Search Results: Authors starting with L from Bruce McKittrick Rare Books

Paris: A.-A. Renouard, 1807. Late 19th-century polished calf and marbled boards, gilt-lettered flat spine with the title and date, edges spinkled red and brown, green silk marker. PRICED IN CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT. Early books on vellum, fine and armorial bindings, Aldines, large paper copies, illuminated manuscripts, prints, drawings, Redouté, vernacular incunables, modern fine printing.... Amassed during his five decades of bookselling, Lamy's collection was dispersed in seventy-four sessions January through April 1808. History, literature, the sciences and the arts dominated, though law and theology did not suffer for want of choice copies of liturgical works, coutumes, picture Bibles, French Revolution decrees (14 vols. on vellum), Dürer's Large Passion, etc. Lamy fell on hard times and probably sold his library to capitalize his business or meet his creditors' demands: he declared bankruptcy in 1808.      In addition to prices, the annotator noted combined lots, omitted books, defective… Read More

Naples: T. Longo, 1604. Contemporary limp vellum (early signature on the rear panel), flat spine with a contemporary manuscript title. First Edition of this book of exchange for the Italian peninsula and its main trading partners. It was a vital reference through mid-century for merchants whose business complexities rendered conversion tables inadequate. Lando denominated the coins in circulation in the eight leading commercial cities in Italy and paired these coins in turn with coins issued by ten to twenty foreign cities, like Nürnberg, Frankfurt, Antwerp and London. He then illustrated the exchange rate for every pairing through two calculations, one in each direction, enabling traders to do the math themselves. A nice copy (short clean split in five blank margins). ¶Hoock & Jeannin, Ars mercatoria: Handbücher und Traktate...1470-1820 II/L8.1 & III: 20; Riccardi, Biblioteca matematica italiana I(2): 14-15 "Raro"; no printing in the BL or Einaudi.

[France], 1720. Contemporary gilt brown morocco by the Boyet workshop, fillet-and-dot border around a rich frame of a large fan and volute roll and repetitions of partly pointillé sprays embellished with small stars and fleurs-de-lys, gilt spine with pointillé and foliage decoration, gilt board edges, gilt turn-ins (roulette E), pink silk pastedowns and marbled free endpapers, all edges gilt over marbling, red silk marker. In a dark blue morocco pull-off box (Riviere & Son). FORTY-SIX FULL-PAGE GRAY WASH DRAWINGS OF FINGERSPELLING AND BODY MOVEMENT SIGNS IN TWO SERIES REPRESENTING SPANISH AND FRENCH MANUAL ALPHABETS. Twenty-four illustrations show a single hand, twelve both hands, and ten letters in the French alphabet are demonstrated by men in contemporary dress (in half-, three-quarter- or full-figure). All drawings and the corresponding alphabet letters are enclosed in decorative gray wash cartouches, as are the main title, the half-title and the seventeen-line preface. Nine drawings are… Read More

Paris: P. Du Pré, 1598. Mid-19th-century blind-tooled calf (Hatton, rubbed), spine label and date gilt, red edges. Only Edition. This treats the general concepts of time and its units of measure, the armillary sphere and the heavens, while reconciling astronomical and historical data. It catalogs zodiacal bodies, fixed stars and the planets and records lunar and solar cycles (mentioning Copernicus). With these it demonstrates the Septuagint is more astronomically and historically accurate than the then more widely accepted Hebrew original. Lauret did his own math to establish the dates of specific events based on celestial information. P. Cayet's dedication to Pope Clement bears a few early manuscript annotations by a Protestant. I have found two complete copies in North America. In good condition (a few ink stains, two natural paper flaws affecting four words), Macclesfield stamp and bookplate. Not in Tardy's Bibliographie générale de la mesure du temps (1980). ¶Houzeau & Lancaster,… Read More

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").

[Brandenburg]: s.n., 1780. Contemporary blind-ruled sheep-backed and -tipped gray pressed paper boards (minor defects, upper rear joint neatly repaired), spine with blind-ruled sewing cords, uncut. What follows. The question is - why?             This massive tabular account-management ledger for the Schlaberndorf(f) estate itemizes some seven dozen categories of crops and goods produced on or acquired by the property during a twelve-month period, from 1 July to the following 30 June. The categories include building supplies such as lime, axle grease and roofing shingles, several types of grains (just harvested, threshed, milled...), livestock, brandy, beer (ordinair or doppel), potash, salt, yarn, beeswax and oil for burning. The granularity extends to the amount of bread destined to the dogs and to the poor, the species and size of each fish in the pond, the age of the horses, and the contractual food allowance (cheese, eggs, beer...) for different classes of laborers, the use of tally… Read More

Basle: Ambr. and Aur. Froben, 1566. Contemporary blind-decorated pigskin (worn, two corners slightly defective); three rules flank a roll of cherub heads, busts and foliage, inner double-rule frame. The central rectangle of each panel has a two-scene stamp of the Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity and Patience figure on the front panel and Justice, Prudence, Strength and Temperance on the rear. The spine is decorated with a stylized lily roll, manuscript title; dark red edges. As papal secretary to Leo X, Bembo drafted and sent these five hundred eighty-one letters to, i.a., Raphael, Boiardo, Bibbiena, the kings of England, Hungary, Poland and Spain, daughters of friends, Lucrezia Borgia (with whom Bembo had a notorious affair).... Bembo's poem on Lago di Garda and five of his private letters to Erasmus, Longolius and Budé conclude the volume. In good condition, name excised from the title, early purchase inscription of G.E. Krefft on the title, nineteenth-century bookticket of B. Couissinier… Read More

Paris: [Citoyenne Pitel for] F.L. Regnault-Delalande and J.C. Silvestre, 1805. Slightly later red sheep-backed marbled boards (rubbed), flat spine and title gilt (tips chipped), uncut. The independently wealthy physician devoted his life to amassing the roughly one hundred paintings and many thousands of prints and drawings that make up these 600 lots, strong in Northern artists. Some of his finest pieces came from Mariette's sales. Dürer, Beham, Lucas van Leyden and a suite of some 2000 portraits by Nanteuil made the highest prices. Priced in contemporary manuscript, indexed by artist, and with the 19-page printed price list bound in. Good condition. ¶Lugt, Répertoire des...ventes 6939; Brunet I: xlv; Cicognara, Catalogo...dei libri d'arte 4571; see Lugt's Marques I p. 335.

?Arles: ?François Mesnier, 1657. Contemporary gilt-ruled sheep (scuffed), spine and label gilt, edges sprinkled red. Bound with: L'Hermite, Jean-Baptiste, seigneur de Soliers.  La Toscane Françoise. ?Arles, ?F. Mesnier 1657. Small folio. [ii blank], [ii], [147]p. TWENTY-TWO NEARLY FULL-PAGE ETCHED AND ENGRAVED ARMS of Tuscan noble families, etched and engraved title. Ad I-II: Presentation copies, privately printed, early issues. L'Hermite (fl. 1639-70) composed regional biographies of Italian families closely tied to the French crown, trusting their assets equaled their vanity as he sought their patronage. For the present volume the target was the politically powerful branch of the Florentine Peruzzi family that had settled in Provence. The front flyleaf bears their bookplate and the pastedown L'Hermite's manuscript presentation dated 1657.  Both volumes appear to be the earliest issues - Liguria with an achevée date of 30 June 1657 and Tuscany with the title dated 1657. In good condition… Read More

Paris: J. Bade van Assche (Badius Ascensius) for Jean Petit, 1514. Half brown morocco and cloth (Sangorski & Sutcliffe), flat spine, vertically gilt-lettered title.             EDITIONES PRINCIPES. Liutprandus is "THE MOST INTERNATIONAL AUTHOR...OF THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES" (Chiesa). Both memoir and chronicle, his idiosyncratic Antapodosis incorporates scurrilous verse and reveals his familiarity with Greek. The Historia Ottonis adopts a more traditional approach. Together the two works remain fundamental sources for the history of Europe and the Middle East in the 10th century.            Born in Pavia into a wealthy family of merchants and diplomats, Liutprandus served two kings and an emperor, led embassies to Byzantium and witnessed first-hand the dissolution of the Carolingian dynasty. In the 950s, he began writing the Antapodosis as an act of retaliation against his political archenemy, King Berengar II of Italy (c. 900-966). Liutprandus has no shame. He tells of Berengar's… Read More

Montbrillant: [Jean-Vincent Caperonier de Gauffécourt], 1743. Contemporary gilt-ruled red morocco, corner fleurons, richly gilt spine, gilt-lettered red morocco label, blue pastepaper endleaves, all edges gilt. A moral and philosophical essay, originally conceived as a letter to the author's friend Lord Bolingbroke, the Reflections first appeared in 1736 with similar works by other writers. This is the first independent edition.      IT WAS PRIVATELY PRINTED ON THICK PAPER AT THE PRESS OF GAUFFÉCOURT (1692-1766). It is the first of only four works the wealthy dilettante and amateur clockmaker set in type and printed for his own amusement over twenty years at Montbrillant, his country house outside Geneva. I have identified a half-dozen examples - all in Europe. In fine condition, early signature of physician A.J. Dalliez, bookplate of Joaquín Gómez de la Cortina, marqués de Morante (1805-68). ¶Nodier, Mélanges tirés d'une petite bibliothèque XXXIX; Brunet, Recherches sur les imprimeries… Read More