Search Results: Authors starting with G from Bernard Quaritch Ltd

Manuscript on paper ('Pro Patria' watermark), in Latin, 4to (204 x 158 mm), 3 parts in 1 vol, pp. i: [4 (title, blank)], 229, [1], 230-250, [3 (blank)]; ii: [6 (title, blanks)], 270-283, [35], [3 (blank)]; iii: [6 (title, blanks)], [85], [3 (blank)]; p. 170 misnumbered 180, pp. 171-186 misbound after p. 202; very neatly written in brown ink in a single hand; illustrated with 5 full-page logic diagrams, 13 full-page emblematic illustrations and 11 large vignettes in pen and wash; overall very good in contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments with gilt red morocco lettering-piece, marbled endpapers; some loss at head- and tail-panels of spine, some wear to joints and extremities, light rubbing to boards, one old paper label to spine and two to upper board.
A handsome manuscript comprising a thorough course in logic and dialectic, executed by a student at the Jesuit college in Antwerp, and illustrated with an extraordinary decorative programme inspired by printed emblems.
Opening with an index… Read More

Second edition of Gellius's opus with the commentary of philologist Matteo Bonfini (1441–1517), annotated throughout by a contemporary reader whose corrections and comments include references to the lectures of Paolo Bombasi as cited by Erasmus in the 1508 edition of the Adagia. Erasmus singled out Bombasi as 'the best of friends'. Bombasi (also Paulus Bombasius, or Paolo Bombace, 1476–1527) was born in Bologna of a noble family. He distinguished himself as a rhetor, philologist, and poet, and became prefect of the Vatican Library, holding regular correspondence with Erasmus. He was one of the victims of the violence which occurred in the 1527 sack of Rome. Our annotator is likely to have been part of the Bologna circle of humanists who gathered for readings of Aulus Gellius, occasionally including Erasmus who lived for some months in Bombasi's house in Bologna. The most explicit note occurs on f. 13v ('Paulus Bombasius Bononiensis hunc versiculum sic emendat … hoc modo: "saepe etiam fuit… Read More

First edition in English, rare, of the first significant European study of China, 'one of the outstanding "best-sellers" of the sixteenth century' (Boxer). A publication of enormous influence on Elizabethan conceptions of China, it also contained much information on the Spanish Americas. The translation, by Robert Parke, was undertaken at the request and encouragement of Richard Hakluyt, appearing before the latter's Principal Navigations and was dedicated to the explorer Thomas Cavendish. The publisher John Wolfe had issued an edition in Italian under a false 'Venice' imprint in 1587, but this was the first time the work was accessible to a wider English audience. Mendoza had departed on a mission to China in 1580, but because of political instability in the Philippines he made it no further then Mexico, returning to Spain and then Rome in 1583, where he was commissioned to write this history, drawing upon information provided by missionaries in Mexico. La Historia de las Cosas más Notables,… Read More

Four volumes, 8vo, pp. xvi, 311, [1] blank, 2 folding leaves of plates; 346, 2 folding leaves of plates; viii, 227, [1] blank, 3 folding leaves of plates; xi [i] blank, 306; various woodcut ornaments; some foxing, mainly light but sporadically heavier, in places throughout, more pronounced towards beginnings and ends of volumes; in contemporary vellum, gilt-lettered labels on spines, sprinkled edges; bindings somewhat dustsoiled, and every volume slightly sprung, but otherwise a good copy. Only edition, very uncommon, of this collection of 33 essays on scientific and philosophical subjects, published with the aspiration to provide a complete course of physics and philosophy. The work is divided into four parts. The first deals with materialism and idealism, the physical attributes of bodies, forces, gravity and attraction, mechanics, hydrostatics, meteorology, and fluid mechanics; the second with anatomy, circulation, the classification and organisation of plants and animals, the senses, electricity,… Read More