•  Old calf, rebacked and recornered; abraded with some loss on edges. Some waterstaining and browning; soiling and shallow chipping. Lacking final [62] ff., the index (only).  (7532)

•  Publisher's blue cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and fish vignette with blind-stamped decorative borders; spine slightly darkened, small spots of light discoloration, extremities rubbed. Sewing just barely starting to loosen but holding; pages clean. A more than decent copy of this interesting and, shall we say, “highly personal” work.  (35139)

The book is illustrated with 100 engraved plates and numerous in-text engravings, as well as a frontispiece map of the Holy Land in each volume. The plates are mostly figural illustrations taken from paintings in catacombs and on sarcophagi, illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, ivory figurines, murals, etc. The title-pages are printed in black and red ink, and decorated with an engraved vignette.

•  Publisher's red cloth, stamped in gilt on the spines and front covers. Spines sunned and front cover of vol. II slightly sunned along fore-edge also; cloth of spines frayed at extremities and chipped in other places. Hinges (inside) of vol. I a little weak, stitching exposed; corners bumped with cloth damage; pages very shallowly bumped. Ex-library, with shelf labels on spines, institutional bookplates on front pastedowns, pressure-stamp to title-pages and one other page in each volume. Paper very good; pages clean and bright.  (24688)

Dolce was a Venetian humanist and prolific author, translator, and editor. He worked for Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari's press and had his hand in upwards of 96 works from that considerable printing enterprise. Why this work came from the Sessa press we do not know.

The volume is printed in italic with a spare use of woodcut headpieces and initials in the preliminaries, first leaf of text, and at the beginning of each play; the Sessa non-cat printer's device adorns the title-page. There is an error state on the last leaf (“Gli errori delle stampe si rimettono al giudicio di chi legge”).

•  Schweiger, II, 946; Graesse, VI, 361; Edit16 CNCE 29883. Not in Adams.   Early vellum over light paste boards, endpapers foxed; evidence of ties, later inked title on spine. Lower blank margin of title-leaf torn away and repaired with a lighter paper; one short tear on another page repaired. Light waterstaining in lower outer corners and sometimes slenderly across top margins; two small, pin-type wormholes in upper inner margins of leaves at back of volume. Final blank leaf present; all edges carmine with a little bleed-in to some margins. Overall a clean, solid, decent copy.  (33383)

Harold Lamb wrote the introduction. Of the author's attention to the minutiae of daily life in the Rome of A.D. 63–66 he writes, “The city itself appears in exact historical detail. Praetorians idling at their posts pass the time with their favorite dice games; girl attendants at Petronius' bath finish their duties punctiliously and break away to their own diversions as soon as the door curtain falls behind the master. Sienkiewicz knows how the dishes, including blackbirds, were prepared for a nobleman's feast; he knows what the oriental dancers wore on their heads and what the priests of Cybele carried in their hands, and what you see when you round a corner of the Vicus Sceleratus.”

Salvatore Fiume created the 35 drawings which were reproduced in three-tone process and mounted by hand. Giovanni Madersteig designed this edition, which is limited to 1500 copies, choosing a monotype Old Face font; the composition and printing of the text and illustrations was done by Madersteing at the Officina Bodoni in Verona.

The binding is full natural linen printed, in grey-blue, with an overall pattern derived from an old wood engraving. The signatures of Salvatore Fiume and Giovanni Madersteig appear on the colophon.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 302.   In the original slipcase, spine sunned with a long closed crack to paper and paper cracked/chipped; case good overall. Book with spine lightly faded and rear pastedown with small gold bookseller's label; volume in the original dust jacket (spine sunned to darker than sides are); near fine.  (22293)

This is this history’s first edition and was followed by 1579, 1593, and 1628 editions. It is printed with a woodcut printer’s device on the title-page showing the goddess Liberty with two books labelled “Bononia docet” (“Bologna teaches”) at her feet. The text is enclosed in double-ruled borders and simply ornamented with a few woodcut initials, one of which shows Juno being pulled in her chariot by peacocks.

•  Adams S1117; Soltész, Catalogus librorum sedecimo saeculo . . . in Bibliotheca Nationali Hungariae . . . S524. On Sigonius, see: Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., XXV, 82; and Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, II, 143–45. Full calf old style: Round spine with raised bands, accented in gilt beading; tan leather title label; fillets in blind extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils with blind double fillets beyond. Pages lightly washed, clean, and crisp: a few instances of staining, not obscuring text; a few short notations in ink and occasional worming in the margins, neither affecting text; ink stain on p. 95 obscuring letters without loss of sense. Inked title on lower edge, old style. Three ink ownership stamps on title-page. EEe3–4, the last two leaves of the index, are lacking. (4561)

Provenance:  No bookplates or inscriptions, but spine with initials “G.O.B.” tooled at base.

•  20th-century cordovan-color sheep, covers framed in single gilt fillet with gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped fleurons in compartments; spine sunned/lightened with darker streaks and patches evident, one spine compartment with small scuff, joints with excellent repairs and corners likewise well refurbished. Text with only an occasional age-stain or instance of foxing; plates remarkably unblemished. Blue silk placemarker. Overall indeed aVERY NICE COPY.   (33233)

signed at the colophon

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 489.   Binding as above, front cover and spine with gilt-stamped title, in original coordinated slipcase; binding crisp and fresh, slipcase all but unworn. A very nice copy.  (31469)

An epitome of the “antiquarian” both in form and content, this is a marvelous compendium of royal history and lore.

plague’s symptoms are poetically described in all their horrific agony

•  ESTC N11495; Foxon S663; NCBEL, II, 485. On Sprat, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, LIII, 419–23. Uncut copy. Removed from a nonce volume, with sewing mostly gone, now in a Mylar folder. Some age-toning and spotting ranging from mild to moderate. (7216)

•  Publisher's vellum, spine with gilt-stamped author's name; spine and edges slightly darkened. Pages gently cockled, otherwise clean and crisp. A very nice copy.  (36923)

The volume was designed and printed by Will and Sebastian Carter at the Rampant Lions Press in Cambridge, in Palatino types on paper made by J. Barcham Green; it was bound by Wigmore Bindery. This iscopy 142 of 270 numbered copies, of a total edition of 417 (including 12 lettered copies and 135 copies numbered I through CXXXV).

•  Publisher's marbled paper–covered boards with brown buckram shelfback, spine with gilt-stamped title, in matching paper and cloth slipcase; cloth with crease at spine head, slipcase with small dent to one outer edge and light wear to extremities. A nice copy of an elegant edition.  (33781)

•  American Imprints 9398.   Contemporary tan paper–covered boards with brown cloth shelfback; cloth worn, paper lost over rear board and wrinkled/chipped on front board. Front pastedown and free endpaper with early inked and pencilled inscriptions; tracing and annotation as above. Pages age-toned; one plate with upper portion excised, just shaving top of image.A quirky copy of a quirky work.  (36683)

Binding:  Tapley-Rutter Company has created two mirror-image volumes, one quarter black over terra cotta buckram, the other quarter terra cotta over black, with gilt lettering on spines and along the spine cloth over the front covers. A split image of marching soldiers, in gilt, spans the spines in their case.

Planned by Eugene M. Ettenberg, the text was printed by Case, Lockwood & Brainard using Linotype Janson, Palatino semi-bold, Columna, and Open Roman and Greek capitals. Numbered copy 733 of 2000 signed at the colophon by the illustrator. Both the prospectus and the appropriate Club newsletter are laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club, 476.   Bound as above, in publisher's terra cotta slipcase with cream and bronze label; three leaves of the two volumes each with a small marginal spot, possibly original from time of printing. A beautiful pair of books.  (36404)

The work is here illustrated witha copper-engraved frontispiece and four plates, generally bucolic, done by Joseph de Longueil after Francesco Giuseppe Casanova and Charles Eisen. The text is additionally decorated with pictorial headpieces and fruit and floral tailpieces.

•  Brunet, V, 1303; Cohen & de Ricci 1022; Graesse, VII, 359; Schweiger, II, 1221/22.   Contemporary mottled calf framed in gilt triple fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped floral compartment decorations; joints and extremities rubbed, spine leather with small cracks, sides with expectable moderate acid-pitting. All edges gilt. Front hinge (inside) tender; a few scattered light spots, pages overall clean. An early, attractive edition of an excellent translation, withcrisp, lovely, well-impressed plates.  (30949)

Like the first, this second edition of Vettori’s criticism of Cicero is in Latin with quotations and examples in Greek. It is self-described on the title-page as “quae corrupta, mutila, & praeposterè sita admiserat prima editio, haec 2. sedulò castigauit, suóque loco restituit.” The volume begins with the printer’s device on the title-page bearing the motto “Et fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus,” and prints the text in a clear roman type accented with historiated and portrait woodcut initials and woodcut head-pieces. A handsome production.

Provenance: 17th-century near-calligraphic ownership inscriptions on title-page of the Jesuit College at Tudela, Spain; and of G.M. Desmarsall.

•  Adams V687. Recent deep walnut full calf old style, by Grace Bindings (signed in blind at inner area of rear cover, lower turn-in): Round spine with raised bands accented in gilt and with blind-tooled devices in compartments; oxblood leather label, gilt-lettered; fillets extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils and covers framed in blind double fillets. Lacks one internal blank leaf (only). All edges marbled. A very good copy. (14594)

Dibdin notes that the text is “printed in a correct and magnificent manner” — a commonly felt sentiment still, today, in regards to most Foulis Press productions.

Provenance:  Partially rubbed armorial bookplate of Alexander Gordon of Culvennan, Esquire.

•  ESTC T139215; Gaskell 360; Dibdin, Greek and Latin Classics p. 558.   Polished calf with spine compartments stamped and lettered in gilt, all edges speckled red; moderate rubbing, a few spots on front cover, offsetting on first and last few leaves from binding. Gentle age-toning; lacks blank following dedication. Marked as above, light pencilling on endpapers. An elegant edition of Virgil from a fine 18th-century Scots press.  (36157)

WorldCat, Copac, STCN, and NUC Pre-1956 do not find any locations of this Jansson-Waesberg edition; Palau does not list it.

Provenance:  Front free endpapers each with early inked inscription mostly inked over, title-page verso with inked inscription “de los libros . . . D. Emanuel Lopez Forrecilla y dela Fuente.”

•  Not in STCN. See Palau 377674–377683 for other eds.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, spines with early hand-inked title; minor staining and back outer (yapp) edge of vol. I chipped, ties on both volumes still partially present. Pages age-toned with intermittent spotting; vol. I with light waterstaining to margins of some leaves and a few early inked corrections and marks of emphasis. Vol. II: Text block pulling away from spine, first few leaves separating, some leaves with worming in inner margins touching text without obscuring sense, one leaf with tear from outer margin extending into text without loss. All edges stained red, and both volumes with inscriptions as above.  (29082)

•  BAL 20798; Grolier, American 100, 82; Russo & Sullivan, Bibliographical Studies of Seven Authors of Crawfordsville,Indiana, 315–17; Wright, III, 5720.   Publisher's textured brown cloth with bevelled edges, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding slightly shaken, edges and extremities rubbed, sides with spots of discoloration. Hinges (inside) tender. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, title-page pressure-stamped, dedication page with inked numeral, back free endpaper with slip. Front free endpaper with faint early inscription, front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription. Pages age-toned; a few leaves with light staining, most clean.  (26381)