Book History, Education, Learning & Printing / Bindings

ARGENSOLA, Bartolome Leonardo de. Conquista de las islas Malucas.
[Madrid, Alonso Martin, 1609]. Small folio (22 x 30 cm). With an engraved architectural title-page showing an allegorical scene (the Moluccas represented by a native woman with feather headdress, cornucopia and sword, riding a crocodile, with the Spanish royal coat of arms in the sky) and a sleeping lion (representing the author?) in a separate cartouche below. Early 18th-century richly gold-tooled red morocco, each board with a large centrepiece a petit fers made partly with pointillé stamps. (Integral?) engraved title-page + [10], “407” [= 411], [1 blank] pp. Full description

ARNOBIUS and Desiderius ERASMUS (editor). Arnobii aphri, vetusti pariter ac laudatissimi scriptoris in omneis palmos co[m]mentarii, iuxta pij atq[ue] eruditi. Including: ERASMUS, Desiderius. Commentarius in psalmum, quare fremuerunt gentes.
Cologne, Eucharius Cervicornus, 1522. 2 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With an elaborate woodcut frame on the title page, and 2 smaller woodcut frames on the first pages of the texts, and 5 woodcut decorated initials. Contemporary blind-tooled calf with armorial panel-stamps. Sewn on 4 supports, with corresponding raised bands on the spine, with remnants of 4 pairs of green closing ties, re-backed. [166], [36] ll. Full description

AUGUSTINE of Hippo (Saint AUGUSTINE). Explanatio Psalmorum. [Incipit:] Annotatio principaliu[m] sententiariu[m]/ principaliu[m] sente[n]tiariu[m] in expla-natione psamo[rum]...
(Colophon:) Basel, Johann Amerbach, 1489. 3 parts in 1 volume. Folio (ca. 31 x 21.5 cm).
Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards, with 1 brass clasp and remnants of a 2nd. [1 blank], [14], [1 blank]; [146]; [192]; [192], [5 blank] ll. Full description

[AURELIUS, Cornelius]. Die cronycke van Hollandt, Zeelandt en[de] Vrieslant beghinnende va[n] Adams tiden tot die geboerte ons heren Jh[es]u[m] voertgaende tot de[n] jare M.CCCCC. ende Xvij.
Leiden, Jan Seversz., 18 August 1517. Folio. With the title-page printed in red and black with a large woodcut between different woodcut borders, and 239 woodcuts in text, including 121 woodcut portraits. Black blind-tooled goatskin (1637), with gold-tooled title and binding date on side. [2], 436 ll. Full description

BAILLY, Jean-Sylvain. Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, depuis son origine jusqu'a l'établissement de l'École d'Alexandrie.
Paris, Debure brothers, 1775. 4to. With 3 numbered folding engraved plates. Beautifully bound in contemporary gold-tooled red morocco, each board with coat of arms of Simon-Pierre Merard de Saint-Just in the centre, marbled endpapers. In modern slipcase covered with marbled paper. [2], XXII, 526 pp. Full description

BARLAEUS, Caspar (BAERLE, Kasper van). Marie de Medicis, entrant dans Amsterdam: ou histoire de la reception faicte à la reyne mere du roy tres-Chrestien.
Amsterdam, Joan & Cornelis Blaeu, 1638. Folio. With 17 engraved plates (1 frontispiece, 15 double page, and 1 folding), a woodcut coat-of-arms of the city of Amsterdam on the title-page, and two decorated woodcut initials. Near contemporary gold-tooled brown morocco, with the coat-of-arms of the Comte de Calenberg on both boards, a black morocco title label on the spine lettered in gold, gold-tooled board edges, gilt edges, marbled end papers. 97, [3 blank] pp. Full description

[BECH, Philipp (editor)]. De disciplina puerorum, recteque formandis eorum & studiis & moribus, ...
Basel, Joannes Oporinus (colophon: Bern, Samuel Apiarius, March 1556).
With: (2) [MOREL, Guillaume, ed.]. Graecorum veterum selectae brevesque epistolae.
Paris, Guillaume Morel, King's printer for Greek, 1562. With a remarkable woodcut device on the title-page. With the Greek text set in Claude Garamont's famous Grec du Roi and the Latin translation set in his Aldine-style italic. 2 works in 1 volume. 8vo (15 x 10 x 4.5 cm). Richly gold-tooled tanned sheepskin (ca. 1700), gilt edges. 31, [21]; [16], "840" [= 804] pp. Full description

[BIBLE - DUTCH]. Biblia. Dat is, de gantsche H. Schrift, grondelick ende trouwelick verduytschet.
Delft, Bruyn Harmansz. Schinckel (colophon: printed by Aelbrecht Heyndricksz.), 1590. 4 parts in 1 volume. 4to (23.5 x 17.5 cm). With a general title-page and three part-titles, each with the same woodcut device in a separate elaborately decorated cartouche, 3 engraved folding maps drawn by Petrus Plancius and executed by Baptista van Doetecum and ca. 20 woodcut illustrations in the text. Contemporary gold panel-stamped and gold-tooled calf over wooden boards, with spectacular finely engraved silver furnishings: 8 corner pieces, 2 clasps, 2 catch plates and 2 anchor plates, the catch and anchor plates with four female virtues; the corner pieces engraved with winged heads that appear to represent the four compass winds; and each clasp with an oval martyrdom scene flanked by birds, all 14 pieces of silverwork with floral and other decoration and with their edges cut to decorative shapes. Each board has the same central rectangular panel-stamp (98 x 61 mm), with an oval scene of Charity or Love/Caritas, with strapwork decoration around the oval (containing the maker's initials B and H) and inside the rectangle; gilt and elaborately gauffered edges. Rebacked in gold-tooled calf. [20], 236; 92; 84; 108, [54] ll. Full description

[BIBLE - DUTCH]. Biblia, dat is: de gantsche H. Schrifture, vervattende alle de canonijcke boecken des Ouden en des Nieuwen Testaments.
Amsterdam, widow of Paulus Aertsz. van Ravesteyn, 1660. 3 parts in 1 volume. Large folio (47.5 x 32 cm). With an integral engraved general title page, 6 double-page engraved maps, including a world map and a plan of Jerusalem, and 336 Bible-illustrations on 42 numbered single-page plates. The maps and illustrations coloured by an early hand with extensive use of gold. 18th-century black so-called sharkskin over bevelled wooden boards (ca. 1770?), with 8 large silver corner-pieces and 2 large silver clasps with catchplates and anchorplates, all with matching stamped relief decoration, gilt and gauffered edges. Rebacked with most of the original backstrip mounted on the spine. [20], 302, [2], 149; 164, [10]; [2], 66 ll. Full description

[BIBLE - DUTCH]. Biblia, dat is de gantsche Heylige Schrifture, vervattende alle de canonijcke boecken des Ouden en des Nieuwen Testaments.
Including: De boecken genaemt apocryphe ...
Leiden, widow and heirs of Johannes Elzevier, 1663. 3 parts in 1 volume. Large folio (44.5 x 28 cm). With 3 letterpress title-pages (the first in red and black, and each with the same Elzevier woodcut tree device with "non solus"), a complete series of 6 double-page engraved maps (the Nicolaes Visscher maps, 5 published ca. 1657 and including the world map added ca. 1663), without the engraved title-page (as usual). Further with numerous woodcut initials and tailpieces. Contemporary elaborately gold-tooled red morocco over bevelled wooden boards, sewn on 8 supports with corresponding raised bands on the spine, with grand silver fittings (with the hallmarks of an unknown silversmith) dated on the inside of one of the clasps "1665", gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins. Further with gilt, painted, and elaborately gauffered and decorated edges; the fore edge shows the coat-of-arms of Jeremias de Bont with some floral decorations, these floral decorations can also be found on the top and bottom edges. The boards show a very intricate gold-tooled symmetric design of ribbons with small geometric stamps and with ornamental curling stamps - better known as "petit fers" - within the different parts of the bigger pattern. The binding contains 4 ornamental corner pieces on each board and two catch plates (front board) and two hinge plates (back board) connected by two decorated massive silver clasps, engraved on the inside "Ieremias de Bont (top) and "1665" (bottom). [22], "368" [= 370]; [13], "167" [= 168]; [2], 77 ll. Full description