Search Results: Authors starting with S from Liber Antiquus

Nuremberg: Georg Merckel, 1553. FOURTH EDITION (1st ed. ca. 1532). Hardcover. Fine. Bound in modern quarter vellum and paste paper over boards. With an unsigned title woodcut (by Georg Pencz?). A tall, broad-margined copy with a few deckled edges preserved. Small natural paper flaw on the final leaf. Bound with a second, anonymous poem, "Klaglied: Deren von Magdeburgk, zu Gott und allen frommen Christen." [Coburg, C. Schnauß], 1551, which has light dampstains. A popular poem on the evils of slander and gossip by the poet and playwright Hans Sachs, an accomplished Meistersinger of the Nuremberg School (Sachs is the title character of Wagner's "Meistersinger"). A shoemaker and guild master by trade, Sachs' songs, plays, and dialogues address the social concerns of his day and the effects of the Reformation on the established social order. Sachs' conception of Slander personified shares affinities with Virgil's figure of "Fama" (gossip). The poem features a remarkable woodcut illustration, in which… Read More

Rome: Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi, 1660. SECOND EDITION (first printed in 1606). Hardcover. Fine. With an engraved allegorical title with the main title incised within a wolf's hide hung on a monument; an engraved dedication to Matthaeus Wacker von Wackenfels (numbered'1'), with the text incised on a stone tablet between flanking obelisks and with two putti supporting the dedicatee's arms; and 49 full-paged engraved plates (ca. 170 x 270 mm), all numbered and signed 'Marco Sadeler excudit', with descriptive captions in Italian. An extremely fine, broad-margined copy with very rich and clear impressions of the plates. In an attractive contemporary binding of stiff ivory vellum, the boards with large central arabesques in gold, framed by a double gilt rule, and with floral tools at the angles and along the spine. Thirty-six of these images were copied by Aegidius Sadeler from Etienne Du Pérac's " Vestigi dell'Antichità di Roma" (Rome 1575). For the other images, Sadeler drew on drawings by Jan… Read More

Florence: [Gianstephano di Carlo da Pavia], 23 October, 1508. THIRD EDITION, mimicking the layout and using the same woodcuts as the edition published at Florence by Bartolommeo di Libri, 24 Oct. 1495. Another Florentine edition, undated, was printed by Lorenzo Morgiani and Johannes Petri, ca. 1495-1496. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in 20th c. brown morocco. A fine copy. Savonarola's name has been censored on the title. With a fine woodcut scene on the title page showing Savonarola conversing with the Abbess and sisters of the Monastero delle Murate. On the final leaf is a Crucifixion scene with the Virgin, St. John, and Mary Magdalene. These woodcuts were used in Bartolommeo di Libri's 1495 first edition. Printer from BM STC Italian; place and date of printing from colophon. Sander, who attributes the printing to De Libri, regards the 1508 date of this third edition as erroneous, and assigns it to 1498, perhaps because of the use of the same woodcuts. Very rare. 5 copies traced in North America: UCLA,… Read More

Venice: Appresso Francesco Ziletti [for Girolamo Porro], 1582. FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE. Edited by Girolamo Porro. With a dedication by Porro to Giacomo Contarini dated Nov. 20, 1581. The 40 double-page etched plates of monuments are by Giovanni Battista Pittoni (1520-1583). Extremely rare, especially the first issue, which is recorded in one copy, at Cambridge Univ. Library. Hardcover. Fine. A fine, fresh copy, bound in contemporary limp vellum, spine with discreet restoration. Printed on heavy paper. This copy is complete with the final errata leaf, lacking in many copies. The text and plates are in excellent condition. The etched and engraved title page depicts Roman ruins seen through an elaborate arch with Corinthian columns, segmented pediment, flanking allegorical personifications, interpreted as geometry (or architectural theory) and (practical) architecture, and Ziletti's printer's device below. Illustrated with 40 double-page plates of Roman architectural monuments, 39 of which are… Read More

Venice: In casa de' figliuoli di Aldo, July, 1544. FIRST EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. A very fine copy bound in 20th c. stiff vellum, citron label, gilt on spine. Aldine device on title and final leaf. Broad-margined with just a very light dampstain to the lower margin and a little light soiling and staining to the title; text on bifolium D2-3 lightly printed. Provenance: Giannalisa Feltrinelli (1903-1981), her bookplate. First edition of this treatise 'On True Tranquility of the Soul', published under the name of Isabella Sforza, great-granddaughter of Alessandro Sforza (1409-73) and "the last, and illegitimate, daughter of the Pesaro branch of the illustrious ruling family of Milan"(Daenens). Isabella was the recipient and subject of numerous letters, poems, and dedications by authors such as Pietro Aretino (who wrote that it was his passion for Isabella that kept him from indulging his homosexual desires.) For an assessment of what is known of Isabella and her life, see Daenens, ''Isabella Sforza:… Read More

Worms: Gregor Hofmann ("excudebat Gregorius Comiander"), 1545. SECOND EDITION (1st ed. 1544). Hardcover. Fine. Bound in modern vellum. A fine, unpressed copy with good margins of this extremely rare book. Illustrated with seven half-page illustrations in the text, a woodcut of the author on the final leaf, and a small title vignette. Only 1 other copy of this edition traced in North America (Dartmouth). Searching all editions combined, I have located only 1 other copy in North America (the 1544 Antwerp edition, at Harvard). Extremely rare second edition (the first published in Germany) of Georgevic's illustrated, first-hand account of his capture by the Ottomans, his experiences as a slave, and his eventual escape from Ottoman captivity. It includes a description of Turkish customs and a short Latin-Turkish dictionary of common words and sentences, as well as the first Croatian-Latin dictionary. Bartolomej Georgevic, also known as Bartol Đurđević (1506 - 1566) was born in Mala Mlaka, then part… Read More

London: Various printers (details below). 1591-, 1596. A remarkable volume containing 3 separately-printed works, including the first editions of the second part (Cantos 4-6) of The Faerie Queene (1596) and Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595). Hardcover. Fine. Bound in 17th c. calf, the boards gilt-ruled in compartments with ornamental tools at the corners and a large stamp of the Tudor arms at the center of each board (hinges and endcaps restored, corners bumped, later label, lacking ties). Inscriptions: In the Shepheards Calender 1. Contemporary signature of Roger Collings on p. 1; 2. Inscription in Latin on title page, "To the library of Lord John Bond as a gift by M[onsieur] Bloncq [i.e. Blanc] A.D. 1627". 3. Also on t.p., "Lady Carew" and "June 27, 1669" (perhaps Mary Morice of Wirrington (d. 1698), Lady Carew). 4. Unidentified armorial stamp on verso of t.p. For condition of contents, see individual entries below. 5. Another -and quite marvelous- contemporary inscription on the third… Read More

Steinhilben: (near Reutlingen, Baden-Wurttemberg), 1572. AN APPARENTLY UNPUBLISHED, STRICTLY CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT OF THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY MASSACRE, SIGNED BY LUDWIG III, DUKE OF WURTTEMBERG, DATED SEPTEMBER 2, 1572 -- JUST DAYS AFTER THE HORRIBLE EVENTS TRANSPIRED IN PARIS -- TOGETHER WITH A SEPARATE DOCUMENT WHICH NAMES SOME OF THE PRINCIPLE VICTIMS AND PROVIDES ADDITIONAL DETAILS. Hardcover. Fine. The French Wars of Religion produced one of the most brutal and excessive persecutions in history, including the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris which began on August 24, 1572 and continued for three hellish days. Thousands of Protestant Huguenots were tortured, raped, and murdered on the streets of Paris and elsewhere in France. In the provinces the violence continued through October. Whereas the number of casualties can only be conjectured, one instructive piece of evidence is the record of a payment by the City of Paris to workmen for collecting and burying exactly 1,100 bodies… Read More