Search Results: Titles starting with O from Bruce McKittrick Rare Books

Bruxelles: E. de Grieck, 1726. 19th-century calf-backed marbled boards (scuffed), flat spine and label gilt. Only Edition, on the two altar crosses (illustrated) in the 12th-century Sint-Martinuskerk in Asse (Brabant), a popular pilgrimage site. I have not located an example in the U.S. In good condition. ¶STCV 7050240.

Venice: heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Asolano, 1519. CONTEMPORARY DARK BROWN FLEMISH PANEL-STAMPED CALF (c. 1530; corners worn, front hinge cracked), ruled outer frame, the panel stamp of wyverns, acorns, foliage, drawer handles and artichokes (see Goldschmidt's Gothic & Renaissance Book Bindings 134), rope marks fill the top and bottom spine compartments and the other three compartments have blind rolls on either side of the bands (crown and base defective), later manuscript-lettered paper spine label, evidence of four ties, edges gilt and gauffered with lozenges and daisies, vellum pastedowns from a 13th-century manuscript written in northern France.             The most widely known European military campaign of foreign conquest and civil war. Its simple, lucid prose style instructed Latin students for a half a millennium.            Excepting the front matter (papal privileges, errata, etc.), this edition is a paginary reprint of the innovative Aldine of 1513, which offered the first… Read More

[Stuttgart: Printer of the Erwählung Maximilians], 1486. CONTEMPORARY BLIND-TOOLED PIGSKIN-BACKED WOODEN BOARDS (some worming), contemporary manuscript titles on the front board, on a vellum strip at the top center of the rear board, on the spine and on the bottom edge, brass catch (evidence of a clasp). First Issue, with the uncorrected colophon. From these seventy tracts and letters much of the old Latin Bible can be reconstructed. Their legalistic conception of the church permanently influenced Western Catholicism. During the Reformation, all sides turned to Cyprian.  THIS IS THE ONLY SUBSTANTIAL BOOK PRODUCED AT STUTTGART IN THE 15TH CENTURY, and one of three overall. The anonymous printer may have purchased his typographic materials from Conrad Fyner, who was active at Urach and Esslingen from 1473 to 1485.  An outlier, this is the only printing prepared by a still unidentified editor. The other incunable editions follow the text established by Giovanni Andrea Bussi (1417-1475) for… Read More

Lyon: A. Gryphe, 1581. 18th-century blind-ruled calf (c. 1740, rubbed), spine and red morocco label gilt, red edges, green silk marker. His literary innovations and felicitous high style earned him the sobriquet "the Christian Virgil". He placed the pastoral genre at the center of contemporary literature, used secular imagery for sacred subjects, gave reign to voluptuous tenderness in "The Kiss" and invented the theme of "Arcadia". In good condition (a few tiny marginal worm trails), two canceled manuscript title inscriptions. ¶Oberlé, Amoenitates poeticae latinae modernae 217; Ellinger, Geschichte der neulateinischen Literatur I: 59-62 (& passim in vols. 2-3); Gültlingen, Bibliographie des livres imprimés à Lyon au 16e siècle XIV: 180,201.

Venice: [Philippus Pincius for] Benedictus Fontana, 1496. CONTEMPORARY STRASSBURG BINDING of blind-decorated pigskin over wooden boards (Kyriss shop 147), outer borders of vines and flowers, central rectangle with two repetitions of a foliage roll flanking two repetitions of a roll of nude men and women, chased brass clasps and catches, 18th-century manuscript-lettered paper spine label, manuscript titles on the fore-edge. Bound with: Persius (Persius Flaccus, Aulus). 34-62.  [Opera] cum tribus comentariis [sic]. Venice, Giovanni Tacuino de Tridino 1499. Folio. LXIII, [1 blank] leaves. Roman types, shoulder notes.  FINE UNSHADED TITLE WOODCUT OF THE AUTHOR LECTURING as his commentators work at their desks, the printer's geometric white-line woodcut device on the penultimate verso. Bound with: Juvenal (Juvenalis, Decimus Junius). 55/65-after 127 B.C.  [Satyrae] cum commento. [Reggio Emilia, Francesco de Mazalibus] 1503. Folio. [vi], 137 leaves. Roman types, scattered Greek, shoulder notes,… Read More

Toscolano: Alessandro dei Paganini, 1521. Mid-19th century crushed blind-ruled red morocco (rubbed), gilt-lettered spine, all edges gilt, blue silk marker. FIRST COMPLETE EDITION AND THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THESE WONDERFUL STRONGLY MODELLED WOODCUTS.      THIS WORK ESTABLISHED THE NEW LITERARY GENRE OF MACARONICS, the comic literary practice of mixing Latin words and Italian words with Latin inflections. Rabelais placed this title in the imaginary library of St. Victor.      The most celebrated piece relates the adventures of Baldus (a prince raised as a peasant) and his friends, the giant Fracasso, the rogue Cingar and the dog-man Falchetto, who end up in a giant pumpkin where poets, philosophers and other liars suffer diabolic dentistry. The final eight cantos are published here for the first time as is his "Battle of Flies and Ants". In good condition (title soiled, a couple of minor spots). ¶Elie, "Alessandro dei Paganini" in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1967 99-103 no. 18; Nuovo, Alessandro… Read More

Venice: B. Benalius, 150-. Late 19th-century English dark blue calf, blind-rolled outer frame, double gilt-ruled and blind-rolled inner frame with gilt and blind-stamped lilies in the outer and inner corners, spine gilt and gilt-lettered, blind-ruled board edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.             Illustrated anonymous chiromancy combining natural science, astrology, medicine, divination and folklore. THIS IS THE SECOND KNOWN COPY OF THIS EDITION, AND THE ONLY COMPLETE.            The art of palm reading began to spread through medieval Europe with the 12th-century translation of Arabic and Greek philosophical texts. Some Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian works, in particular, legitimized the practice as a form of physiognomy. Chiromancy was soon linked to astrology - another system for the interpretation of natural signs - and, by the 15th century, had become a ubiquitous instrument of medical diagnosis, political strategy and fortune-telling. Its ambiguous… Read More

Rome: J. Besicken, 1503. Contemporary Roman binding of blind-tooled and red-painted calf over beveled wooden boards decorated with two different ropework stamps, palm leaves, circles, flames, trefoils, daisies and a foliage-fan tool that is used in the corners and for the central medallion; four repoussé brass catches (clasps gone, late 17th-century repairs to the four outer corners, panels and spine slightly wormed). Only Edition: poems and prose representative of the brilliant cultural circle at the Aragonese court in Naples. Calenzio (1430-1502/3) was, first, King Federico's tutor, then his trusted diplomat and treasurer.  His son Lucio enlisted his father's friend, the humanist Colocci (1474-1549), to shepherd his father's works through the press, including his Croacus or Battle of the Frogs and Mice, his most frequently reprinted piece. As editor, Colocci often radically intervened, rewriting entire passages. He did not, however, suppress the author's obscene poems, licentious letters,… Read More

Paris: André Bocard for Jean Petit, 1500. Contemporary limp vellum (soiled, front hinge weak), 18th-century gilt calf spine (minor defects), manuscript title label, edges striped in red, evidence of four ties. Only Edition, posthumously published by an anonymous French editor, who added the subject index and decried the low state of learning in England and Germany. Brulefer was "among the important Franciscan preachers of the late fifteenth century" (Sullivan). Contentious and controversial, he was banned from Paris.             Scattered foxing, two leaves soiled, one natural paper flaw, some lower edges uncut. In 1610 François Bullioud (fl. 1583-1633) gave this copy to the Lyon Jesuits, their memorial bookplate of 1610 and catalog entry of 1611. ¶Sullivan, Parisian Licentiates in Theology 101-3; Contemporaries of Erasmus I: 205-6; ISTC ib01222000; Goff B-1222.

Paris: P. Chevalier, 1614. Contemporary limp vellum, manuscript spine title and paper label stenciled K2, evidence of four leather ties. Only Edition, first issue of the lawyer and classical text editor's only book. This collects published and unpublished prefaces, essays, letters, spiritual meditations, poems and biblical commentaries in French and in Latin. In all there are over a hundred pieces, including a life of the author by Jean Lebègue, the volume's editor, correspondence to Le Fèvre from across Europe, an investigation of the drinking of myrrh and his opinion of the veneration of holy relics and images. I have located two examples in the U.S. In good condition (a couple of quires slightly browned, one more so), early signature Lacroix. ¶Arbour, L'ère baroque 7203; Cioranescu 13077 ("1616").