Early Printing & Manuscripts / Manuscripts & Documents

[THOMAS À BECKET]. [Diego Afonso de MIRANDA, translator]. Historea da vida e martyrio do glorioso Sancto Thomas Arcebispo, Senhor de Cantuaria, Primas de Inglaterra, legado perpetuo da sancta see apostolica, trelada da novamente de Latim em lingoagé Portugues.
(Colophon: Coimbra, João Alvarez, printer to the University, 12 November) 1554. 4to. With several woodcut decorated initials. With the 4 preliminary leaves in facsimile. 20th-century Portuguese tree calf, gold-tooled spine, red spine label, brown sprinkled edges, marbled endpapers. [8], “CCCI” [= 303], [1 blank], [20] pp. Full description

[BIBLE - MANUSCRIPT LEAF]. [Latin manuscript leaf on parchment with (parts of) Leviticus 5-8].
[The Netherlands?], [late 14th century or early 15th century?]. Folio (26.5 x 40 cm). Written in a neat littera textualis in 2 columns of 50 lines. With 3 lombardic initials executed in blue or light pink with white filigree work on a gold ground, with bars in the same colours with white filigree ornamental patterns originating from the initials, with some small twigs springing from them, ending at the head and bottom of those bars in a larger twig with small "flowers" or "buds" in blue, pink or gold. Also with the numbers of the chapters and running heads "LEVI" written in red and blue. [1] leaf. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALENDAR]. [Calendar for calculating the date of Easter].
[Auxerre, France?], [ca. 1400?]. Small 4to. Latin manuscript in red, brown and black ink on paper, written in an upright French gothic semi-cursive hand with short texts in a textura hand, with 6 round diagrams for calendrical calculations containing text and 2 more with no text filled in. Leaves A4-A6 (6 pages) written in two columns contain 12 tables for the 12 months (January to December) providing data for each day of the month, and the manuscript includes further data for calendrical calculations in several more rectangular tables. The final blank leaf has holes pricked to form a circle, but no diagram has been drawn using them. Sewn through 3 holes in a (ca. 1550?) paper wrapper, the whole in paperboards lined with printed waste paper from a (17th-century?) Latin Breviary. [18], [2 blank] pp. (pp. 2 & 5 also blank). Full description

MAURITS, Prince of Orange. [Declaration for Jan de Roo].
[The Hague], 4 December 1589. 1mo (41 x 31.5). Document written in brown ink on one side of a whole sheet of paper in an upright gothic cursive hand, with the autograph signature "Maurice de Nassau" and with his armorial seal (3 x 2.5 cm) stamped on a slip of paper over red sealing wax. With (separately added) Maurits's signature clipped out of another document and mounted on a paper slip. [1] leaf, written on one side. Full description

[AUTOGRAPH]. MELANCHTHON, Philipp. [Autograph letter, signed, from Philipp Melanchthon to Sebastian Boetius].
[Wittenberg], Easter [14 April 1555]. Folio (19.5 x 32 cm). In Latin. [2] pp. Full description

[MINIATURE - GERMAN]. [The Arrest of Christ].
[Flanders (Bruges?), or Nürnberg, ca. 1520]. Miniature painted on vellum (7.8 x 5.6 cm) in numerous colours, highlighted with gold and in a gold border, probably from a book of hours, but with no text. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT]. PHILIP (FELIPE) II, King of Spain. [Mortgage agreement, granting Jan Hanneman, Steward General of North Holland, the rights to the tithes of the King's lands of Voorburg and Voorschoten].
The Hague and Brussels, 1557 (with additions to 1565). Folio (36 x 25.5 cm). Manuscript mortgage agreement, signed by King Philip's representatives, written in brown ink on parchment in a nearly upright cursive gothic hand. With a typescript transcription of the main text and an interlinear translation in Spanish. [2 blank], 9, [1 blank] pp. Full description

[TIBET - MANUSCRIPT]. [The perfection of wisdom in eight thousand lines].
Tibet, 13th century CE. 20 x 65 cm. Manuscript written in gold ink on both sides of 314 sheets of heavy, multi-layered paper stained blue over the surface, varnished on the writing space, surrounded by a frame, each page containing 8 lines of approximately 80 characters in Tibetan uchen (dbu-can) script. Front cover from another manuscript, in black ink; under a flap are 2 lines of very large script with the words "in the language of India". The first leaves of the manuscript contain 4, 5, 6 and 7 lines of script. Text is complete. Stored in a large custom-made red cloth case (71 x 24 x 15.5 cm) with a gold-tooled red morocco title label. 314 ll. Full description