Sokol Books Ltd Catalogue Lxiii
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SOKOL BOOKS LTD CATALOGUE LXIII SOKOL BOOKS LTD. are delighted to announce the opening of our new shop in Chelsea at: 239A Fulham Road London SW3 6HY ...where we will be able to o!er both early books and a wider antiquarian stock. Opening times: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 7pm Email: [email protected] O!ce telephone number: 0207 499 5571 Shop telephone number: 020 7351 5119 We wish to purchase English and European books & manuscripts before 1640, later collections (large or small) and interesting or unusual maps, prints, pictures and artefacts. Do visit our website at www.sokol.co.uk SOKOL BOOKS LTD. Terms and Conditions: Postage and Insurance are charged on all parcels unless otherwise speci!ed. Any book may be returned within 14 days for any reason. Payment is due within 21 days of the invoice date. All books remain our property until paid for in full. We reserve the right to charge interest on outstanding invoices at our discretion. Front Cover Illustration: No. 9 BALDUS DE UBALDIS. Lecura super usibus feudorum [with] LAPO DA CASTIGLIONCHIO the Elder. Allegationes iuris. Please help us to reduce our vast mailing list. If you would prefer not to receive our catalogues, or are receiving more than one, do let us know. THE EARLIEST HEBREW ASTROMONY 1. ABRAHAM BAR HIYYA. Sphaera mundi...Arithmetica secundum omnes specis. Basel, Henricus Petri, August 1546. £12500 FIRST EDITIONS 4to. [xii] 207 [i]; [iv] 351 [i]. Roman, Italic, and Hebrew letter, a dual translation in Latin and Hebrew, t-p. in red and black, woodcut astronomical and mathematical diagrams throughout, full page astrolabe woodcut, printer's device of a hammer splitting rock on final versos (internal) of each translation. Light age yellowing, occasional marginal soiling and stains, both t.p.s and f.e.p.s a bit dusty and doodled on in early hand of "L. Cappel", C19 library stamp of Rev'd A.L. Green, and of Jews' College, London ms acquisition note "Saulmur Janvier 1627" on fly. A few corners dog-eared or slightly defective, one leaf stained at upper and lower margins, a well-margined copy in contemporary limp vellum, worn and darkened, lacking ties. FIRST EDITION of the FIRST ASTRONOMICAL WORK PRINTED IN HEBREW, and indeed, the first work on astronomy to be written in the Hebrew language. The 12th century treatise, Surat ha-"Ares or "The Shape of the Earth" by Abraham Bar Hiyya (ca. 1065 - ca. 1140) describes the configuration of the planets and stars, their distances from the one another and the earth, and finally the mathematical proofs Bar Hiyya has based his calculations upon. Within its 12th century Hebraic context, “Bar Hiyya was the true pioneer in the creation of a new Hebrew scientific terminology”, based partially from the Bible and the Mishnah, but largely upon the transliteration of Arabic words. “The transition from Arabic to Hebrew was actually the passage from a language which had already proved able to successfully accommodate itself to the reception of Greek science, to a language previously used almost exclusively for religious and liturgical purposes” (Sela cit. infra.). Also translated for the first time here is their abridged edition of the Jewish Talmudist and legal scholar Elijah ben Abraham Mizrahi's (1450 -‐1526) treatise on arithmetic, including a commentary on Ptolemy's Almagest, Sefer ha- Mispar (“The Book of Numbers”). The work marks a turning point in the history of science: Abraham Bar Hiyya “was one of the leaders of the movement which caused the Jews of Provence, Spain, and Italy to become the transmitters of Muslim science to the Christian West” (Sarton cit. infr). In translating the writings of great Arabic scientists however, Bar Hiyya and his followers also played an important role rediscovering lost elements Ancient Greek learning. Four centuries later, this particular edition was still part of the scientific zeitgeist. Erasmus Oswald Schreckenfuchs (1511‑1579), humanist, astronomer, and Hebraist, translated the work with his teacher, Sebastian Munster (1489-1552), who provided the commentary. It was published a few years after Munster's illustrated Latin edition of Ptolemy's Geography, and in 1544 his watershed Cosmography, which set new standards in measuring and mapmaking. While Munster’s fame in geography often overshadows his passion for Hebraic studies, as a cornerstone of his own education the work is also a part of the foundations of modern cosmography and cartography. Adams A33. Houzeau & Lancaster I 1217. DSB I 22‑23, IX 581. George Sarton Introduction to the History of Science II p.206. Schlomo Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science, 94-98. Honeyman v 1 no. 4 also bound with Mizrahi. 1 THE EARLIEST BOOK ILLUSTRATED BY A WOMAN 2. AGOSTINI, Antonio. Dialoghi...intorno alle medaglie inscrittioni et altre antichita... Rome, appresso Guglielmo Faciotto, 1592. £3750 Folio. [xii] 300 [xxxii]. Roman and italic letter, woodcut initials, head- and tail- pieces, title within handsome architectural border, over twelve hundred woodcut depictions of coins throughout, 6 half page woodcuts of arches and buildings, all in excellent, clear impression. Intermittent slight age yellowing, upper margin of t-p. shaved, little spaces around title cut out and refilled, minor oil stain to upper margin of first and last gatherings, one gathering a bit browned. A crisp, clean and well-margined copy in contemporary vellum. FIRST ITALIAN EDITION, FIRST FULLY ILLUSTRATED EDITION of Antonio Agostini (1517-1586) Archbishop of Tarragona's work on coins - the first edition was printed in his native Spanish, Tarragona, 1587. Agostini was a renown humanist and scholar of ancient archaeology, and his correspondence with other famous scholars of the day including Fulvio Orsini and Alfonso Chacon provided important insight to the present work, according to the dedication. Agostini begins with an introduction to identifying medals and coins, and discussing their usefulness to historians. The next four chapters are dedicated to what is found on the reverse of Roman coins by subject: deities, cities, rivers, buildings, animals, and other symbols. Agostini then moves on to discuss the medals of Africa, France, and Spain, with special focus on Andalucía, Lusitania (Portugal), and Barcelona. The final chapter covers the identification of fakes and forgeries. A handsome volume with the coin images in very good clear impression. "Some of the large woodcuts bear the monograms P.M.F. (e.g. on the title border) or G.A.P. (e.g. on p.124) attributed to Geronima Parasole (fl. end of the 16th century), a Roman artist, cousin of Isabetta Parasole, who was with Vinciolo and Cesare Vecellio the most important lace designer of the late 16th century. Apart from Geronima's contribution to the present work, only a few woodcuts by her after designs of Antonio Tempesta are known (cf. G.K. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten, München, 1919, II p.968, no. 2715; IV, p. 926, no. 3141). It seems very likely that this is the earliest known book in which illustrations by a woman are found. In the sixteenth century only 35 women are known to have been artists and according to our researches Geronima and Isabetta Parasole were the only woman who contributed to book illustration in that period (cf. W. Slatkin Woman Artists in History, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1958, p. 38)" (My Gracious Silence cit. infr)." Geronima's other major woodcut engraving is the Battle of Centaurs after Antonio Tempesta (Benezit cit. infr.).Some copies have a six leaf supplement on the coins of Constantine after the end of the text and before the index, but this is not included in the collation and was clearly a later addition -‐ it is foliated separately and has its own imprint. My Gracious Silence 130. Adams A 2234. Graesse I 253. Index Aureliensis I 101.979. Palau I, 4103. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintre, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs,.VIII p. 122. A SETTLER'S ESTIENNE 3. [ANONYMOUS] . C. Plinii Seundi Novocomensis de uiris illustribus liber (with) Suetonii Tranquilli de claris grammaticis et rhetoribus liber (and) Iulii Obsequentis Prodigiorum liber imperfectus. Paris, Robert Estienne, 1544. £6750 8vo. pp. 92 [xii] (interleaved with blank gatherings throughout ff [xvi] A8 [viii] B8 [viii] C8 [viii] D8 [viii] E8 [viii] F8 [viii] G4 [xxiv]). Roman and Italic type, t-p. with Estienneʼ’s device, ms ex libris “J. Oldham Septem. 30 1627” on t-p. Remains of stubs, ms. annotation on some of the blanks, rear pastedown, and later ms ex libris on fly ” Guil Hen. Harris” of Corpus Christi College Cambridge (ca. 1702-6) "donum M [agister] Burrough", probably Thomas Burrough of the same. Light age yellowing, t-p. a bit dusty, a nice well-‐‑margined copy in 2 English calf c. 1600, gilt panels on covers, spine cracked at upper joint, gilt in eight compartments with floral devices, all edges speckled red. An anonymous collection of short biographies of illustrious rulers from Roman history, ascribed to various writers of antiquity: Pliny the Younger (61-ca. 112 AD), Suetonius (70‑130 AD), biographer Cornelius Nepos (110-25 BC), and Aurelius Victor (ca. 320-390), a later historian who wrote about the imperial history of Rome and served under Emperor Julian. The "J. Oldham" ex libris (and matching marginal annotations throughout, including a recipe for broth scribbled onto the front fly leaf) is most probably John Oldham (1592?- ‐1636), an early settler in North America. He was a controversial figure, linked with those 'peculiars' who migrated to the new world for economic rather than religious reasons, although he is described in William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation along with John Lyford as disruptive of colony life. The two were later thrown out of Plymouth for “disturbing the peace” - assembling a faction of Episcopalians (after the example set in the Virginia colony) in an attempt to reform local religion.