Bibliotheca Phillippica New Series : Sixth Part. Catalogue of French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Yugoslav and Slavonic manuscripts from the Celebrated Collection of Manuscripts Formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt. (1792-1872). [ Sotheby & Co., auction catalogue, sale dates: 15-16 June, 1970]

Sotheby & Co., London, auction catalogue for the sale held on 15th-16th June, 1970. Printed wrappers, small 4to,. 149 pp, plates. Lots 1159-1374. Among the highlights noted were the following: French Manuscripts, including Medieval Deeds and Charters; Autograph Letters of Gassendi, Mersenne, Ismael Boulliau, Fenelon, Mme. Guyon, Mabillon, St. Vincent de Paul, Mme. de Sevigne and Mme. du Chatelet; an Important Archive Relating to Bossuet; Papers Concerning Voltaire; and a Partly Unpublished Letter of Napoleon I; Greek Manuscripts, including a Volume from Johannes Sambucus's Library, a Seventeenth-Century Play in Cretan Dialect and an Extensive and Highly Important Collection of the Papers of Cyril Lucaris, Patriarch of Constantinople; Yugoslav and Slavonic Manuscripts, including the First Croat Translation of a Kempis's Imitation of Jesus Christ, a Glagolitic Manuscript Written on the Island of Krk, 1602, and a Russian Sixteenth-Century Apocalypse with Contemporary English Marginalia; Portuguese Manuscripts, including the Unpublished Autograph Ms. of Chronicles Written by Gaspar Correa in India 1532-33, and the better of only two known Mss. of Luis de Oxeda's Account of Klng Sebastian's Defeat and Death in 1578; Spanish Manuscripts, including Autograph Letters of Philip II and Philip III to the Pope; a Letter of Gonzalo de Cordoba, 'El Gran Capitan'; a Calligraphic Ms. of Palomares; Two Seventeenth-Century Cancioneros; Unpublished Short Stories by Pedro de Salazar, c. 1560-65, claimed as the earliest in Spanish; Collections of Poems by Bartolome Cairasco de Figueroa, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and Antonio de Solís; Collections of Quevedo's Works and a Manuscript from his Library; the earliest known Manuscript of Lope de Vega's la Dragontea, on the Death of Drake; an Unrecorded Collection of the Marqués de Santillana's Poetry; and an Extensive and Important Archive of Juan de Iriarte's Papers. From the introduction: "This must be the first English auction sale of the twentieth century to contain such a large number of Spanish literary manuscripts, many of them derived via Heber or Thorpe from a few notable collections: that of the Valencian savant, Gregorio Mayans y Siscar (part of his library was brought to England by the bookseller Vicente Salva, who opened a shop at 124 Regent Street In 1825); of Juan de Iriarte, probably also of the Marques de Astorga (who seems to have been a political refugee in France) and of La Serna Santander....The Spanish manuscripts are followed by no less than thirty-nine in Portuguese or of Portuguese interest. The most remarkable is the volume containing unpublished autograph Cronicles by Gaspar Correa, author of Lendas da India, composed in India in 1532-3, as well as a translation of Ovid's Heroides by a Portuguese soldier in India (lot 1339). Other lots of interest include the diplomatic correspondence of the Papal Nuncio in Lisbon, 1686-90 (lot 1360), unpublished diaries of Francisco Xavier de Oliveyra, "the Portuguese Protestant" (lot 1362) and an account of the disastrous defeat of King Sebastian's army in Morocco in 1578 (lot 1363). French material is of particular importance for the 17th century, with a substantial archive on Bossuet (lot 1163) and letters of Gassendi, Mersenne, Mabillon, St. Vincent de Paul and Madame de Sevigne. ..A group of manuscripts in Slav languages include a Croat translation of Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Jesus Christ (lot 1237), an unrecorded translation of part of the Breviary (lot 1239) and one of the earliest Russian manuscripts to have reached England, a Slavonic Apocalypse (lot 1238). Some of the Jugoslav manuscripts stem from the circle of Marko Marulic. the leading Croat humanist, and seem to have belonged to the Franciscan convent in Split. Eighteen Greek manuscripts complete the sale. Here the outstanding lot is the large unpublished collection of papers of Cyril Lucaris, donor of the Codez Alexandrinus to James I and the most remarkable Patriarch of Constantinople since 1453. Front wrapper slightly darkened, faint foxing to endpapers, otherwise Good.