Rare books from Rodger Friedman Rare Book Studio

Venice: Giunta (colophon: in officina haeredum Lucaeantonii Iunctae), 1563. Leather. Very Good. Folio (38 cm); [2], 152, 12 leaves. Text in two columns, printed in red and black ink. Printer's device in red on title page (Camerini, I, 143, third variant). About 99 woodcut illustrations in text (some repeated), including full-page crucifixion, repeated seven times, and 10-panel historiated woodcut border to facing page, also repeated seven times. Rotunda, roman, and italic type. Music with notes in black on red staves. Bound in paneled calf, roughly contemporary, ruled in gilt with gilt fleurs-de-lis at corners. Binding worn with signs of old repairs. Text toned on some leaves, but remarkably fresh and free of blemishes overall. References: Mortimer, Italian, 304; Amiet, Repertorium, 2:101; Camerini, 673; RELICS, 2859. In the 1560s, the brothers Tommaso and Giovan Maria Giunta were trying to recover financially from the fire that destroyed their Venice workshop in 1557. Taking few… Read More

London: Printed for the [United] Brethren's Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel Among the Heathen by W. M'Dowall, 1814. First edition. 22cm; 83 pages, folding engraved map. Bound in recent polished calf ruled in gilt on both boards and tooled at each corner. A bit sun-drenched on spine. Reference: AB 8996. Fine condition. The son of a Warsaw baker, Benjamin Kohlmeister apprenticed as a cabinetmaker before wandering into the Moravian congregation at Dresden. In 1790, he was sent to Labrador where he served a 12-year residence at Okak, the Moravians' northernmost station. After a hiatus in Europe, he returned to Okak in 1810 with Georg Kmoch. Accompanied by 15 Inuit, the pair traveled north from the settlement to Cape Chidley , the Ungava Bay, and as far north as the Koksoak River scoping out sites for settlement. The volume offered here is the account of that voyage. In 1818, Kohlmeister became the general superintendent of the mission, headquartered at Nain.

Paris: H. Floury, 1926-27. First edition. 28 cm; 2 volumes. [4], 307, [4]; [4], 282, [2] pages. Six original drypoint sketches, each printed in two states, included. LACKS (as commonly) the 4 original lithographs from the second volume. Volume 1 with 9 color lithograph plates (including front cover), 17 black and white lithograph plates, and 32 black and white lithographs paired with a second striking in brownish ink. Volume 2 with 13 color lithograph plates (including front cover), 2 tinted "helogravures," and 32 lithograph plates each reproduced in black-and-white and green-tint versions. Volume 1 one of 175 copies (numbered "75" in ink over original number scratched out) and volume 2 one of 200 copies (legitimately numbered "75" in ink). Bound in early 20th-century gray buckram with leather title labels. Original color lithographed wraps bound in.

Venice: Boneto Locatelli for Ottaviano Scotto ("Summa"); Giacomo Pencio da Lecco ("Opuscula"), 1493; 1508. Very Good. Two editions bound together. Chancery folio (33 cm); Summa part III: 220 [5, of 6] leaves. Lacks final leaf C6 with device of Ottaviano Scotto. Signatures: a-z8 [et]8 [con]8 [rum]8 A-C6. Gothic type in two columns. Woodcut initials. Marginal notes in contemporary hand. Manuscript table on title page. Hole in title leaf with loss of two letters. Stain on n2v. References: GW M46445; IGI 9603, etc. Opuscula: 306 leaves. Many woodcut initials among guide letters. Diagram in text (leaf AA), Occasional marginal notes in contemporary hand. Date in colophon inked over. References: BM Italian p. 669; Rossi, "Antiche e nuove edizioni degli Opuscoli di San Tommaso d'Aquino...," p.52. Bound in very early paneled and blind-stamped pigskin, with clasps and straps intact. Backstrip and upper cover lettered in manuscript. Remains of modern printed label on upper board. Backstrip… Read More

Paris: Pierre Mettayer, 1624. Second Printing. Quarto (22 cm); [16], 540 pages. Woodcut initials and ornaments. Roman and italic type. Woodcut printer's device on the title-page. In contemporary full brown plain leather boards, spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt, with title stamped in gilt directly on spine ("Verulami de Augm. Sc."). Ownership inscriptions on title page (dated 1724). Text unmarred. References: Gibson, "Bacon," 130. Second printing after the London edition the previous year, and the first European printing of Bacon's "De augmentis scientiarum." Effectively a greatly expanded version in Latin of his "Advancement of Learning" (1605), this is the book that, in its Paris printing, spread the word of the scientific method across Europe, influencing Descartes and the philosophers of the Enlightenment, Locke, Leibniz, Huygens and Voltaire.

Basel: Johannes Froben, 1525. Very Good. Folio (37 cm); [18] leaves, 671, [143] pages. Woodcut printer's device, the double-headed caduceus designed by Holbein, on title page, on verso of p. 671, on the title page of the index, and on the final page. Holbein's detailed chiaroscuro woodcut initials throughout. Bound in vellum over boards, titled in manuscript on spine. Old jottings in manuscript on upper board (apparently an Italian and Latin vocabulary list including the names of foodstuffs). Portion of vellum near head of spine replaced. Erasmus's name on running head of dedicatory letter aggressively inked over! Occasional scattered very light foxing in a generally bright and unblemished text. References; Adams P-1560; van der Haeghen, Biblioteca Erasmiana, p. 45. For the initials (among Holbein's largest), see Schneeli and Heitz, table V #II, and table LXXXIII, #XL. Erasmus's edition of Pliny's Natural History, conserving the notes from Ermolao Barbaro's edition of 1492, printed by… Read More

Paterson and New York: Pageant Books, 1961. Facsimile edition, limited to 1000 copies, of which this is #79.. Fine. 2 volumes folio (48 cm in slipcase). Facsimile printed on rag paper produced for this edition; all pages lithographed, and illuminated pages printed "by sheet-fed gravure." Bound by hand in sturdy full morocco, stamped with Gutenberg's initials on upper boards, titled in gilt on spine. All edges gilt. Marbled endleaves. Protected in original clamshell boxes. Some tenderness to inner hinges of boxes, else about fine. Extra shipping charges will apply at cost. Colophon: "The first Gutenberg facsimile ever printed in the United States and only the second in the world. The reproduction derives from the Insel Verlag edition [1913-14] which was based on the copy in the Koniglichen Bibliothek in Berlin and the copy in the Standischen Landesbibliothek in Fulda, considered by authorities to be the most beautifully illuminated of the 47 copies known to exist ... Limited to 1000 numbered… Read More

Leipzig: Valentin Schumann ("in officina Valentini Dammandri"), 1515. Fine. Octavo (21 cm); 32 leaves. Title and postscript set in large gothic type; text in roman. Woodcut title page within four-sided border, includes human figures with stylized plants, a putto, birds, etc. About 66 woodcut initials. In recent quarter leather over marbled boards. References: Durling 4189; BM/STC German 815; This edition not in Adams, Wellcome, Osler, etc.. Title page reproduced in J. Luther, "Die Titeleinfassungen der Reformationszeit," pl. 89. From what modern scholarship can discern, Serenus was a poet who had a keen interest in medical science and pharmaceuticals. He is famous for using the formula "abracadabra" in the treatment of illness, and for amassing a personal library of 60,000 scrolls. The 1,107 hexameter lines that make up this essay were inspired by the "Medicina Plinii," a book of pharmacy by a pseudo-Pliny of the mid-4th-century, as well as the real Pliny's Natural History and the Greek… Read More

Venice: Bernardino de Vitali, 1533. First edition. Very Good. Quarto (21 cm); [90] leaves, including final blank. In modern polished calf, titled in gilt on spine. Gilt dentelles. Some very light dampmarks through latter half of text. Reference: BM Italian, p. 631; Haym, III, p. 44; Hoepli, Cento Libri Piacevoli, 1936, n. 87; Jules Gay, Bibliographie des principaux ouvrages relatifs à amour, p. 205. Inspired by Sanazzaro's Arcadia, this pastoral tale in prose and verse by a physician from Salò is set along the shores of Lake Garda. It is in fact a series of dialogues on love: what is it, how does it manifest itself, and how does it feel? Sexual love is not ignored in the discussion, which may be why the book was feverishly pursued by the youth of the 16th century, and heavily underlined and rumpled to the point that few copies survive. It is a true rarity of Italian pastoral literature and Renaissance ideas of gender and affection.

Leiden: Elzevir, 1633. First bilingual edition. Very Good. Octavo (16 cm).; [48], 234, [22] pages. Woodblock initials and vignettes. In marbled boards, circa 1900, renewed endleaves, spine artlessly reinforced in cloth, worn at edges. Paper label apparently original. Provenance: Salomon Jakob Florsheim (exlibris). Some light foxing. Reference: Willems 377; Blackmer 120. Hebrew text of "Ma'asot shel rabi Benjamin," accompanied by a Latin translation. This "travelogue" (first published in Hebrew in 1543 and in Latin in 1575) recounts the author's journey through the Middle East and Central Asia in the 12th century. Da Tudela traveled from Spain through southern France, Italy, Greece, Constantinople, Cyprus, Palestine, Egypt, on to Baghdad, and visited many of the local Jewish communities. He is remembered as the most important traveler of Jewish origin in the Middle Ages. The narrative is an prime source for the history of the Jewish traditions in the Mediterranean area. He even described the… Read More

Antwerp: Ioannes Grapheus, 1528. Second Printing. Very Good. Octavo (16 cm) [64] leaves, signed a-h in 8s. Full-page "Charity" printer's device (thought to have been designed by Pieter Coecke van Aelst) on last page. Italic type. Title page elaborated at an early date in ink with image of a chalice or urn. Several ownership inscriptions in ink on title page. Marginal notes in manuscript on a4r and in lower margin of f3v. Manuscript note canceled on g6v. Bound in recent full calf with gilt and blind-tooled panels in period style, with author's name stamped in gilt on upper board. Pages somewhat toned, occasional stains. References: BM Dutch, p. 82. Pomponio Gaurico was the youngest of Giovanni Pontano's students, and the last to carry Pontano's Neapolitan brand of Humanism into the 16th century. (From 1512 he held the chair in Humanistic Studies at the University of Naples.) His treatise on bronze sculpture came out of his studies at the University of Padua, and was published at… Read More

Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1589. First printing of some material. Very Good. Quarto (21 cm); [140] pages, including 34 allegorical copperplate engravings with facing-page explanations. Text within typographical borders; in Latin and Italian. Woodcut decorated initials and tail-pieces. Manuscript marginalia in very neat and readable contemporary hand. Bound in plain vellum, titled in ink on spine (faded). Lower portion of spine ruptured in two places and along joint. Pages thumbed but unblemished, plates are crisp and contrasty. References: Adams J-213; Landwehr, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese emblem books 415. A first-wave example of baroque book illustration, and a stylistic breakthrough for the illustrator (and printer) Girolamo Porro, this strange book occupies an undefined space between emblem book and prophecy, between folklore and political propaganda. Although the text is attributed to Joachim of Fiore, a 12th-century cleric, there is no connection, and the life of Joachim… Read More

Venice: Gli heredi di Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1580. Very Good. Large quarto (27 cm); [16], 654, [32] pages. Final blank present. Title within elaborate architectural border, with caryatids, putti, caduceus,grotesques, and portrait of Ariosto within an oval between allegorical figures, 51 full-page woodcuts at the opening of each Canto, probably by Dosso Dossi, woodcut initials and headpieces. Printer's device also appears as title vignette on page [533] as a separate title page to "I cinque canti." In contemporary Venetian red calf decorated with arabesques in gilt within gilt rules on both boards, spine in 5 compartments with gilt decorations, elegant gauffered edges. Joints a little tender, spine ends restored. References: EDIT 16, 2796; BM Italian, page 40; Gamba, 56 (1556 ed); Mortimer, Harvard Italian 29 (1562 edition); Brunet, I, 436 ("Édition recherchée"); Hofer, "Illustrated editions of Orlando furioso" in Fragonard's Drawings for Ariosto, 27-40 (1556 ed.); ( ‘The illustrations are… Read More

Venice: Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1550. Very Good. Quarto (22 cm); [16], 197 leaves, lacking final blank. Woodcut portrait in profile, ostensibly of the author crowned with laurel (but bearing little resemblance to the weak-chinned profile of Pulci in Fra Lippo Lippi's fresco in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence--in fact, the printer seems to have borrowed the wood block from his cousin Gabriele Giolito, who used it in his edition of Boccaccio in 1542); the portrait within a border populated by frolicking putti. Woodcut vignettes and tall woodcut initials open each of the 28 cantos of the poem. In elegant 19th-century green morocco by Thompson, ruled in gilt, with fleurons and central arabesque in gilt; all edges gilt (fore-edge gilt over marbling, so bending the fore-edge reveals the marbling); Spine in six gilt-framed compartments. Occasional very light foxing. Light wear to joints. Old ownership inscription on title page (Biblioteca grimbergensis). In effect, a fine… Read More

Venice: Bernardinus de Vitalibus, 1526. Very Good. Octavo (161 x 115 mm); 372 leaves. Title within elegant woodcut vine scroll border with figures. Sixteenth-century Italian brown leather over pasteboard, panel binding tooled in blind on both boards and on spine with rules and a small X-shaped tool used in repeating pattern to form the shape of a Roman cross within multiple borders, which may be considered an odd decoration for a secular text. Titled in ink on fore-edge. Ink capitals (BE and NI) on top and bottom edges. Spine in four compartments, ruled in blind. 25mm restoration at tail of spine. Faint remains of straps, indentations where catch plates had been. Pastedowns consist of vellum waste fragments from a Latin manuscript in two columns, rubricated, with decorated initials in red and blue ink. Front blanks inscribed--one with a ditty in Latin about law and responsibility, together with pen trials, the second blank with an allegorical figure drawing of a palm tree (?) clinging by… Read More