Search Results: Authors starting with C from Bernard Quaritch Ltd

Two volumes, 8vo, pp. viii, 5-482; 361, [4] approbatio and privilege, [1] blank; with four folding plates after p. 352; woodcut headpieces; some spotting and marking, especially to start of volume one, but otherwise, aside from some light browning, clean and fresh; paper reinforcement to the fold in the plate depicting the system of Tycho Brahe, after old tear, with a loss of c. 1mm; in contemporary sheep, spine with raised bands tooled in gilt with morocco lettering-pieces; some wear, and slight loss to corner of upper board of volume one (possibly rodent-induced). Very uncommon guide, by the Parisian surgeon Jean-Charles-Félix Caron, to the philosophy student in the University of Paris needs to know in order to graduate first as bachelor and then as master of arts in the university. The work is essentially a kind of bluffer's guide: "there are people who, obliged to do their philosophy to pass their MA, can only devote themselves imperfectly to its study, as they are often distracted by other… Read More

First edition of Dio's Roman History in any language, translated into Italian from the original Greek by Niccolò Leoniceno and preceding the Greek editio princeps, printed by Robert Estienne in 1548, by some fifteen years. Born and raised at Nicaea in Bithynia, Dio (c. 164–235) served as a senator and consul in Rome, composing his famous Roman History in eighty books over the course of two decades, beginning with the landing of Aeneas in Italy and ending with his own retirement in 229. About a third of the work has come down to us intact, with books 36-54, covering the years 69-10 BC, surviving complete. This Italian rendering of books 37 to 58 was undertaken by the eminent Italian physician and humanist Niccolò Leoniceno (1428–1524), being completed by 1488 but remaining unpublished until this Zoppino edition. The text, encompassing the lives and deeds of Julius Caesar, Pompey, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, is handsomely illustrated with oblong woodcuts at the… Read More

Only edition, uncommon, of this analysis of the political and legal organisation of Italy, and proposals for its improvement, by the Prato lawyer and historian Giovacchino Domenico Ceri (1734–1798). The first part addresses the causes and consequences of the unfortunate state of Italian jurisprudence, and wonders why, in such enlightened times, Italy persists with the system it has. Ceri argues that a new code of civil law is required, and, in the second part of his book, describes how Italian legislation and jurisprudence might be reduced to a simpler and better system. Acknowledging the difficulties and the varieties of opinions about both the necessity of and the approach to reform, Ceri looks to Bacon, Leibniz, Montsesquieu, and Wolff, as well as to other European states to present a plan for improving the legal system, before proposing some general guidelines for how to approach reform, emphasising the centrality of legal education in the process. No copies recorded by OCLC outside… Read More

4to, ff. [iv], CLXXXIIII; title printed in red and black, criblé
woodcut printer's device on title, criblé initials; sporadic marginal annotations and underlinings in an early hand; worming to gutter throughout, and some wormholes in text, never affecting legibility; occasional staining but largely clean throughout; t4-5 loose; in early twentieth-century patterned paper-covered stiff wrappers; some wear.
Rare edition, attractively printed and with occasional contemporary annotations, of Cicero's Philippics, comprising Cicero's text along with the commentaries of the Cretan humanist George of Trebizond (1396–1486), the Bolognese rhetorician Filippo Beroaldo (1453–1505), and the Perugia historian Francesco Maturanzio (c. 1443–1518). The printer, Thomas Caseus (or Kees) was active in Paris between 1507 and 1516.
The commentary attributed to Trebizond was first printed in Venice around 1475, and deals principally with factual and linguistic aspects of Cicero's speeches, rather… Read More

Second edition, scarcer than the first (also an Aldine, published in 1499), of the most beautiful illustrated book printed in Italy in the fifteenth century. Known for its fine woodcut illustrations, mysterious meanings, and the cryptic inclusion of Colonna's name, the Hypnerotomachia has been celebrated as the finest example of early Venetian printing.
'It is not easy to sum up in a few words the artistic and literary interest of the book. The woodcuts, one of which is signed "b" have been ascribed, as Pollard says, with no good reason to a dozen artists including Bellini. What is clear is that the artist who designed them was influenced by the work of Bellini, Carpaccio and perhaps Botticelli. They have a unique perfection and all that can be said with certainty is that the same hand may be traced in some other contemporary woodcuts. Why Aldus published this book is a mystery since he was mainly interested in producing editions of the Greek and Latin classics. In any case it was an expensive… Read More

4to, pp. 12, 730; title in red and black with woodcut device, text in Roman and Arabic script, tail-pieces; a little light foxing; very good in near contemporary half vellum over marbled boards; some wear to corners and edges, abrasions to boards; small ink stamp to half-title and title. The first complete Ottoman Turkish grammar published in Italian, compiled by the Catholic Armenian dragoman Cosimo Comidas de Carbognano (translator to Count de Ludolf, minister of the Two Sicilies to the Ottoman Porte in the late 18th century) and published by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. This grammar was written for the use of Franciscan missionaries in Istanbul, who sought to convert the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish residents of the city, as imperial edict banned them from proselytising Muslims.
Following the grammar come five charming dialogues presented in three columns (Turkish in Arabic script, Turkish in transliteration, and Italian). These comprise lively conversations between a husband and wife… Read More