Early Printing & Manuscripts

TOSTATUS (TOSTADO DE MADRIGAL), Alfonso. Super Leviticum in sensu litterali nova et hactenus abscondita a se edita commentaria.
(Colophon: Venice, Petrus Liechtenstein, 1529). With title-page printed in red and black with a large woodcut containing the coats of arms of the Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain) and two bishops (the author and perhaps a relative), leaf 2 with a woodcut of the author writing at his desk, with his arms, and a woodcut initial with the other bishop's arms inside the letter, the arms in the initial and some lines of text printed in red. Printed in two columns.
With: (2) TOSTATUS, Alfonso. Opus super Deuteronomium.
(Colophon: Venice, Petrus Liechtenstein, 1528). With title-page printed in red and black, leaf 1 with a woodcut of the author writing at his desk, with his arms (not the same woodcut as in ad 1), and a woodcut initial with the other bishop's arms as in ad 1. Printed in two columns. 2 works in 1 volume. Folio. Contemporary blind- and gold-tooled tanned sheepskin over wooden boards; each board in a panel design with 2 (on the back board 3) different vine rolls, rules, and on the front board a central medaillon depicting Bathsheba kneeling before King David playing his harp, and a half dozen separate stamps, with author and title at the head, "Thostati Super Leviti et Deuteronomy" and the binding date MDXXXII (1532); blind-tooled spine, remnants of brass anchor plates on the back board (for straps?), catch plates on the front board lacking. 249, [1 blank]; [1], 120 ll. Full description

TRITHEMIUS, Johannes. De statu et ruina monastici ordinis.
[Mainz, Peter von Friedberg, after April 1493]. 4to. 20th-century quarter vellum, decorated paper sides. With the author, title, and place and date of publication in manuscript on the spine. [29], [1 blank] ll. Full description

TRITHEMIUS, Johannes and Gabriel de COLLANGE (translator). Polygraphie et universelle escriture cabalistique.
Including:
(2) TRITHEMIUS, Johannes and Gabriel de COLLANGE (translator). Clavicule, et interpretation sur le contenués cinq livres de Polygraphie, & universelle escriture Cabalistique.
(3) COLLANGE, Gabriel de. Tables et figures planispheriques, extensives & dilatatives des recte & averse, servants à l'universelle intelligence de toutes escritures tant methathesiques, transpositives, mythologiques, numerales, anomales, que orchemales.
Paris, Benoît Prévost for Jacques Kerver, 1561. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. Printed in red and black, the main title and the titles of parts 2 and 3 set within a woodcut decorated border, 3 woodcut portraits of the translator, 13 large volvelles in part 3, numerous woodcut headpieces, and numerous woodcut decorated initials. 18th-century gold-tooled reddish-brown morocco, with the title and author lettered in gold on the spine, marbled endpapers, gold-tooled board edges, red edges. [18], 300 ll. Full description

[ULLOA, Alfonso de]. La historia dell'impresa di Tripoli di Barbaria, fatta per ordine del Sereniss. Re Catolico, l'anno M.D.LX. Con le cose avenute a Christiani nell'Isola delle Zerbe. Nuovamente mandata in luce.
Venice, Francesco Rampazetto, 1566. 4to. 18th-century(?) sheepskin parchment. [7], [1 blank], 88, [4] ll. Full description

ULPIANUS of Emesa and Valerius HARPOCRATION. Commentarioli in olynthiacas, philippicasque Demosthenis orationes. Enarrationes saneque necessariae in tredecim orationes Demosthenis. ...Dictionarium decem Rhetorum. [preceded by the titles in Greek].
(Colophon: Venice, heirs of Aldus Manutius, and his father-in-law Andrea Torresano dAsola [& sons], June) 1527. Folio (31 x 21 cm). With Aldus's famous woodcut dolphin device on the title-page and an older but very similar version on the verso of the otherwise blank last leaf. Set in Greek type (the Upianus in 1 column; the Harpokation in 2 columns) with incidental roman. Recased in 18th-century vellum over flexible boards. 119, [1] ll. Full description

VADIANUS, Joachim (Joachim von WATT). Epitome trium terrae partium, Asiae, Africae et Europae compendiariam locorum descriptionem continens ...
Zürich, Christoph Froschauer, 1534. Folio. With woodcut printer's device on title-page, numerous decorated woodcut initials and a double page woodcut world map "Typus cosmographus universalis" after Sebastian Münster. Modern calf. [44], 273, [1] pp. Full description

[VARTHEMA, Ludovico di, Pietro Martire d’ANGHIERA and others]. The history of travayle in the West and East Indies, ...
London, Richard Jugge, 1577. Narrow 4to (19 x 13.5 cm). With a woodcut celestial map of the South Polar sky in the text. With 14 leaves in a 19th-century facsimile. Gold- and blind-tooled maroon morocco (ca. 1860?), in allusive style. In a modern clam-shell box. [10], 466, [6] ll. Full description

VEER, Gerrit de. Tre navigationi fatte dagli Olandesi, e Zelandesi al settentrione nella Norvegia, Moscovia, e Tartaria verso il Catai, e regno de' Sini, doue scopersero il Mare di Veygatz, la Nuova Zembla.
Venice, Giovanni Battista Ciotti, 1599. 4to. With an engraved plate on title-page, full-page engraving of a compass and 31 half-page engraved maps and plates in text. Later vellum. [4] 79 ll. Full description

VEGIO, Maffeo. De liberorum educatione aurei libri sex noviter recogniti Francisci Philelphi. poete. Oratoris. philosophique prestantissimi. Succincto cum iudice [recté indice]: et brevibus marginariis annotationibus obscurarum sensa dictionum aperientibus. Nicolai Bonespei trecensis campani cura superadditis.
(Colophon: Paris, "apud Gourmontios" [= the brothers Robert, Gilles and Jean de Gourmont], 1508). Small 4to (19 x 13 cm). With numerous printed so-called Lombardic initials, but also with 2 spaces (with guide letters) left for manuscript initials (not filled in). Set in a roman type with the beginning of the title and one heading in a large rotunda gothic type with decorated capitals. Blind-tooled calf (19th century? in a "Medieval" style). CXXVIII, [6] ll. Full description

VENETUS, Paolo Nicoletti [and Restoro d'AREZZO]. Summa philosophie naturalis ... una cu[m] libro de co[m]positione mundi qui astronomie ianua nuncupari potest ... [at the head of the page:] Primus liber incipit De co[m]positione mu[n]di.
Paris, Jean Lambert (colophon: printed by Thomas Kees, 14 November 1513). Small 4to (28 x 20.5 cm). With 55 woodcut illustrations in the text, including 12 northern and 12 southern pictorial constellations with stars. Flexible wrap-around paperboards (ca. 1750?), sewn on 3 tanned leather supports. [35], [1 blank] pp. Full description