Search Results: Titles starting with R from Michael Laird Rare Books LLC

1871. Hardcover. Very good. Oblong folio (350 x 450 mm). With 32 watercolors of high quality by Annibale Angelini delineated from the original frescos. Original red pebbled cloth (shaken), upper cover with the crowned monograph of Prince Camillo IX (Vittorio Emanuele) Massimo. In excellent unrestored state. Preserved in a protective case. An important discovery. This album of watercolors is the only surviving record of the once spectacular frescos and interiors of the elegant garden Casino Felice of the Villa Peretti Montalto alle Terme (later known as the Villa Massimo), built for Sixtus V by famed Roman architect Domenico Fontana. After centuries of neglect, the Villa, its two palaces, and its lush gardens were destroyed in the 1880s in order to make way for the central railroad station in Rome, the Roma Termini. The long-lost frescos of the Casino Felice are of the greatest interest to scholars of Renaissance Italian art: among the artists were C. Nebbia, F. Rosselli, D. Cresti (called il… Read More

New York: Scientific American, 1911. First Edition. Very good. Single sheet (398 x 275 mm), with large illustration reproduced from the Illustrated London News (two short tape repairs to outer margins, not affecting text); clippings of the accompanying text (2 columns) loosely inserted. Preserved in mylar sleeve with lig-free board. LARGE AND EVOCATIVE ILLUSTRATION OF FESSENDEN'S "RENEWABLE ENERGY PLANT" FOR UTILIZING SOLAR RADIATION AND WIND-POWER, EACH WORKING IN TANDEM. R.A. Fessenden (1866-1932) was one of the most prodigious inventors of the late 19th- and early 20th-century, a tireless researcher of renewable energy, radio transmission and wireless telephony. Over the course of his career, Fessenden published more than 150 scientific papers and patented some 230 inventions, mostly in electromagnetic signaling but also in fields as diverse as solar energy, book and leather production, and even the parking of automobiles. Indeed, his interests were unusually broad: a freemason since 1899, he… Read More

St. Petersburg, Russia: Izdanio upravleniia Imperatorskimi [Published by Golike & Vil'borg for the Imperial Factory], 1906. First Edition. Large and very heavy folio (370 x 275 mm). COMPLETE: viii, 422, plus 63 pages, including French summary ("La manufacture impériale de porcelaine à St. Petersbourg") on pp. 325-372. Photogravure frontispiece + 12 mounted heliograph plates numbered I-XII on facing tissue-guards + 1 chromolithograph plate showing 40 different makers' marks and monograms, 493 monochrome illustrations and 8 line-drawings within the text. Mid-twentieth (Swedish?) half calf, spine title lettered in Russian (spine a trifle scuffed, minor wear to headcap, spine leather with some speckling), decorated paper over boards, original gold-printed wrappers bound in (soiled, back wrapper with two large infills). Overall in excellent condition, certainly the nicest copy we've seen. MASSIVE AND MAGNIFICENT STATE-SPONSORED PUBLICATION, BEING THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN PORCELAIN… Read More

New York: The Grolier Club, 2012. First Edition. Softcover. Very good. 8vo. 23 x 15 cm. 84 pp. with color and b/w illustrations. This important Grolier Club exhibition catalogue remains the definitive bio-bibliographical assessment of the life and work of Ray Safford. Although now little-known, in his day one Safford was of the foremost rare book dealers in America. Highly interesting.

Washington DC: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 2001. Softcover. Very Good. Quarto, 158 pages, illustrated in black and white. ¶ Through the underlinings, emendations, and other marginalia common to early modern readers, this title shows the variety of ways in which readers have related to books over the centuries. The use of books as repositories of birth records, and marginalia (scholarly, esoteric, and profane) is also examined.

Tours: Chez Jamet Mettayer, Imprimeur ordinaire du Roy, 1594. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. 12mo. 33 pp. Mettayer's wodcut device on title-page with motto: "Omni praestantior arte." Sympathetically bound in the antique style: recent quarter calf over speckled boards, red morocco label; small blemish on title; four leaves (including title) with blind-stamp of the Theological Institute of Connecticut (now known as the Hartford Seminary). NB: in 1976 a collection of more than 200,000 books from the Hartford Seminary Library were sold to Emory University, including this one --> deaccessioned from Pitts Theology Library. A rare item on the Catholic League printed in Tours by the itinerant printer Jamet Mettayer, who is known to have been active in Paris (1573-1588), Blois (1589), Tours (1589-1594 where he fled during the troubles of the League), and again in Paris until ca. 1605. The text of this rare work concerns Cardinal Filippo Sega (1537-1596) and is dated 18 February 1594. ¶ Worldcat lists… Read More