Search Results: bible

Gothic type, double column, 66 lines (33 line-pairs). [373] leaves. Decoration by a contemporary Dutch or Westphalian artist (see below). Eight pinholes to the sheet preserved. Royal folio (385 x 270 mm.), mid-18th cent. French red morocco over heavy boards, by Louis Douceur, triple gilt fillets round sides, spine nicely gilt, a.e.g. Mainz: [Peter Schoeffer], 1460 [but ca. 1469]. Second impression (of three) of the original edition, first printed in 1460, in which Gutenberg first used the revolutionary method of two-line printing slugs, thereby finding "a solution to the challenge of permanently fixing typographical compositions" (Needham, p. 432). The Catholicon was not printed with movable type, Gutenberg's first great invention, but with units of paired lines or "slugs." It is an early form of stereotyping or linotype setting. The method was as follows: as composition in type of the Catholicon progressed, a secondary casting was made in units of paired lines or "slugs" in order to allow future… Read More

[Warsaw], 1922. Original book dummy. Designed and illustrated by Uriel Kahana. Cover design attributed to El Lissitzky. Illustrations and text-bands (the earlier typewritten ones overlaid by print-proofs) are mounted on the pages. With corrections, notes and other signs in black and red pencil. Together with two red-and-black proofs of the front cover design. With ten extra copies of illustrations (clipped), and one leaf with proofs of the signet of Tsil Tslil (the series of the publisher, in which the book appeared). The last leaf of the printed book is omitted from the dummy. Some of the mounted text-bands are creased (those not pasted, kept separately). Leaves are chipped at edges. Paper yellowed due to aging. Slightly dusted and stained because of the glue used to paste the illustrations and the text-bands. Overall in good condition.. Original book dummy. Designed and illustrated by Uriel Kahana. Cover design attributed to El Lissitzky. Illustrations and text-bands (the earlier typewritten ones… Read More

Paris, 1400. BOOK OF HOURS. Use of Paris)  In French and Latin, illuminated manuscript, on parchment France, Paris, c. 1400-1410 15 large miniatures by the Master of the Bible Historiale MS fr. 159 (as described by Les Enluminures) This beautifully executed and unusual Parisian Book of Hours was painted at the time of the Duke of Berry. The "realism" seen in the illuminations represents a special moment in Parisian art, one exemplifying its northern origins.  The miniatures are attributed to one of the artists responsible for the Bible Historiale also referred to as the Master of the Bible Historiale fr. 159 (Paris, BnF MS fr. 159).  The female patron who ordered the book appears twice in the miniatures. 224 folios, mostly in gatherings of 8 (i12), complete, pastedowns and two flyleaves at front and back, some catchwords, written in a dark brown ink  in a gothic liturgical script, on 14 long lines, by different hands, ff. 82-82v and ff. 219v-223v written by a slightly posterior  hand, ruled… Read More

Paris, 3rd quarter of 13th century. 221 x 150 mm. (8 3/4 x 5 7/8"). Double column, 51 lines in a tiny gothic pearl script. [490] leaves. COMPLETE. Attractive 19th century dark brown morocco by Riviere & Son (stamp-signed in gilt on front turn-in), covers with blind-tooled frame flanked by thick and thin blind rules and a floral tool in each corner, raised bands, all edges gilt (subtle repairs to head and tail of spine and upper joint). Housed in a morocco-backed cloth box. Rubrics in red, capitals touched in red, chapter numbers and running titles alternately in red and blue, a great many two-line initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, textual corrections within red and blue cartouches, catchwords from f. 272v onwards within elaborate pen and ink cartouches in the shape of various animals, 84 LARGE ILLUMINATED INITIALS AND 81 HISTORIATED INITIALS, with an ESPECIALLY IMPRESSIVE GENESIS INITIAL MEASURING THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE PAGE, showing the seven days of Creation and the Crucifixion,… Read More

[8], 206 pp.; [4], 181, [1 blank]; [1], [1 blank], “86” [= 80], [2 blank] pp.A hand-coloured copy of the third French edition of Linschoten's classic illustrated guide for travellers to the East and West Indies, termed by Lach ''the most important of the first-hand accounts published independently of the great travel collections'' (I.198). No other book contained so much useful intelligence on the East and West Indies. Unhindered by the censorship that constrained writers from the Iberian peninsula (details of seas and coasts in Asia and the Americas were military secrets), he included such information as sailing directions, physical descriptions of countries, and statistics on commerce and trade. The work was held in such high regard that for nearly a century, every Dutch ship sailing to Africa and Asia carried a copy of a Dutch edition of Linschoten. The 42 plates (11 large folding) are especially noteworthy, including 6 maps and several bird's-eye views, many with coats of arms of the regions… Read More

Venice: Bonetus Locatellus, for Octavianus Scotus, 1490. Hardcover. Very Good. Hardcover. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. March 24, 1490. Chancery 4to (228 x 177 mm). 442 unnumbered leaves including initial blank a1. Signatures: a-p8 q10 t-z8 [et]8 [con]8 [rum]8 A-N8 O-P6 Q-Z8 aa-bb8 cc10 dd-gg8 hh10 (a1 blank). Text in double columns, 60 lines, types 2:130G, 3:62G, 4:92G. Title from incipit of Book 1. Colophon reads: Regis aboali hassem filii hali abinsceni liber tot[ius] finitus est vna cum tractatu de viribus cordis translato ab Arnaldo de vilanoua. Impressus [et] diligentissime correctus ma[n]dato et impensis nobilis viri Octauiani Scoti ciuis modoetiensis. Uenetiis. Anno salutis. M. CCCCXC. die. 24. Martij. Contains Avicenna's De viribus cordis (leaves 2g5v-2h4r), translated by Arnaldus de Villanova. Incipit reads: Libellus Auicen[n]e de virib[us] cordis translat[us] ab Arnaldo de villa noua barchinone feliciter i[n]cipit. Rubricated throughout with 3- to 6-line capitals opening paragraphs painted… Read More

[S.l. (Madrid)]: [S.n.], 1642. First edition. Papered spine. With a short correction of text in ink by a contemporary neat hand on f. 15r. In fine condition.. First edition. Papered spine. 15 numbered leaves. Extremely scarce report on the first 'entradas' into the Amazon area, and the expedition of Pedro Teixeira, the first European to travel up the entire length of the river, and his return journey, accompanied by Cristóbal de Acuña. A highly important, contemporary document of the rivalry between the Franciscans and the Jesuits for the Amazon Valley. Borba de Moraes in Bibliographia Brasiliana states that the present work is "the only contemporary printed document to narrate the famous journey made by the Franciscans, Diego de Brieva and André de Toledo, who sailed down the Amazon River in October 1636, and arrived in Pará [Belém] in February 1637". He describes the document as of the greatest rarity, full of valuable information and great importance. Regarding the bibliographical… Read More

Rare. Size: 147x80 cm. Original rubbing on thin paper (maybe Bible paper because of its very fine quality). was attached to thick paper to make a hanging scroll. Some wear on the thick paper, but very good on the thin rubbing paper. There are two red stamps on middle-right of the scroll, which probably is the stamps of former owners. This stele in 1489 is the first document found and also a very important document to describe the history of Judaism and Jewish people in China. Its contents are in three sections; one explains the origin and history of Judaism, another describes the rituals and worship of Chinese Jews around the time of the stele construction, and the last tells that there were 70 surnames families of the Kaifeng Jewish community, several surnames being the officers of Chinese Emperor, a Zhao surname among them being a past imperial audience. The Zhao surname was also the surname of the emperors of Song Dynasty（AD 960--AD 1279） in China, and can only be bestowed by emperors… Read More

Logroño, Arnão Guillen de Brocar, 1517.. First Edition. Folio (36 x 24.5 cm.), contemporary blind-tooled calf, boards nicely refurbished (but with some recent damage to corners and rubbing to spine); very skillfully rebacked, and with new clasps. Large woodcut on title-page, 2 full-page woodcuts, printer's device below colophon. Gothic letter (Norton types 8:117G, 10:99G, 18:68G), printed in red and black throughout. Minor soiling and stains (including some marginal dampstaining on first few leaves), 4 tiny wormholes touching a few letters per page through quire q. Crisp. In very good to fine condition. Early manuscript record of sale at foot of title, in ink. (2 blank), (26), 254 [i.e., 255], (2 blank) leaves, signed 10, A-B8, a9, b-z8, aa-hh8, ii6. *** FIRST EDITION. This magnificent classic was produced, according to the colophon, at the command of Charles V by his printer Arnão Guillen de Brocar; this is the first intimation we have that Brocar had been appointed royal printer. Later… Read More

ONE OF JUST TWO EARLY MAINZ DONATI RECORDED IN PRIVATE HANDS ¶ PROBABLY THE EARLIEST OFFERED IN ALMOST A CENTURY ¶ POSSIBLY PUBLISHED BEFORE THE GUTENBERG BIBLE --- CCCXX, [8] leaves | 8vo | a-z^8 [us]^8 [con]^8 [rum]^8 A-P^8 | 175 x 113 mm --- A fantastically rare example of the Ars Minor of Aelius Donatus from the earliest years of Mainz printing, being fragments of the ninth leaf of a 33-line edition printed on parchment with the type of the Gutenberg Bible. Sewn as a guard into the middle of the first gathering, between a4 and a5, is a single strip roughly two lines in height; and a second guard sewn in between P4 and P5—the first and last gatherings were commonly so guarded, as they bore the most stress during operation—this one bearing perhaps a little more than a single line of Donatus. Visible between sewing stations at the edges of the spine are eight trapezoidal pieces, representing two discrete halves of the spine's comb lining—one running up the left side, another… Read More

Italy, 15th century (2nd half). Manuscript on parchment of Latin liturgical text and music, with decorated initials. Altering number of lines, and size of letters. Initials in alternating red and blue, two with contrasting pen-flourished decoration, and fifteen puzzle initials. Music on four-line red staves. Bound into 18th century decorated paper, with a handwritten vignette on front cover "De officio sepulture (-Pergamena)". Letterpressed note on the final leaf "Oratione celebrata in Florentia per la morte di Cosimo de Medici nel tempo della sepultura. Few contemporary marginal notes. Wear to front cover. First and last leaves with small holes, parchment discolored, letters somewhat faint. Overall in very good condition.. Manuscript on parchment of Latin liturgical text and music, with decorated initials. Altering number of lines, and size of letters. Initials in alternating red and blue, two with contrasting pen-flourished decoration, and fifteen puzzle initials. Music on four-line red staves.… Read More

Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 17 février 1483. *** Splendide édition de la Bible, illustrée de 109 gravures sur bois, toutes coloriées à l'époque. L'exemplaire est d'un très beau coloris. Les couleurs utilisées, bleu, jaune, vert, parme, marron sont d'une teinte profonde. La majorité de ces gravures sont apparues dans une édition de la bible, en bas allemand, donnée par Bartholomaeus de Unkel et Heinrich Quentell, à Cologne vers 1478-79. Anton Koberger, plus connu pour son "best seller", de l'époque, la "Chronique de Nuremberg" a fait un usage remarquable de ces illustrations. Elles ont été imitées dans les illustrations des bibles parues par la suite. On y trouve même son influence dans la série de gravures de l'Apocalypse de Dürer parues en 1498. Anton Koberger était du reste le parrain d'Albrecht Dürer, dont la famille habitait la même rue. Tout d'abord orfèvre, Koberger s'installa imprimeur en 1471. Il devint vite le premier imprimeur d'Europe, employant jusqu'à une centaine… Read More

253 x 181 mm. II + 139 + II leaves. COMPLETE. 14 quires. Collation: 1-13 , 14 (lacking the last blank leaf). Unfoliated. Blanks: fols. 2/10r, 14/8v, and 14/9r-v. Catchwords written in the center middle of the last page of each quire except quires 2 and 4. Text block: 164 x 90 mm, one column, 28 lines. The first capital letter of each sub-chapter set out. Ruled in brown ink. Text written in brown ink by a unique hand in formal humanist script. Headings and names of interlocutors in pale red ink. Two illuminated coats of arms of Pope Pius II (see below), numerous gold and white-vine initials (see below). Five one-line blue paragraph marks on fols. 2/8v, 2/9r, 2/10v, and 4/10v. Early twentieth-century German blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards. Spine with four raised bands, marbled flyleaves, gilt and gauffered edges. Upper joint skillfully repaired. A well-preserved manuscript. First leaf slightly soiled, four small round wormholes in blank outer margin of the first leaves reducing to one and then… Read More

London: [Henry Denham for] William Brome, 1584. First edition. Early calf. Very Good. Extremely rare first edition of this far-reaching exposé that provoked King James, inspired Shakespeare and was the first significant work to document the secrets of illusion and the occult. A magnificent copy from the Biblioteca Lindesiana. The Discoverie of Witchcraft, written by Reginald Scot in 1584, upended many sixteenth-century beliefs in Britain about witches, superstition, spirits and magic. Scot proves that what was believed to be witchcraft was little more than illusion and delusion. Infuriated by a "ridiculous" 1581 witchcraft trial, Scot in The Discoverie challenges popular beliefs about dark magic, providing diagrams documenting the performance of staged illusions previously ascribed to witchcraft (Reid, "The Discoverie of Witchcraft"). The evidence presented in this pivotal work angered political and religious leaders, gave inspiration to literary masters of his era and contributed a blueprint to… Read More

Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1896. One of 425 copies of a total edition of 438. With 87 wood-engravings designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, cut by W.H. Hooper after drawings by Robert Catterson-Smith, superb wood-engraved title page, fourteen very fine large borders, eighteen different woodcut frames around the illustrations, twenty-six nineteen line woodcut initial letters, and numerous initials, decorative woodcut printer’s device all designed by William Morris and cut by C.E. Keates, Hooper and W. Spelmeyer, with shoulder and side titles. Printed in red and black in Chaucer type, double column, headings to the longer poems in Troy type. Folio (425 x 289 mm), printer's original Holand linen-backed blue paper boards, original paper label on the spine lettered in black. iv, 554 pp. An especially fine and handsome copy, the text is pristine, crisp, fresh and bright, the binding in full original state and in excellent condition, the linen on these bindings is typically heavily mellowed but… Read More

Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 30 July, 1477. Very Early Printing of the Bible and only the second Latin Bible printed by Koberger, 51 lines and headline, double column, canon marginalia in the Gospels. With manuscript headlines in red, a beautiful opening initial of 10 lines with elaborate flourishes that flow from the very top to very bottom of the page in red, blue and green, numerous 6 line initials in red and blue, some with much longer extensions or flourishes, a profusion of 3 line initials in red or blue, red paragraph marks and additional rubricating throughout primarily in red. Royal folio (375 x 265mm approx), in contemporary German blind-stamped pigskin over thick wood boards, (probably a Nuremberg binding), the boards center-paneled and decorated in blind with a central tool within multiple borders, remnants of brass catches on the fore-edge. Manuscript lettering to the spine with wide tall bands. 468 leaves, complete. An unusually fine copy, especially well preserved and very handsome… Read More

Bracciano: Andreas Phaeus, 1630. First edition. EXTREMELY RARE LARGE AND THICK PAPER COPY. First edition, extremely rare large and thick paper copy, of the most lavishly illustrated astronomical work published in the first half of the seventeenth century, with many full-page illustrations of Scheiner's observations of the sun and of the optical instruments he had designed for the purpose. "For his masterpiece, Scheiner produced the first monograph on a heavenly body, the Sun. Even today it is still an impressive volume, with scores of engravings of sunspots and the various instruments needed for solar observations" (Jesuit Science in the Age of Galileo). "Scheiner's drawings in the Rosa Ursina are of almost modern quality, and there was little improvement in solar imaging until 1905" (Britannica). In this work "Scheiner agreed with Galileo that sunspots are on the Sun's surface or in its atmosphere, that they are often generated and perish there, and that the Sun is therefore not perfect. Scheiner… Read More

[Mainz : Johannes Gutenberg, circa 1454-55]. Single folio leaf. 371 x 300 mm, printed on recto and verso, black gothic lettering of forty-two lines in double columns, large two-line initial letters rubricated in red; light foxing and very small edge chips, remnants of binding along one edge with tiny fragments of manuscript binder's waste (presumably from the original or otherwise early binding), small stain to edge of lower margin (well away from text); a fine example housed in a maroon cloth chemise and custom clamshell box. A LEAF FROM THE FIRST WESTERN BOOK PRINTED BY MOVABLE TYPE, THE GUTENBERG BIBLE. Folio 148 from Volume I, comprising the entire text of Chapter 3 of the Second Book of Samuel (II Samuel 3: 1-39), with the closing verses of Chapter 2 and opening verses of Chapter 4.  “[The Gutenberg Bible] has never been surpassed. Of all the arts, printing at its birth reached perfection more nearly than any other.”  – A. Edward Newton The Gutenberg Bible is perhaps the most famous… Read More

Italy [Florence], colophon dated 1456-57. 268 x 187 mm. (10 1/2 x 7 3/8"). 176 leaves, COMPLETE, single column, 31 lines alternating red ink for Latin and dark brown ink for Italian translation, in a very fine humanist hand. Contemporary Italian panelled calf over wooden boards, cover with mitered frame of blind rules, inner arabesque roll frame, and central panel diapered in ogival compartments formed by interlacing semi-circular rope tools, raised bands, original clasps replaced with modern hardware, edges gilt and gauffered with chevrons and flowers, expertly rebacked to style. Paragraph marks in red or blue, initial letters of each sentence in contrasting color to main text, running titles in red, 10 ORNATE WHITE VINE INITIALS, the first two very large and extending quite far down the page, the letters burnished gold and skillfully linked with white vines against a pink and green background outlined with blue and further decorated with clusters of white dots (the drawing of a crowned female head… Read More

[mounted in:]A Noble Fragment: being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible, with a Bibliographical Essay by A. Edward Newton. New York, [printed by Bruce Rogers at the shop of William Edwin Rudge for] Gabriel Wells, 1921.Folio, title printed in red and black and two unnumbered leaves of text; in the original dark blue morocco by Stikeman & Co., boards panelled in blind, upper board and spine lettered in gilt, joints rubbed; preserved in a modern quarter black morocco box by James Brockman.A fine single paper leaf from the first substantial book printed with movable type in the western world, now known simply as the Gutenberg Bible or the 42-line Bible.The text here is Luke XVII:23–XIX:13, containing some of the most quoted texts in that Gospel: 'Quicumque quesierit animam sua[m] salvam facere perdet illam. Et quicu[m]que perdiderit illam vivificabit eam' ('Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it', VII:33); 'Sinite pueros venire ad me et nolite… Read More