Continental
Contact Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi, Jonathan Harrison, Charlotte Miller or Sally Deegan
Our Continental department specialises in incunabula, Greek and Latin classics, early vernacular imprints, and notable texts from the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the early modern era, with a specific section devoted to medieval manuscripts, fragments, and illuminations.
We regularly issue lists and catalogues, offering a wide variety of literary, historical, and philosophical books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, and Russia. Woodcuts, early engravings, notable bindings, notable marginalia, rare manuscript or printed survivals, and books with a remarkable provenance are among our keenest interests and feature regularly in our stock.
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DOMINICUS DE FLANDRIA.
Dominici de Flandria ordinis predicator[um] artium et theologie doctoris in divi Thome de Aq[ui]no co[m]mentaria...
Venice, Giorgio Arrivabene for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 25 January 1514.
Scarce early editions of two Aristotelian commentaries. The first, by the Dominican philosopher Dominic of Flanders (c. 1425–1479), analyses two works by Thomas Aquinas: his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (on the nature of scientific axioms), and his De fallaciis (on...
£3000
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[POPE, Alexander.]
The Dunciad. An heroic Poem. In three Books. The second Edition.
‘Dublin, Printed; London, Re-printed for A. Dodd. 1728.’
Second edition, rare, and of considerable interest, largely a reimpression of the first edition but with gathering B, most of C, and D4v reset.
£4500
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HIPPOCRATES.
The Eight Sections of Hippocrates Aphorismes review’d and rendred into English: according to the Translation of...
London, W. G. for Rob. Crofts, 1665.
First edition of this translation of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, a succinct summary of medical advice directed at the practitioner. The first English translation was published in 1610, and a second version, derived from it in 1655. Here the aphorisms are entirely re-arranged by topic under...
£850
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MARTIAL.
Epigrammaton libri XIII. Ex fide vetustissimorum exemplarium, quanta fieri potuit cura vigilantiaque emendati.
Paris, Jean Libert, 1612 [(colophon:) 1613].
An uncommon small-format edition of Martial’s Epigrams, with early annotations marking passages used by the humanist poet Marot.
£650
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ARISTAENETUS.
Επιστολαι … Epistolae graecae. Cum Latina interpretatione & notis. Tertia editio emendatior & auctior.
Paris, Marc Orry, 1610.
A volume of fictional Greek love stories, presented in the form of letters, printed in parallel Greek and Latin, from the library of the Padua professor and printer Giovanni Antonio Volpi.
£1250
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EUCLID; Jean MAGNIEN and Stephanus GRACILIS, editors.
Euclidis elementorum libri XV Graece et Latine, quibus, cum...
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat, 1557.
First edition of Euclid’s Elements as edited by Jean Magnien and Stephanus Gracilis, with woodcut diagrams throughout, this copy extensively annotated by a contemporary student.
£5500
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EUSTRATIUS of Nicaea, et al.; ARISTOTLE.
Ευστρατιου και αλλων τινων επισημων υπομνηματα...
[(Colophon:) Venice, heirs of Aldus Manutius and Andrea Torresano, July 1536.]
Editio princeps of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by Eustratius of Nicaea, Michael of Ephesus, the Peripatetic philosopher Aspasius, and other anonymous scholiasts, published by the Aldine press, annotated in Greek by a contemporary scholar.
£5500
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EPICTETUS.
Το του Επικτητου εγχειριδιον. Ex editione Joannis Upton accurate expressum.
Glasgow, Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1751.
The first miniature Foulis edition of Epictetus in Greek, and the first Foulis Epictetus in Greek only. A 1765 reissue was, according to ESTC, reset.
£650
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[ANTHOLOGIA GRAECA PLANUDEA.]
Ανθολογια διαφορων επιγραμματων παλαιων, εις επτα βιβλια...
[Geneva], Henri Estienne, 1566.
First Estienne edition of the Planudean Anthology, a substantial collection of classical Greek poems and epigrams which proved a fertile source for scholars, poets, and artists, with extensive seventeenth-century annotations in Greek by an English scholar.
£5000
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ARISTOPHANES.
The Frogs, a Comedy. Translated from the Greek of Aristophanes, by C[harles] Dunster, A.M …
Oxford, J. and J. Fletcher; London, Rivington, Payne, Faulder, Cadell; Cambridge, Merrill, [1785].
First edition in English, and the only separately published translation of The Frogs in the eighteenth century. ‘It is … somewhat surprising that in an age so studious of ancient literature as the present, and which so much abounds in translations of the Greek and Latin classics, we have versions...
£500
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STEPHANUS of Byzantium; HANNO; Abraham Van BERKEL, editor and translator.
Genuina Stephani Byzantini de urbibus et populis...
Leiden, Daniel van Gaasbeeck, 1674.
First edition thus, a volume of short and fragmentary geographical works from Greece, Africa, and Egypt, spanning a thousand years of antiquity.
£450
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[VIRGIL.] RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE).
...
Paris, André Wechel, 1564.
Second editions of Ramus’s extensive commentaries on Virgil’s two poems on country life, written in reaction to the dry doctrines of several French schools who based their teaching of nature on Aristotle’s Physics. Ramus wanted to keep in contact with the concrete realities of nature and...
£950
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GAZA, Theodorus.
Grammatica introductiva; De mensibus; Apollonius Dyscolus: De constructione; Herodianus: De numeris.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Aldus Manutius, 25 December 1495.]
A beautiful example of early Greek printing, containing the editio princeps of the grammar of Theodorus Gaza, and one of the first texts to be printed entirely in Greek.
£45000
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[SPENCE, Joseph.] Nicholas TINDAL.
A Guide to classical Learning: or, Polymetis abridged … being a Work absolutely necessary,...
London, J. Dodsley, 1777.
Second illustrated edition (fourth overall) of Nicholas Tindal’s abridgement for schools of Polymetis (1747), a dialogue by the traveller, scholar, friend of Alexander Pope, and Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford Joseph Spence (1699–1748), in which he explored the connections between...
£250
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HERMOGENES.
Τεχνη ρητορικη τελειοτατη. Hermogenis ars oratoria absolutissima, et libri omnes. Cum nova versione...
Geneva, Pierre Aubert, 1614.
A parallel text edition of Hermogenes in a simple but fine contemporary binding.
£750
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ARISTOTLE; THEOPHRASTUS; Theodorus GAZA and Pietro ALCIONIO, translators.
Historiae. Cum de natura Animalium, tum...
Lyons, [Nicolas Bacquenois for] Guillaume Gazeau, 1552.
A union of Aristotle on animals and Theophrastus on plants, the fundamental texts from Ancient Greece on zoology and botany, in the translations of Gaza and Alcionio.
£800
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ZOSIMUS.
Ιστοριας νεας βιβλοι ἑξ … Historiae novae libri sex, notis illustrate.
Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre, 1679.
First Oxford edition of this history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to the year 410, by the fifth-century Greek historian Zosimus. The work is an important source particularly for the period 395-410 and its pagan author attributes Rome’s decline to its embrace of Christianity and rejection of...
£400
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ZOSIMUS.
Ιστοριας νεας βιβλοι ἑξ … Historiae novae libri sex, notis illustrati.
Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre, 1679.
First Oxford edition of this history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to the year 410, by the fifth-century Greek historian Zosimus. The work is an important source particularly for the period 395-410 and its pagan author attributes Rome’s decline to its embrace of Christianity and rejection of...
£500
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BACON, Francis.
Historia vitae et mortis.
Amsterdam, Johannes van Ravesteyn, 1663.
Pocket-sized Amsterdam editions of three works by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), uncut and unopened and bound, exceptionally, in the original drab boards.
£975
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FULBECKE, William.
An Historicall Collection of the continuall Factions, Tumults, and Massacres of the Romans and Italians during...
London, Printed for William Ponsonby. 1601.
First edition of Fulbecke’s Historicall Collection, a ‘narrative history of the last years of the Roman republic’ (ODNB), one of very few such works by a Renaissance English writer, featuring much material on the rebellion of the nobleman Catiline, undoubtedly included as a reference...
£5250