","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition, extremely rare complete with the folding engraved plate, of Heywood s description, in prose and verse, of  The Sovereign of the Seas , the most famous warship of her day, and until then the largest and most expensive ship built in England. Thomas Heywood (c. 1574-1641) was a prolific author of plays, poetry, pageants, and pamphlets. During the early 1630s, he collaborated with members of the Christmas family of tomb sculptors in producing a series of Lord Mayor s Day pageants. In 1637, the same team created the elaborate decorative carvings for the biggest, most expensive, and most heavily-armed ship the world had ever seen, King Charles I s Sovereign of the Seas. Heywood had a hand in the decorative design and also wrote a commentary on the finished product. His  A True Description of His Majesty s Royall Ship  described the mythological, legendary, and allegorical subject-matter of the most prominent carvings and inscriptions. It also provided a descriptive chronicle of ships and navigators to serve as background to the portrait of the ship. The Sovereign of the Seas was an incredible architectural and engineering feat but also one of Charles I s greatest follies. Heywood s little-known book is of particular value to the history of Renaissance pageantry, sculpture, and iconography, and gives a unique account of a massive experiment in naval architecture by one closely involved.  Not only was the massive ship an extravagant exercise in royal and national propaganda, whose funding contributed materially to the widespread resentment over the issue of Ship Money and thus played its part in the cause of the English Revolution; it represented a feat of engineering which tested the limits of available technology for ends which had more to do with royal and national prestige than with military or economic usefulness,  The Sovereign of the Seas cost over 65,000 [pounds], roughly ten times the usual price of a 40-gun warship (and a cost-overrun of at least 50,000 [pounds] on the original estimate); 2,500 mature oak trees were felled to build her, and she had 102 cannon. But she saw action on only three or four occasions, during the Dutch Wars, and was eventually destroyed, in 1696, by a candle which a careless cook left burning in her gallery  Michael Bath, The Review of English Studies.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Thomas Heywood was born in Lincolnshire and is said to have been a fellow at Peterhouse College Cambridge; he was a member of the Lord Admiral s Company (1598) and composed lord mayor s pageants (in which capacity he succeeded Thomas Dekker). Heywood claimed to have contributed to some 220 plays; many are extent though most were not published. He attended the Queen s funeral in 1619 as  one of her Majesty s players.   Heywood himself appeared to endorse the the king s right to  the ship money  but this strange text was not only  Published by Authoritie  as the title page claims, but probably commissioned by royal authority too.  Richard Rowland  Thomas Heywood s Theatre, 1599 1639: Locations, Translations, and Conflict.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HEYWOOD, Thomas","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816146313551,"sku":"L2813","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2813.jpg?v=1781794941"},{"product_id":"white-john","title":"WHITE, John","description":"Exceptionally rare first edition of this Catholic work by the bishop John White, written against Peter Martyr. It is made up of over two hundred poems, a lengthy sequel of episodes illustrating eucharistic history, remarkable for including many humanists such as Thomas More, John Fisher and Erasmus; it also includes Luther and Melanchton. White had intended to have the book printed in Louvian three years before it was eventually published, but his arrest caused the publication to be halted until the accession of Mary to the throne.  On the back (of the title)  Tyogaphus Lectori  wherin we learn that the copy above three years before had been sent to Louvain to be printed, but on the knowledge thereof the author was committed to prison. The dedication in verse designed for it then is retained, being addressed  Ad Serenissim Illustrissim que principen Mariam, Edourdi sexti Angliae \u0026amp;c. sororem . Ames.\r \r  John White, headmaster of Winchester College and later Bishop of Winchester, dedicated one of the first books that Mary received as Queen. Dated December 1553 and printed by Robert Caly,  Diacosio-martyrion.  .. is a tract in which White challenged Peter Martyr s idea that there was no real presence in the eucharist. Both the dedication and the body of the text are in Latin. The dedication is brief, but what is interesting about it is, like the dedications to Mary when she was a princess, it mentions one of her male relatives. White called her sister to Edward VI. This is interesting because White s book defended the real presence of Christ, a Catholic and Lutheran idea, which the Edwardian church rejected. White had nothing to gain by making the connection, but probably did so just to establish Mary within the line of Kings of England. White may also have been trying to remind Mary of his loyal service to the crown, as he had previously written verses supporting royal supremacy. Mary must have been satisfied with the dedication because on March 18, 1554, John White was absolved of his sins (he was excommunicated in 1551 by archdeacon John Philpot for being too conservative) and on April 1, 1554 was made Bishop of Lincoln.  Valerie Schutte. Mary I and the Art of Book Dedications: Royal Women, Power, and Persuasion.\r \r A rare work.","brand":"WHITE, John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816146346319,"sku":"L2707a","price":5250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2707a-1.jpg?v=1781794940"},{"product_id":"more-st-thomas-2","title":"MORE, St. Thomas","description":"\u003cp\u003eExceptionally important first edition of the works of St. Thomas More in English, edited by his nephew, William Rastell, arranged in chronological order with marginal notes and a dedication to Queen Mary; the first collected edition of any of More s works.  Thomas More was called by his contemporary John Colet  the one genius of Britain.  Coming as he did at the end of the Middle ages and at the beginning of the modern era, he was a great transitional figure, passionately devoted to the good things of medieval Europe and yet an enthusiastic partisan of the New Learning. He was the warm friend and supporter of Erasmus, and was in close touch with all the important figures in England of his time. With a style inherited, as R.W. Chambers points out, from the great English devotional writers, he immensely broadened the scope of English prose. Still his work, although it includes as often-reprinted classic in the Utopia, remains in large part inaccessible to the modern reader. The English writings have lain dormant in the black-letter of the 1557 folio, printed by his nephew William Rastell. Among the many items in that volume is an important text of the History of Richard III, based, according to Rastell, on a copy in More s own hand. (the text printed by Grafton in his edition of Hardyng s chronicle (1543) is corrupt.) The modern reader knows this History as it is reflected in Shakespeare s Richard III, which is based upon it.  David R. Watkins.  The St. Thomas More Project  The Yale University Library Gazette. Vol. 36, No. 4. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Given the conditions that More faced in the Tower of London during his last year it is all the more remarkable that he continued his writings. Towards the end, when paper and pen had been taken from him, he still managed to write letters in charcoal to the family. His Treatise on the Passion and the Latin version, Exposito passionis, give a vivid account of Christ s last hours before his death on the Cross, and his Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation is sometimes regarded as his finest work in English. On his death all his works and papers passed to his daughter Margaret (died 1544) and then to a nephew, William Rastell, who compiled the complete English Works in 1557. More s Latin works were collected and printed partly in Basel under the title Lucubriationes in 1563 and more fully in Louvain in 1565 66 under the title Opera omnia.  Keith Watson.  Sir Thomas More.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  More s witty and ironic presentation of Richard and his villainy seem to have been particularly influential, as were the parallels he drew between theatre and politics:  And so they said that these matters bee kynges games, as it were stage playes, and for the more part plaied upon scaffolds  (p. 66).  British Library. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Thomas More s brother-in-law, John Rastell, was one of England s earliest printers, and he became the printer and publisher of More s important work of religious controversy, the Dialogue Concerning Heresies, in 1529. After this, up to the time of More s death in 1535, John Rastell s son William carried on the work of printing and publishing More s voluminous works of controversy, in close association with the author. And so, appropriately, William Rastell became the editor and publisher of his uncle s collected English works, as he tells us in his dedication to Queen Mary, explaining that he  did diligently collect and gather together, as many of those his works, books, letters, and other writings, printed and unprinted in the English tongue, as I could come by, and the same (certain years in the evil world past, keeping in my hands, very surely and safely) now lately have caused to be imprinted in this one volume.  ... From the great series of last letters written from the Tower, preserved by More s family, and first published by William Rastell at the very end of his 1557 folio, we learn all we will ever know about the inner drama of that famous prisoner in his last days. The letters are numerous and long, except for the few brief and pathetic letters that More and Rastell tell us were  written with a coal  .. The greatest single contribution of the 1557 folio to history is, I believe, the arrangement, annotation, and publication of these letters, which gave to generations following the complex portrait of More that has come down to our own day  Louis L. Martz.  University of Rochester Library Bulletin: The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght. Volume XXXVI.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORE, St. Thomas","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816146575695,"sku":"L2834","price":35000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2834-1.jpg?v=1781794941"},{"product_id":"barberini-maffeo-pope-urban-viii","title":"BARBERINI, Maffeo [POPE URBAN VIII]","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe beautifully gilt binding appears to borrow, with plainer intentions, the design and rhombus-shaped decorations on BL C108h12, produced c.1630s by the Rospigliosi bindery (i.e., Gregorio and Giovanni Andreoli) in Rome. Very good, crisp copy, in fine impression, of Maffeo Barberini s  Poemata . Born in Florence, Barberini (1568-1644) was educated by the Society of Jesus in Rome and earned a doctorate in law at Pisa. Thanks to his uncle, Pope Clement VIII, he was appointed papal legate at the French court. In 1623, he was elected Pope with the name of Urban VIII; during his pontificate, Galileo was called to Rome to disown his cosmological theories. A great patron of scholars and artists like Athanasius Kircher and Claude Lorraine, Barberini was himself a talented poet. First printed in Venice in 1628,  Poemata  gathers his most important compositions in Latin and Greek, from biblical paraphrases to reflections on virtues and vices, poems addressed to scholarly friends and relatives, odes to saints and even musings elicited by the sight of beautiful statues. The collection blends the versatile erudition of late humanism, the jovial nature of  alba amicorum  and the darker undertones of international politics. Three poems are devoted to the seminal studies on the  marvels  of the animal and botanical world written by Ulisse Aldrovandi,  guardian of Nature . Another celebrates the saintly death of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, beheaded in 1587; the darkness which has covered the earth is lit up not by the burning torches at her funeral but by the stars in the heavens.  De sole et ape  provides a key to the typographical iconography of the volume, decorated with shining suns and the bees of the Barberini. The explanation of the emblematic motifs is that bees  wax can survive the heat of fire, be used to make torches and, like the sun, can chase darkness away. This edition the second to be printed by the  Typographia Camerae Apostolicae  which had retained the privilege since 1631 was advertised as revised and re-set with new and more elegant types.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BARBERINI, Maffeo [POPE URBAN VIII]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816146739535,"sku":"L2705","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2705-1.jpg?v=1781794938"},{"product_id":"bembo-pietro","title":"BEMBO, Pietro","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe very handsome binding was produced for the bibliophile Marco Foscarini (1696-1763), a poet and diplomat who served as 117th Doge of Venice between 1762 and 1763, when his office was cut short by illness and death. It is an almost exact match with BL C47d10, probably made in Rome where Foscarini was ambassador for Venice between 1736 and 1740 ( BL Bookbindings Database ).   Very good copy of the first edition of Pietro Bembo s  Rime . Born in Venice, Bembo (1470-1547) was a scholar, poet, critic and later cardinal. After his studies at Messina and Padua, he travelled extensively in Italy; his love for the Tuscan vernacular, which he considered the perfect language for Italian literature, developed during a stay in Florence. In 1525, he published  Le prose della volgar lingua , a ground-breaking work of philology and literary criticism celebrating the cultural value of the vernacular versus Latin and electing Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio masters of the Tuscan vernacular whose works he also edited as the highest models for Italian poets. Bembo followed his own advice in  Rime , a collection featuring sonnets and longer poems. A jewel of Renaissance literature,  Rime  pays tributes to the  Three Crowns , especially celebrating the half-angelic\/half-earthly  gentile  lady of Dante s  dolce stil novo , who gives  vigour  to the flowers around her, as well as Petrarch s fleeting muse Laura, whose look can make the poet feel  burning and tied  and experience  joy mixed with torment . The light-hearted stanzas at the end of the work, focusing on love and its effects, were originally composed to be read at a masquerade organized by the Duchess of Urbino. This first edition of the  Rime  includes the introductory letter to Ottaviano Fregoso dropped from later ones.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BEMBO, Pietro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816147722575,"sku":"L2875","price":13500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2875.jpg?v=1781794938"},{"product_id":"lopez-de-zarate-francisco","title":"LÓPEZ DE ZARÁTE, Francisco","description":"\u003cp\u003eScarce FIRST EDITION of the juvenile works of Francisco López de Zaráte (1580-1658). Born in Logroño, he studied at Salamanca before joining the army in Flanders and Italy, and eventually the entourage of the Duke of Lerma, becoming acquainted with authors like Lope de Vega. His early ‘varias poesias’ include 19 compositions where classical rigour is tamed by the poet’s fascination with the ways in which the force and beauty of nature can infiltrate the allegorical world of poetry. The first plays with darker overtones on the Virgilian eclogue, with shepherds conversing about love and death, ‘the port of life’. The second, with a strongly political character, locates the pastoral world in C16 Logroño, the poet’s native town. Religious poetry occupies a substantial part, including shorter verse on the Virgin and the celebration of the holy Feast at Lerma opened by a lyrical description in which the movement of constellations seems to extend the ‘soñolentas horas’ of the night and turn dawn into sunset. The remaining compositions are of several kinds, from verse for King Philip’s joust, moral lessons and variations on classical ‘fabulae’ to the translation of Martial’s epigrams. The most famous, which earned the poet the nickname ‘Caballero de la Rosa’, coined by Lope de Vega, is his sonnet to a rose, where the celebrated flower is caught in a world of extremes, between violence and frailty, the glory of beauty and the accident of death. A scarce collection and a little jewel from the ‘Siglo de Oro’.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LÓPEZ DE ZARÁTE, Francisco","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816154997071,"sku":"L2902","price":2700.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2902.jpg?v=1781794918"},{"product_id":"carmina-with-pindar","title":"[CARMINA] [with] PINDAR","description":"\u003cp\u003eBeautifully printed and rare edition of this collection of Greek poetry including the works of Pindar, edited by Henri Estienne, in a stunning contemporary French fanfare binding, very much in the style of those executed for Jaques August de Thou at the same period. They contain selected works by the Greek poets Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Bacchylides, Simonides and Alcman and includes also many other short poems concerning these poets by contemporary and later authors, both Greek and Latin. Edition in two volumes, but each presented as a separate publication, of some Greek poets, in Greek with Latin translation. Edited and translated by Henricus Stephanus.  Voet. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding is very similar a fanfare binding made for Jaques August de Thou in the British library, shelf-mark c19b12, using the same, or a near identical, winged cherub tool, and is very similar in overall design. This binding is in De Thous arms as a bachelor so cannot have been made before 1587. See also two other bindings in the BL, both for De Thou, shelf-marks c19b11, c19b16 also with very similar bindings. The fanfare style had its beginnings in around 1560, gradually becoming more complex and intricate, covering the entire binding with small compartments with torsades, spirals of leafy stems, and branches, the whole worked with a multitude of small tools. The style reached its peak towards the end of the C16th. Needham points out  It was much more common for fanfare bindings to be found on special presentation copies and gifts  as they were so time consuming and expensive to make  A finite library of good books could be bound luxuriously as a cabinet of treasures  We have been unable to identify the first owner whose monogram is stamped at the centres. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The work has prestigious later provenance belonging to Chr étien-François de Lamoignon (Paris, 1735   1789) a French statesman and magistrate. Lamoignon was the Keeper of the Seals of France from 8 April 1787 to 14 September 1788. In this position, he was responsible for issuing the Edict of Versailles in 1787, which granted civil status and freedom of worship to France s Protestants, and for the abolition of judicial torture. On his death his magnificent library was bought in its entirety by Jean Gabriel M érigot who made a catalogue for its sale in 1791.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[CARMINA] [with] PINDAR","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816155324751,"sku":"L2682","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2682-1.jpg?v=1781794916"},{"product_id":"warner-william","title":"WARNER, William","description":"\u003cp\u003eA remarkable, completely unsophisticated copy, of the very rare second edition of Warner s poem, with the addition of two books added from the first; stab bound as originally issued, probably never with the woodcut plate.  William Warner is best remembered for his  Albions England  (1586), a verse history of Britain, covering in its final edition events from Noah to the reign of James I. .. Little is know of Warner s biography. Born about 1558   probably in London   Warner worked as an attorney of the Court of Common Pleas in the same city, where he developed his reputation as an author and most likely associated with other men of letters.. The episodic history, Albions England, written in fourteen-sylable lines, incorporates much fictional and mythical material; its structure is influenced by Ovid. This popular work went through several editions during Warner s lifetime, each adding material to the narrative. The first, consisting of four books, was published in 1586 and relates events through the Norman Conquest. The second (1589), consisting of six books, covers events to the accession of Henry VII.  Tudor England: An Encyclopedia. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Warner fills his account with many picturesque details many of which he elaborates on from the original source material.One such example is his account of Robin Hood. Warner dates the historical Robin Hood to the reign of King Richard I, but he tells the story out of sequence, under the reign of King Edward II, as an inset to another tale. The narrator is an unnamed hermit; he is addressing the opposition leader Thomas, Earl of Lancaster (like Robin Hood, a  malcontent ), who has encountered him in the woods at a time when Lancaster is a fugitive from his enemies. Warner s immediate source for his version was evidently Richard Grafton s Chronicle at Large (1569). Like Grafton, he makes Robin Hood into a nobleman. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Warner s chief work and his earliest experiment in verse was a long episodic poem in fourteen-syllable lines, which in its original shape treated of legendary or imaginary incidents in British history from the time of Noah till the arrival in England of William the Conqueror, but was continued in successive editions until it reached the reign of James I. In its episodic design it somewhat resembled Ovid s  Metamorphoses.  Historical traditions are mingled with fictitious fables with curious freedom. The first edition in four books now a volume of the utmost rarity appeared in 1586, under the title  Albion s England.   The work was brought down to the accession of Henry VII in the second edition, which included six books. ..  Albion s England  in its own day gained a very high reputation, which was largely due to the author s patriotic aims and sentiment. But his style, although wordy and prosaic, is unpretentious, and his narrative, which bears little trace of a study of Italian romance, and lacks the languor of current Italian fiction, occasionally develops an original vigour and dignity which partially justify the eulogies of the writer s contemporaries. Thomas Nash in his preface to Greene s  Menaphon  (1589), after mentioning the greatest of English poets, remarked,  As poetry has been honoured in those before-mentioned professors, so it hath not been any whit disparaged by William Warner s absolute Albions.  DNB. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Of the eight copies recorded by ESTC, the a copy at the Folger, those at Harvard and Huntington are recorded as having  woodcut plate . The copies at the Library of Congress and Illinois both do not. BL and Oxford Bodleian do not specify. A remarkable copy of this very rare work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WARNER, William","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156930383,"sku":"K84","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K84-6.jpg?v=1781794906"},{"product_id":"oxford-university","title":"OXFORD UNIVERSITY","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first and only edition of this collection of poetry comprising more than 470 Latin poems, with a few in Greek, Italian and French, from members of Oxford colleges on the death of Elizabeth I and the accession of James I. On page 17, there is a complaint about the lack of Hebrew type. The King s pedigree from Edward the Third, is prefixed to the volume with some verses by the Vice Chancellor Dr. Howson. This work was preceded by another from the same press  Oxoniensis Academiae Funebre Officium in Memoriam Elizabethae,  of collected poems on the funeral of Queen Elizabeth. Almost all such university poems are considered as academic exercises, however they offer great insight into the politics and culture of the Elizabethan period, and at a particularly crucial time in the History of the Monarchy. Many of the poets in this volume rarely published their work, which often circulated in manuscript, so such miscellanies offer tremendous insight into contemporary poetry. Hazlitt states that Sir Walter Raleigh contributed to the collection however the poem he is referring to is signed  Guil. Raleghe  and seems unlikely to be by Sir Walter who was imprisoned that year by James.   The practise at English universities of printing collections of verses in the learned languages to celebrate public events seems to have started in 1587 with the death of Sir Philip Sidney. But whereas the exequies of the Oxford muses on that occasion were printed at Oxford itself by the university printer Joseph Barnes, the tears of Cambridge were published in London and it was not till 1603 that the first Cambridge-printed volume appeared.  ..Oxford meanwhile poured out no less than eleven volumes of verses adding the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Platine in 1613 and the Kings safe return from Scotland in 1617 as well as domestic tributes to the memory of the Universities benefactors, Sir Thomas Bodley (1613), Sir Henry Savile (1622) and Willaim Camden (1624). And individual Oxford colleges also produced their own memorial collections for distinguished alumni or special benefactors.  Harold Forster.  The rise and fall of the Cambridge Muses (1603-1763).  There is a lengthy note on the fly stating that the work belonged to Sir Philip Oldfeld commoner of the Brasenose College, who wrote the verses on page 178\/179. The quality of the copy, in s very high quality contemporary binding certainly suggest that it was bound, either for presentation or for a contributor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"OXFORD UNIVERSITY","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156995919,"sku":"L2233","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190404_142253.jpg?v=1781794905"},{"product_id":"browne-william","title":"[BROWNE, William]","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy, finely bound by Stikeman of New York, of the first complete edition of Browne s best-known pastoral poem. Britannia s Pastorals is a pastoral romance in which William Browne presents the adventures of Marina, Fida, and Aletheia in five  songs  with an interpolated elegy for Prince Henry. Walter Greg describes Browne s major works as  the longest and most ambitious poem ever composed on a pastoral theme   Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama.  The commendatory verses by John Selden, Michael Drayton, Edward Heyward, Christopher Brook, Fr. Dynne, Thomas Gardiner, W. Ferrar, and Fr. Oulde acknowledge Browne of Tavistock as a second Colin Clout. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Edmund Spenser was Browne s poetic model throughout his career, most obviously in Britania s pastorals, although he was influenced by Italian pastoral drama (specifically by Torquato Tasso s Aminta). In Britannia s pastorals, Browne mixes the pastoral and romantic genres, as Spenser did in the Faerie Queene, and, like Spenser, Browne attempts to write an epic that will be thoroughly English.  His greatest quality was probably his talent for natural description . The passages in which he describes what is recognizably his native Devonshire are especially fine.  In his own lifetime Browne was considered an important English poet, but his fame did not last. Still, it has often been argued that not only Milton but also such later poets as Keats, Tennyson, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were influenced by his work, and in particular his treatment of nature.  The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature.  Britannia s pastorals may be the most elaborate attempt ever made to imitate  The Faerie Queene  with respect to atmosphere of romance, general structure, and interlacing of many subplots. ..  Britannia s Pastorals  embodies a genuinely Spenserian tradition: intricate romance narrative in an idealised setting, passing at times into open allegory, reaching out towards moral concerns on the one hand and politics, society, literature and culture on the other.  Albert Charles Hamilton.  The Spenser Encyclopedia.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A rare copy, finely bound, of the first complete edition of this important work of English pastoral poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[BROWNE, William]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816161288527,"sku":"L2990","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2990-4.jpg?v=1781794894"},{"product_id":"tasso-torquato","title":"TASSO, Torquato","description":"\u003cp\u003eA remarkable copy, on large paper, of the first edition, first issue, of the hugely popular and influential translation into English by the English poet Fairfax of Tasso s Jerusalem Delivered. Fairfax s was the first complete translation, though Richard Carew had produced a translation of the first five books  Torquato Tasso s Jerusalem Delivered is one of the great Italian epics, an influential and immensely popular piece. .. There have been many translations of Tasso s work, new ones continuing to appear at a steady rate , but to speak of Tasso in English has, for four hundred years, been to speak of Edward Fairfax s translation. .. The Elizabethan poet Fairfax did not make a great mark with his own verse (little of which survives), but his translation is an acknowledged masterpiece   of sorts. Fairfax s  translation  is a fairly free one, taking more liberties than most translators care or dare to. There is considerable embellishment of the text, specifically with the addition of nouns and adjectives as Fairfax uses two   or three   words to repeat what Tasso expressed in one. Fairfax remains true to the story, but his language is much more sprightly (and the effect more dramatic   or at least melodramatic) than in Tasso s original. Usually such translatorial interference does little to enhance a text, but Fairfax was a real poet and his English version, though a stretch as a translation, is an impressive English epic. Fairfax s imprint was a strong and enduring one, and the reception of Tasso in the English-speaking world has been almost entirely through this rose-coloured version. There are few instances in English in which a single translation has taken so many liberties and yet been so influential. Fairfax follows Tasso s ottava rima, faithfully preserving the rhyme scheme of the original .. for each stanza. Occasionally it is forced, with some creative word-twisting and occasional coining, but Fairfax proceeds vigorously and often lyrically. He has a poet s ear for language, and even when he can not comfortably twist the Italian into English the verses are often powerful.  Literary Saloon.    Fairfax s relationship with Tasso s Liberata is dynamic from the very beginning. Far from trying to mirror Tasso s words and rhythm, Fairfax simplifies not only syntax and prosody, but also the whole rhetorical texture of Tasso s epic. David Hume wrote of Fairfax s achievement that it possessed  an elegance and ease, and at the same time [..] an exactness, which for that age are surprising. Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correspondent line in the translation.    but this judgment does not pass the test of a careful critical examination.  Massimiliano Morini  Tudor Translation in Theory and Practice.   Torquato Tasso (1544 1595) was one of the greatest Italian poets of the late Renaissance, the son of Bernardo Tasso, a poet and courtier. In 1560 he read law in Padua where he met the humanist Sperone Speroni, under whose guidance he studied Aristotle s  Poetics . In 1565 Tasso entered the service of the House of Este. While revising his poem  Gerusalemme Liberata , he developed a persecution mania which caused his incarceration in the hospital of Santa Anna (1579 86).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TASSO, Torquato","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816162697551,"sku":"L3003","price":11000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190522_163605.jpg?v=1781794890"},{"product_id":"campbell-thomas","title":"CAMPBELL, Thomas.","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith Rogers   Italy  and  Poems,  this Campbell edition is his most important book by serving as unacknowledged sources of inspiration to the later French impressionist painters, who could not see Turner s oils outside England, but who could have acquired copies of these books, stimulating their interest in travelling to London to view Turner s paintings in the Tate Gallery, as e.g. Monet and Pissarro report in their memoirs and letters.  With 20 steel engraved vignettes after William Turner, engraved by the team of engravers trained under his supervision.  Campbell s text had a special significance for [Turner] - and Turner took endless pains in the control of his engravers; on this small scale, he evolved formal ideas which he worked out more ambitiously in the oils of his last years  (G. Reynolds, Turner, p. 157-8).  Perhaps the most remarkable of all has been the neglect of Turner as a book illustrator  (Muir, p. xiii).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAMPBELL, Thomas.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57819863679311,"sku":"X13","price":450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/X-15.jpg?v=1781794857"},{"product_id":"campbell-thomas-1","title":"CAMPBELL, Thomas.","description":"\u003cp\u003ePROOF EDITION. Original yellow publisher's boards with leather title piece on the back, spelling \"Campbell's Poetical Works\". Repaired tear to head of spine. A fine copy. All steel engravings singed \"Proof.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAMPBELL, Thomas.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57819868266831,"sku":"X14","price":750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Photo-17-10-2015-12-13-28_burned.jpg?v=1781794856"},{"product_id":"rogers-samuel-2","title":"ROGERS, Samuel.","description":"\u003cp\u003eUnquestionably the most famous and frequently praised book illustrated with steel engravings. Turner's illustrations are \"vignettes, a form of art which Turner understood better than any artist ever did before, perhaps we might add, since. The 'Alps at Daybreak,' 'Columbus Discovering Land,' and 'Datur Hora Queti' may be given as examples of the finest\" (Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition). \"Of outstanding beauty and importance\" (Muir p. 71).  Unfoxed copies are uncommon, and finely bound copies of the first edition in that condition are rare. A fine copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ROGERS, Samuel.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57819907260751,"sku":"X69","price":275.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2024-08-06-at-14.45.00.webp?v=1781794855"},{"product_id":"cats-jacob","title":"CATS, Jacob","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst collected edition of these beautifully illustrated emblem books by Jacob Cats, one of the most important author s of emblem books  whose volumes still form one of the adornments of Dutch houses. Cats took inspiration from proverbs and everyday life, his realistic emblems form a counterpart to genre painting and supply interesting evidence for the history of costume  (Praz p. 86). The work contains, each with separate pagination: Sinne ende Minnebeelden, (an expanded version of  Silenus Alcibiadis ); Emblemata Di Iacobi Catsii, in linguam Anglicam transfusa, (an English verse translation of the foregoing sometimes attributed to Josuah Sylvester); Emblemata moralia et aeconomica, (with illustrations copied from Maechden plicht); the Latin text, with French translation, of the dialogue between Anna and Phyllis from Maechden plicht; Galathee ofte Harder Minne-klachte. Laudatory poems by D. Heinsius, A. Hofferus, J. Arcerius, I. Lyraeus, A. Roemers, I. Luyt, S. de Swaef, L. Peutemans, I. Hobius.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Jacob Cats (1577-1660), seventeenth-century poet, moralist, and statesman, was one of the leading poets in the golden age of Dutch literature. His emblem books, which reflected a stolid Calvinist philosophy, exhorted readers to virtuous and industrial lives. Enormously popular, the books became the source of many well-known maxims and proverbs, giving him the title of  Father Cats,  a fond soubriquet still used by modern Dutch to describe him. He is best known as a poet and author of emblem books illustrated collections of didactic and moralistic (although clever and often humorous) poetry. They are valued as treasure troves of sociological and historical detail, illustrating not only many facets of daily life in the seventeenth century, but the moral and philosophical ideals of the era as well. Cats s first book Sinne-en minnebeelden (Portraits of morality and love) was published in 1618, when he was forty years old. The book, divided into three sections, contains prose, poetry, Bible verses, quotations from the classics, and common proverbs in Dutch, French, and Latin. Each illustration was accompanied by three different texts, each of which was designed to give three different but always instructive interpretations: the first romantic, the second social, and last religious. This combination of texts, styles, and languages in various degrees of complexity made the book accessible to a broad public. The images for many of Cats s books were supplied by Adriaan van de Venne. He drew literally hundreds of illustrations for the books, and they were, in turn, reproduced by master engravers.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Cats is one of the major fingers in emblem literature, exerting a wide influence on later exponents of the genre. He is responsible for two regular emblem books, whose bibliography is complicated for a number of reasons. Firstly they appear under various different names: his first emblem book, Silenus Alcibiadis is also known in Latin as Proteus and in Dutch as Minnelikje, zedelijke en stichtelijke sinne-beelden en gedichten, or sinne- en minne bilden. Often associated with Silenus Alcibiadis is another work which is broadly emblematic, although the text is in dialogue form, Maschden-plicht or Monita amoris virginei. In 1627, the engraving designs for this work were reused in a new emblem book, Emblemata moralia et oeconomica. For all three works, Adriaen van de Venne supplied the designs for the engravings, which were executed by different engravers for different printers, according to the required size and shape, sometimes in mirror image  Alison Adams, Stephen Rawles.  A Bibliography of French Emblem Books.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATS, Jacob","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820295332175,"sku":"L2014a","price":2500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2024-08-05-at-16.27.02.png?v=1781794851"},{"product_id":"reuchlin-johann","title":"REUCHLIN, Johann.","description":"\u003cp\u003eInteresting annotated copy of this famous anti-Catholic satirical play. Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) was a German humanist, and one of the earliest scholars of Greek in Germany, trained at Paris and Basel; he was known for his theories of Greek pronunciation. Having fled to Heidelberg after the death of his patron, Count Eberhard of W√ºrttenberg, he gained the position of tutor to the children of Philip, Count Palatine of the Rhine. His sister s grandson was the Protestant Philip Melanchthon, with whom he fell out after the Reformation. Despite his Catholicism, Reuchlin was critical of aspects of the Roman Church like the frequently debatable behaviour of monks and the commerce of false relics the subject of this play. First published in 1504 and much reprinted,  Sergius  marked  the beginning of Neo-Latin comedy in Germany  (Dall Asta,  Lateinische Drama , 14). Its title refers to Sergius\/Bahira, a Nestorian monk of the 6th century and the narrative persona of Reuchlin s adversary, the Augustinian Conrad Holzinger who prophesized to Muhammad his glorious future. Considered a heretical monk and the inspiration to the Christian content of the Qur an, he was a frequent presence in Renaissance anti-Islamic writings. In the play, Sergius stands as the heretical monk par excellence  the chief of the chiefs  of  all lechery  , the head without soul or reason . The other characters take on the role of social critics following the ancient Roman comic tradition. The contemporary annotator was especially interested in Act I. He studiously noted information on Reuchlin on the t-p, and appears to have been studying the text as a fine example of Neo-Latin prose. He glossed it with interlinear and marginal notes on metrics (linked to debates on Neo-Latin poetry), figures of speech, synonyms and references to Quintilian and the work of contemporary scholars like Jacob Spiegel, close to Protestant humanist circles.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REUCHLIN, Johann.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820342223183,"sku":"L3333","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6808-scaled.jpg?v=1781794840"},{"product_id":"bembo-pietro-navagero-andrea-castiglione-baldassare-cotta-giovanni-flaminio-marco-antonio","title":"[BEMBO, Pietro, NAVAGERO, Andrea, CASTIGLIONE, Baldassare, COTTA, Giovanni, FLAMINIO, Marco Antonio].","description":"\u003cp\u003ePocket size edition, in a handsome, contemporary Florentine binding, reminiscent (especially the IHS monogram) of de Marinis I, 1132. This book was a gift from the renowned humanist Ercole Ciofano (d.1592?) to the young Durante de Durantis. Born in Sulmona, Ciofano was the author of a commentary on Ovid s  Metamorphoses  published in Venice by Aldus the Younger in 1575, and much praised by Marc-Antoine Muret and Paolo Manuzio. This was followed by another on Ovid s  opera omnia . Among his correspondents were Aldus the Younger, Pier Vettori and Vespasiano Gonzaga. In the early 1580s, Ciofano fell out with Aldus, vehemently accusing him of stealing his own marginalia in a copy of Cicero he lent Aldus. Ciofano s vitriolic letters about the misdeeds of the  Aesopian Jackdaw  (Aldus) have survived, one of which, for instance, begins as follows:  That ass, and fellow more ignorant than ignorance itself, Aldus Manutius, to whom I have become most inimical, has robbed me of, and printed under his own name, many explanations and emendations upon the  Offices  of Cicero  (quoted in Hartshorne,  Book Rarities , 53-56, 63-67). Another letter claims that Aldus the Elder was a Jew. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In 1577, Ciofano was in Rome seeking work as tutor for the scions of the Farnese and Orsini families. This copy, with an ex-dono inscription from the same year, was presented by him to the Brescian Durante Duranti, probably during Duranti s educational stay in Rome. This convenient and inexpensive edition was likely a reward for Durante s scholarly commitment. It is a compendium of the best Neo-Latin poetry by Italian authors of the first half of the C16, mostly composed in a pseudo-Catullan vein. The authors include Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), Andrea Navagero (1483-1529, official historian of the Serenissima), Baldassarre Castiglione (1478-1529), Giovanni Cotta (1480-1510) and Marco Antonio Flaminio (1497\/8-1550). Of the latter there also feature two further collections of verse (one dedicated to Alessandro Farnese, the other to the sister of the King of France, and a paraphrase of thirty psalms).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[BEMBO, Pietro, NAVAGERO, Andrea, CASTIGLIONE, Baldassare, COTTA, Giovanni, FLAMINIO, Marco Antonio].","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820344549711,"sku":"L3367","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_8446-scaled.jpg?v=1781794823"},{"product_id":"ausonius-with-scaliger-joseph","title":"AUSONIUS. [with] SCALIGER, Joseph.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.The most attractive contemporary binding  ‚àö‚Ć fond d or  was probably produced in Lyon. It reprises the style of Henry Davis Gift, 106 (on a 1570 Lyonnaise Gryphius), and Belin Cat., 194. LVD. D.S.P. was probably Louis (c.1579-1654), last Marquis de Saint-Priest of the original line. Gentleman of the King s Chamber, he attended scholarly academies, was appointed royal diplomat, and resided in Saint-Priest castle near Lyon (Gauer, 17).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .An exquisite pocket student book comprising the first Gryphe edition of Ausonius s complete works, edited by Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), and the first edition of Scaliger s related commentary. Though bibliographies record them as a single work, Scaliger s commentary being mentioned in the first t-p, they intended to also be sold separately. Ausonius (c.310-95) was a renowned poet and rhetoric teacher in Burdigala (Bordeaux); among his pupils was the future Pauline, Bishop of Nola. He was also tutor to the son of Emperor Valentinian I, and converted to Christianity late in life. A perfect tool for a Renaissance schoolboy, this collection includes Latin epigrams, occasional poetry addressed to acquaintances (including contemporary rhetoric and grammar professors), four-verse poems on the Roman Emperors, ancient philosophers and cities in Gallia, idyllia, eclogues and epistles, with a final section of Greek epigrams on moral and mythological subject. Scaliger s major editorial contribution to the Ausonian corpus is epitomized in the  Lectiones . It is a detailed commentary with copious emendations to the received text published by Étienne Charpin in 1558, who updated the 1472 editio princeps on the basis of a new ms. recently rediscovered in Lyon. Whilst preparing his edition, Scaliger, then in France, corresponded with Élie Vinet, author of a 1551 edition. They had access to the ms., owned by the humanist Jacques Cujas, and reassessed several of Charpin s editorial choices.  Both Vinet and Scaliger are rightly regarded by modern editors as major contributors to the text of Ausonius; between them they provide some 300 useful emendations  (Green, 357-8). A lovely copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"AUSONIUS. [with] SCALIGER, Joseph.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859629318479,"sku":"L3554","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9132.jpg?v=1781793797"},{"product_id":"pico-ranuccio","title":"PICO, Ranuccio.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this concise and extremely fascinating biography of Godfrey of Bouillon, written in Italian vernacular by Ranuccio Pico (1568-1645). A doctor of law and historian, Pico was the secretary of the Dukes of Parma, Ranuccio I and Odoardo Farnese. He is mostly known for his biographical works and for gathering a library of more than one thousand rare and important books.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Godfrey of Bouillon (1060-1100) was a French knight and one of the leaders of the first Crusade. After playing a key role during the siege of Jerusalem in 1099, he was elected the first ruler of the new Crusader State. Celebrated by many authors almost as a legendary figure, he is the protagonist of  La Gerusalemme Liberata  (The freed Jerusalem, 1581), a long epic poem by the famous poet Torquato Tasso and one of the masterpieces of the Italian literature. In the preface to this biography, Pico praises the work written by Tasso at length, but he also points out that   due to the entertaining nature of poetry   many facts are historically incorrect or completely missing. Therefore, as all the other accounts of Godfrey s life were in Latin and thus difficult to comprehend for the majority of readers, the author is confident that his  Vita di Gottifredo  ( Life of Godfrey ) will be useful and appreciated. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Remarkably, at the beginning of his work, Pico quotes a few verses written by the poets Francesco Petrarca and Giambattista Marino concerning Godfrey of Bouillon s military achievements. After a list of the most important contents, the author presents the life s story of the knight from his birth to the moment when he joined the Crusade with his brother Balduin, the siege of Nicea, the conquests of Antioch and Jerusalem, his election as King of Jerusalem and his death by illness the following year. Interestingly, although Pico tells us that Godfrey refused the title of  King    which he considered to be only appropriate for Christ   the author still refers to him as  Re  ( king ) in the title of his biography. In the end, Pico summarises the man s best qualities, such as strength, humility and devotion, using various examples. The book includes nine final remarks ( annotazioni ): in these short paragraphs, the author adds more information about Godfrey s name and family, and discusses key historical facts that are reported in a different way by other historians or that he could not verify. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An example of Renaissance historical and literary erudition, this work is a very enjoyable read even today because of Pico s simple and engaging style.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PICO, Ranuccio.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859635708239,"sku":"L3547","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-9.jpg?v=1781793778"},{"product_id":"rogers-samuel-6","title":"ROGERS, Samuel.","description":"\u003cp\u003eMagnificent first illustrated edition of the banker-cum-poet Samuel Roger s popular poem. This work contains the first illustrations J.M.W. Turner executed for a work of literature, altogether forming a most attractive volume of early Victorian craftsmanship. Rogers was of considerable means, in part thanks to his banking enterprises and his father s death which left him a handsome income. Because of this, he was able to perfect his passion for poetry in relative leisure. He was part of an important circle of Victorian artists and writers including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Opie, Ruskin, Tennyson and Adam Smith, among others. Having established himself in London, Rogers travelled to the Continent in 1814 and kept a diary of his experiences. He returned again seven years later, and out of these inspiring trips emerged his longest and most important work, Italy. It was published in stages; the first part, without illustrations in 1821-22, then revised and expanded in 1823 and 1824. The second part was published in 1828, and finally Rogers commissioned this intensely revised, grand and sumptuously illustrated edition in 1830. It was this edition that made the work a commercial success. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The work is in the form of chaptered poems within which his wondrous impressions of the countryside of Italy are wrought in charming verse. Lake Como, Venice, the Alps, Naples, Florence and Rome are discussed and exalted through poetic musings. Corresponding with each section are either headpiece beautiful landscapes by Turner or tailpieces by Stothard which depict figural episodes. The steel engravings were executed by the brothers Thomas and John Bewick using the latest Victorian technology. Roger s presided over each vignette, commanding small adjustments and insisting on them being completed in his favoured style, the Neoclassical. This luxurious creation created a new standard for illustrated books and was an enormous success, selling 50,000 copies by 1847. The work had a profound effect on John Ruskin, who received the 1830 edition for his 13th birthday. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The blind stamp to the fep indicates the address of the Scottish naturalist and archaeologist, James Ritchie (1882-1958). Ritchie was Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh as well as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Turner's \"delicate and graceful vignettes, which are miracles of fine detail, seem fairly to float upon the page\"   Ray 13.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ROGERS, Samuel.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859638526287,"sku":"X76","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-10.jpg?v=1781793777"},{"product_id":"alamanni-luigi","title":"ALAMANNI, Luigi.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA beautifully bound copy in top quality morocco of this finely printed edition of Alamanni s didactic poem on agriculture. An Italian statesman and poet, Luigi Alamanni (1495-1556) studied philosophy in Florence and attended gatherings at the Orti Oricellari, a famous meeting place for the Florentine social and intellectual  élite and an anti-Medicean circle. Here, he became friends with Machiavelli. In 1522, after participating in an unsuccessful conspiracy against Giulio de' Medici (afterwards Pope Clement VII), he fled to France and became one of the leading poets at the court of King Francis I. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  La Coltivazione  is Alemanni s most celebrated and famous work, dedicated to King Francis I and first published in Paris by Robert Estienne in 1546. Drawing inspiration from Vergil s Georgics, Rucellai s  Api  (= bees) and Columella s Latin works on agronomy, in this didactic poem Alemanni describes everything concerning cultivation and rustic life. The work is divided into six books and elegantly written in  versi sciolti , namely hendecasyllables without rhyme.  This poem has preserved a considerable reputation, from the great purity and elegance of the style, as well as from the methodical arrangement and the sagacity of its agricultural precepts  (Simonde de Sismondi). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The fine red morocco binding is similar in style to the bindings made by the Derome le Jeune (1731-1788, see Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana n. 17) and Louis Doceur (d. 1769; see  Louis Doceur 1746  on Cyclopaedia.org). Two exceptionally skilful craftsmen, they are among the most celebrated eighteen century French binders: their richly gilt and decorated bindings were sought after and expensive. The inner dentelle motif and the small dot tool with a cross appear almost identical to a binding signed by Antoine Durand (active c. 1765, see  Antoine Durand 1769  on Cyclopaedia.org for a similar binding sold at Christies in 2004). The design of the compartments on the spine is also very similar. Master bookbinder from 1765, Durand married the daughter of the king s bookbinder, Guillaume Mercier.  Durand was named official binder of the Royal Library as well as binder for the city of Paris, he went on to become the binder of the comte de Artois and the duc d'Angoul‚àö‚Ñ¢me  . This signifies that he was a busy and successful binder who also moved in Royal circles  (Cyclopaedia.org). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy is from the library of the engraver and printer Wilfred Merton (1888-1957), who was also an avid book and manuscript collector specialising in rare Oriental printing and papyri.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ALAMANNI, Luigi.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859638690127,"sku":"L831","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9167.jpg?v=1781793774"},{"product_id":"manilius-marcus-with-scaliger-joseph","title":"MANILIUS, Marcus [with] SCALIGER, Joseph.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition published by Joseph Scaliger of this very early didactic poem on astrology by Roman poet Marcus Manilius (1st c. AD). Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), a French Calvinist and humanist was the first to critically edit Manilius s enigmatic work since the editio princeps published in Nuremberg in 1473 by the astronomer Regiomontanus. The poem is divided into five books and is accompanied by a second part containing Scaliger s extensive commentary as well as astrological diagrams to seven pages. The poem itself demonstrates influence from Lucretius s De rerum natura and describes the zodiac and Roman astrology. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Manilius s identity is shrouded in mystery, as is when he wrote the work. The only historical event explicitly mentioned is the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest, leading scholars to suggest a date in the early-mid 1st century AD. Volk (2009) states that the poem is the earliest surviving extensive and comprehensible work on astronomy and astrology. The five books commence with the origin of the universe and the nature and composition of earth and space. The orbit of planets is discussed in depth as well as each zodiacal sign and birth charts, horoscopes and ascendants. Following this classical myths are used as vehicles for considering celestial phenomena. Stoic, Platonic, Pythagorean and Epicurean views are all present and modern scholars consistently praise the complex and elegant writing style of the poem. Housman (1916) exclaimed that Manilius was  the one Latin poet who excelled even Ovid in verbal point and smartness . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Scaliger established himself as the preeminent Latin scholar and critic of his day through the publication of this 1579 critical edition. His commentary is essentially a treatise on ancient astronomy and it forms an introduction to his later publication  De emendation temporum  (1583) which sought to expand the contemporary perception of ancient history from just Greeks and Romans to Persians, Babylonians and Egyptians. Indeed, Manilius s identity as a Roman was much debated and questioned; he has been suggested to be an African or Asiatic Greek. Scaliger s edition reintroduced Manilius to the scholarly world and led to many later editions including Boeckler s, Bentley s and Housman s.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANILIUS, Marcus [with] SCALIGER, Joseph.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859642786127,"sku":"L3661","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_2803.jpg?v=1781793748"},{"product_id":"falletti-gerolamo","title":"FALLETTI, Gerolamo.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An attractive, well-margined copy of the first Aldine edition of this interesting collection of Neo-Latin poems, including one on the wars of Charles V in the Low Countries. Gerolamo Falletti (d.1564) studied at Louvain and Ferrara, earning the patronage of Ercole II and Alfonso II d Este. He was later a diplomat for the Serenissima, one of his duties being a visit to Poland after the death of Sigismund I. Dedicated to Ercole II,  De Bello Sicambrico  is a poetic account in 4 books of the siege of Guelders by Charles V in 1542-3. Imbued with humanistic classicism and Virgilian influences, the poem is based on Falletti s first-hand account of the Emperor s attacks against Antwerp and other cities, he took part in the defence of Louvain whilst a student there. The remainder of the collection includes dozens of poems addressed to major personalities of the time, especially Venetian, whom Falletti knew, and concerning specific occasions. For instance, the author Bartolomeo Ricci (who published  De imitatione  with Manutius), Francesco Venier (for whom he provides an obituary), Olimpia Colonna (wife to the Venetian aristocrat Enea Martinengo), and members of the Este family.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The near contemporary annotator glossed 5 poems in Books VI and VII, and corrected Latin typos throughout. The first annotated poem concerns probably Hippolitus Riminaldus, a Ferrara jurist; the following three, the Flemish poet Nicolaus Grudius, and the fifth, Alfonso d Este. The annotator clarified the classical references in the text (to the Argonauts, Orpheus, etc.), as well as rhetorical techniques employed by Falletti (e.g.,  comparatio ,  hortatio ,  prosopopeia ).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This copy was in the library of the famous British archaeologist and bibliophile Thomas Ashby (1874-1931), also the first student and honorary librarian of the British School in Rome.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FALLETTI, Gerolamo.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859657400655,"sku":"L3770","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3770-3.jpg?v=1781793707"},{"product_id":"pindar-1","title":"PINDAR.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good and fascinating copy of the important editio princeps of Pindar’s victory odes, with contemporary annotations in Greek. This is the basis for most subsequent editions, elegantly printed with a larger Greek type than that usually employed by Aldus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePindar (c. 518-438 BC), a native of Thebes, was one of the greatest Greek lyric poets. Highly regarded in antiquity, he was defined by Quintilian and Horace as ‘inimitable for the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence’. Pindar composed forty-four victory songs to be performed by a choir during the formal celebrations at the four panhellenic athletic festivals. These are here published for the first time, grouped into four books named after the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games – held respectively at Olympia, Delphi, Corinth and Nemea. This edition, dedicated by Aldus to his friend and poet Andrea Navagero (1483-1529), also includes the 1dition princeps of Lycophron’s poem ‘Alexandra’ and the second editions of the hymns of Callimachus (first 1494) and of Dionysius’ geographical treatise ‘De situ Orbis’ (first 1512).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe earliest annotation is the monogram ‘ΦΚ’, composed of the two Greek letters ‘F” and ‘K’, which usually stands for the name ‘Phocas’. The cross in between the two letters presumably indicates a connection with a church or a religious order, and it is possible that the monogram belonged to a priest. In Venice, St. Phocas was venerated as patron saint of sailors and he is portrayed in a famous 13th century mosaic in the atrium of St. Mark’s Church. ‘San Foca’ is also a small town located not far from Venice which takes its name from the saint, and a priest and traveller ‘Giovanni da San Foca’, a native of this town, is known for having written a journal of his journey from Udine to Venice in 1536. The volume was then owned by Bartholomeus and Gregorius de Paduanis, most likely two members of the De Padovani family of Brescia, a noble family of Venetian origins. Bartolomeo de Padovanis was a physician and author of many works who died in 1560, while Gregorio was an abbot and prior of the monastery of St. Eufemia della Fonte. “Carolus Scarella” may be the erudite Italian priest and poet Carlo Scarella, also native of Brescia (1705-1769).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe ms. inscriptions on the flyleaves of the volume, in different neat and calligraphic hands, contain erudite quotations from different authors concerning Christian faith and the achievement of knowledge, wisdom and virtue. Noteworthy are the Greek verses by the Italian humanist Politianus (1454-1494), composed and published only 15 years before, which read: ‘For the powerful jaws of time devour all other things, but wisdom alone is, for us, without decay”. A thought-provoking aphorism of Musonius, defined ‘wise’, is copied below: ‘If you perform an honourable action with labour, the labour is soon over, but the honour remains; if you perform a dishonourable action with pleasure, the pleasure soon goes away, and the dishonour remains”. Hesiod’s famous verses concern the path to virtue, which is long and steep at the beginning, then easy to walk once one reaches its summit. The marginalia to Pindarus’ Greek text include erudite explanations of obscure poetic images and clarifications on difficult aspects of the language, for example the poet’s use of the Doric dialect.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PINDAR","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868194087247,"sku":"L3885","price":10500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3885-2.jpg?v=1781793679"},{"product_id":"brant-sebastian-1","title":"BRANT, Sebastian.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine, clean copy, virtually unpressed, in contemporary London binding, of the second English edition, including the Latin text, of this most influential and handsomely illustrated satire on human folly. A German humanist from Strasbourg, Sebastian Brant (1458-1521) completed his studies at Basel. There, he published his major works, the most renowned, ‘Das Narrenschiff’, in 1494. The humanist Jakob Locher translated it into Latin as ‘Stultifera navis’ in 1497. ‘Stultifera navis’ is a powerful satirical poem. ‘In a ship laden with one hundred fools, steered by fools to the fools’ paradise of Narragonia, Brant satirizes all the weaknesses, follies and vices of his time. Composed in popular humorous verse and illustrated by a remarkable series of woodcuts—of which 75 are now attributed to the young Dürer—the book was an immediate success’ (PMM 37). The nautical theme was probably strengthened under the influence of contemporary debates on voyages of exploration and the vanity of seeking knowledge of God’s creation. Most famous is the chapter on the ‘inquisition of geographical regions’, or the foolishness of those who want to measure the earth, illustrated by a fool’s-capped figure holding a compass. It also mentions Columbus’s discoveries. The work opens with the Fool-Book Collector – a most amusing satire of bibliophiles and ‘unprofitable books’. In Barclay’s translation, this bespeckled Fool is ‘busy, books assembling, \/ For to have plentie it is a pleasant thing’. Albeit he does not read or study them, yet he has them ‘in great reverence’, keeps them ‘safe from filth and ordure \/ By often brushing and much diligence’, and likes to have them ‘bound in pleasaunt coverture, \/ Of Damas [damask], Sattin or els of Velvet pure’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe English translation, first made for Pynson’s 1509 edition, is by the Scottish poet and clergyman Alexander Barclay (1476-1552). ‘The English “Ship of Fools” exercised an important direct influence upon our literature, […] helping to bury medieval allegory in the grave […], and to direct English authorship into the drama, essay, and novel of character’ (DNB). Barclay’s first major publication, it was based on the German, Latin (in particular) and French texts, including ‘free additions and unconscious adaptation [of the original] to the manners of a new nation of readers’ (Morley, p.93), having, for instance, the foolish priests who ‘no scripture think […] so true nor good \/ As is the foolish deeds of Robin Hood’, national ‘types’ such as Jack Charde or Robin Hill, and sections based on ancient or continental geography rewritten with a focus on Britain and Ireland (with its dwellers ‘Denis and Moris, Patrike and Mackmurre’, dressed in mantles ‘for lack of precious fur’). Barclay and Pynson’s novelty were the printed marginal glosses and ‘envoys’, assisting the reader with sources and citations. ‘This second edition […] contains the cuts from the previous English edition of 1509; all but 7 derive from those in the first edition of the “Narrenschiff” (Basel, 1494). […] Added in the English editions are cuts 68, 76, 86, 101-104’ (Luborsky \u0026amp; Ingram 3546). At the end are appended Barclay’s translation of Mancin’s ‘The Mirrour of Good Manners’, a poem on the cardinal virtues, and Barclay’s own English eclogues.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe early owner, William Clerke (fl.1590s), may be the author of ‘The Triall of Bastardie’ (1594) and ‘Polimanteia’ (1595), one of the earliest known works mentioning Shakespeare’s name. Estelle Doheny (1875-1958) was a collector and philanthropist, wife of the oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny. A most discerning bibliophile, she amassed a library of major early Western works in fine copies, including specimens of the Gutenberg Bible, subsequently dispersed through several sales. Acquired from Robinsons of Pall Mall, their description enclosed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRANT, Sebastian.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868671779151,"sku":"L4123","price":85000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_1845-copy.jpg?v=1781793662"},{"product_id":"massac-raymond-and-charles-de-and-ovid-naso-publius-massac-raymond-trans","title":"MASSAC, Raymond and Charles de. (and) OVID, Naso, Publius. [MASSAC, Raymond. trans.]","description":"\u003cp\u003eThree extremely rare editions of the principal works of the doctor Raymond de Massac and his son Charles, a poet, who helped versify his work. Massac was a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Toulouse and was also a member of the Faculty of medicine at Orléans. The first work is Massac s detailed description of the properties of the waters of the fountains of Pougues in Latin, and the second the same, translated into alexandrine verse by his son Charles. Jean Pidoux, doctor to Louis de Gonzague, Duke of Nevers, was the first to write about the curative virtues of the waters of Pougues, 1584. Having become physician to the King, Pidoux advised Henri III, who suffered from renal colic to come and take the  waters of Pougues. Henri III felt so well after his  cure‚Äö that he returned, accompanied by his mother, Catherine de M édicis, who also suffered from kidney pain. Massac s work is also dedicated to the wife of the Duke of Nevers. It discusses the relative properties of two fountains close to each other, one called Saint L éger, the other Saint Marcel in great depth. Henri IV had just also visited the fountains in 1603, to deal with his kidney problems, and a year later his gout, and Massac deals the properties of the water in helping both conditions.\u003cbr\u003e\nCharles and Raymond de Massac published the first part of their translation of the Metamorphoses in alexandrines in 1603, only completed in 1617 and would not be further printed. The third book here is the continuation, the translation of the 13th book. Their translation conforms to the protocol followed by the previous translators into French, Habert and Clement Marot in the use of verse, the absence of illustrations and allegorical comments; parsimonious use of subtitles and glosses in the margins. This choice could have been determined by the wish of the Massac s to register their translation, dedicated to Henri IV (in the first edition), in the continuity of those proposed in the past to the kings of France: (Marot (François Ier) and Habert (Henri II). However their timing was unfortunate in that Renouard published a prose translation at the same period, (1606) much altering the text, which was profusely illustrated with lots of commentary that proved hugely popular, and consigned the Massacs  translation to oblivion.\u003cbr\u003e\nFrom the extensive library of rare medical works of Dr. Maurice-Villaret.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MASSAC, Raymond and Charles de. (and) OVID, Naso, Publius. [MASSAC, Raymond. trans.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868673155407,"sku":"L3971","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3971-2.jpg?v=1781793659"},{"product_id":"gower-john-1","title":"GOWER, John.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Fine, unsophisticated copy, virtually unpressed, of the third edition of this milestone of medieval English poetry (despite its Latin title), once as successful as  The Canterbury Tales  and  Piers Plowman . What is known about the life of John Gower (1330-1408) comes mostly from his works, written in French, Latin and English, employing allegory to tackle moral, religious and political questions. His English vocabulary shows Kent and Suffolk influence. This edition of the  Confessio    his most successful work   is a close reprint of Berthelet s (1532), based on a ms collated with Caxton s edition. (Pforzheimer II, p.411). Berthelet s dedication to the reader is a literary essay which explains how the work originated, i.e., from a conversation with King Richard II in the 1380s; it also  canonises  Gower by mentioning his acquaintance with Chaucer, who dedicated his  Troilus and Criseyde  to him, and his rich tomb at Southwark Cathedral. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The Prologue summarises Gower s desire to produce a book  somewhat of lust, and somewhat of lore , to elicit the interest of a varied readership. Like Boethius s  De Consolatione , it is a work of consolation and meditation; like Chaucer s  Canterbury Tales  and Boccaccio s  Decameron , it presents a myriad of delightful, short exemplary stories on sundry topics, populated by interesting characters. The narrative frame is the confession of an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus, the epilogue being assigned to the goddess herself. The short stories are told by the confessor to explain moral points during their conversation: e.g., against arrogance, lust, sexual violation or vain glory, and in defence of chastity and continence. For instance, one tells the story of King Antiochus  incestuous passion for his own daughter, whom he violated after his wife s death. Interestingly, Part VII is devoted to the best  regimen sanitatis  according to Aristotle, the well-being of the soul linked to the well-being of the body. It includes a verse summary on the subcategories of philosophy, including music and mathematics, the elements, humours, organs, terrestrial geography, the planets, zodiac and constellations. The c1700 annotator wrote an amusing comment on Gower s description of the horses pulling the Sun s cart through the heavens, suggesting  it may be he [Apollo] has got a new set of horses since Ovid s days  to highlight a discrepancy with the source. He also glossed two pages on stars and their corresponding minerals and herbs, marking the herb called  Annabulla  (i.e., Annabella, sage) as probably  an allusion of the printer s to H[enry] 8[th] s time . .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GOWER, John.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868673319247,"sku":"L4032","price":42500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4032-4-4-1.jpg?v=1781793657"},{"product_id":"petrarch-2","title":"PETRARCH.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Later edition with Gesualdo s commentary, revised and illustrated, of Petrarch s complete works. Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304-74) has been called  the father of Humanism  and the initiator of the Renaissance due to his ground-breaking rediscovery of classical texts like Cicero s letters. A prolific author of verse, epistles and essays, Petrarch lived between Italy and France, where he allegedly fell in love with Laura, an inspirational muse of whom little is known, except the fact that she was probably married. This edition is devoted to his  cose vulgari  his texts in the vernacular as found in a holograph ms preserved by the humanist Pietro Bembo. The  Canzoniere  is a collection of over 300 poems written for Laura, whose name reprises the  laurel  of great poets. The author looks back to his unrequited love, his  sighs  and  first error of youth , for a lady who is physical, holy and ethereal at the same time. Inspired by the triumphal progresses of ancient Rome,  Trionfi  celebrates in verse the allegorical figures of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Eternity, providing reflections on the fleetingness of human existence which also permeate Petrarch s entire production. Together with Dante and Boccaccio, Petrarch became one of the three models for the Italian literary language based on its Tuscan variant.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.. ..Giovanni Andrea Gesualdo s commentary is likely the source of Thomas Wyatt s famous metaphor of the  amorous chase  in  Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where Is An Hind , dedicated to Anne Boleyn. Gesualdo was also among the first to connect the  impudent prostitute  of the Avignonese church in Petrarch s  Babylonian sonnets  (i.e., n. 136-8)   here present and untouched, but often found censored or removed from copies or editions - to the apocalyptic Whore of Rome. Gesualdo s first edition did not include the map of Vaucluse, whilst the  Trionfi  were illustrated by different woodcuts. The illustrations in this edition reprise those of the famous commentary by Alessandro Vellutello.  Trionfi  are illustrated with six exquisite allegorical woodcuts. The full-page map of Vaucluse was based on that drawn by Vellutello, after two visits to Avignon.  This map   struck the phantasy of the Petrarchists of the Cinquecento. It reappears, in one form or another, in twenty of the hundred-odd editions of the  Canzoniere  published in the next hundred years  (Wilkins,  Vellutello s Map , 277). The map, together with a life of the poet and a short essay on the places he visited, were additions intended to assist the reader  hugely influential in satisfying the taste for both Petrarch s poetry   and details of his life and Laura s  (Trapp,  Petrarchan Places , 4)..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PETRARCH.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868676202831,"sku":"L4124","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_0528.jpg?v=1781793649"},{"product_id":"more-thomas-2","title":"MORE, Thomas.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Very interesting works of Thomas More, with one of the two 1565  first  editions of his Latin  opera omnia , and the rare 1529 first English edition of his  Dialogue . Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was a statesman under Henry VIII, one of the most influential English Renaissance humanists, especially through works such as  Utopia  (1516), and a saint and martyr of the Catholic Church. First printed here by John Rastell, and requested by the Bishop of London, More s  Dyaloge  is devoted to the most controversial questions pertaining to the Catholic faith, in the making of the English Reformation: the veneration and worship of images and relics, prayers to the saints, and the rationale of going on pilgrimage. It is in the form of a humanist dialogue between More, on the side of the Catholic Church, and a messenger, who reports how image veneration, the worship of saints, and pilgrimage have been abused. Most interesting are the sections where More upholds, unexpectedly, the importance of the English translation of the Bible, praising the aptness of the English vernacular for the sacred text, and pondering on how the common people should read and interpret passages on their own. In 1530, William Tyndale wrote  An Answer  to More s  Dyaloge  rebutting his theories and defending himself from his direct attacks. The first title is one of the two printings, which appeared in Louvain in 1565, of More s complete Latin works. Since the two printers worked in tandem, and the text is identical, they are considered two variants of the first collected edition. The first work is, notably, More s ground-breaking political satire,  Utopia  (1516), a travelogue reporting on the customs, inhabitants, religion and society of the fictional island, in a not-too-veiled comparison to Henrician England. In this copy, three of the  Epigrammata  - witty, moralistic short poems on a variety of subjects - were censored by an early reader, all three criticising James V of Scotland, and the second the Battle of Flodden in particular. Other works include his celebrated translation of Lucian, an answer to Luther written on behalf of Henry VIII, and a treatise on Christ s Passion. Two important first editions. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..It seems from the inscription that the curmudgeonly bookseller was alive and well in the early 1600 s..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORE, Thomas.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868679446863,"sku":"L4096","price":97500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4330-copy.jpg?v=1781793644"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-18_at_6.51.35_PM.png?v=1781961872","url":"https:\/\/sokol-books-ltd.myshopify.com\/collections\/poetry.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}