Category: Illustrated

HOWITT, Samuel

HOWITT, Samuel. A New Work of Animals, Principally Designed From the Fables of Aesop, Gay, and Phaedrus: Containing Fifty-Six Plates, Drawn from the Life and Etched by Samuel Howitt

London, Edward Orme, 1811.

£700

FIRST EDITION. 4to, frontispiece, list of plates and 56 engraved plates with tissue guards. Bound in half straight-grain maroon morocco and green buckram over boards, gilt spine with title (“Deverson, binder Cant,” blind-stamped on top outer corner of left endpaper. Generally clean and crisp, just a little lightly yellowed, occasionally, and some very minor marginal spotting. Negligibly rubbed on covers. An excellent volume.

Schwerdt I, p. 252.

[Natural History] Description de l’Égypte

MONUMENTAL AND IMPORTANT WORK ON EGYPT

Historie Naturalle, vols. 3, 1826, (Description de l’Égypte ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expedition de l’armée française).

Paris, Imprimerie de C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1821–29.

£9500

Elephant folio (67×52 cm). 3 tomes in 3 volumes (no. 34, 35 and 36) from the monumental description of Egypt promoted by Napoleone Bonaparte during the French Campaign of Egypt (1798–1801). Plates (244 + 3 title pages): Zoology: Vol. I: Mammals (8); birds (14); Reptiles (13); Fish (27). Vol. II: Cephalopods (1); Gastropods (3); Shells (14); Annelids (5); Crustaceans (13); Arachnids (9); Myriapods (1); Orthoptera (7); Neuroptera (3); hymenoptera (20); Echinoderms (9); Zoophytes (3); Ascidians (1); Polyps (14); Algae (2). Vol. III: Botany (62); Mineralogy (15). In contemporary half red morocco binding. Title to blind tooled gilt spine, divided in 7 compartments with raised bands. Large green morocco labels at centre of front board with gilt title. Magnificent copies of the first monumental natural history of Egypt.

This Natural History in three parts belongs to the second edition of the description of Egypt, which was printed by Charles-Louis-Fleury Panckoucke in 24 8vo volumes divided in 26 books, plus 10 volumes (no. 27-37) including beautiful plates illustrating the Egyptian Antiquités, in 4 tomes, État Moderne, in 2 vols, the Histoire Naturelle, in 3 vols, and the Atlas géographique, in 1 vol.. The first edition was printed between 1809 and 1822 at the Imprimerie Royale and it was the first scientific description of Ancient and Modern Egypt. This monumental enterprise represented a milestone in the history of French governmental printing. It was coordinated by the Institut d’Égypte, established by Bonparte at Cairo and chaired by Gaspard Monge. Fourier, who wrote the introduction, in 1798 was instructed to gather the reports concerning the multiple disciplines involved. The work was the result of the collaboration of many scientists, artists and technicians who voluntarily followed Bonaparte in this incredible adventure. After the capitulation of the army under General Menou, the scientists, artists and scholars returned to France. For fear of seeing scientists publish their work individually, the government quickly created an eight-member Egyptian Commission to carry out this “great work”. The publication began in 1810; Napoleon wanted it to begin in 1809 to celebrate his first decade in power, and hence the title pages of the first volumes were backdated. The work was completed only in 1830, when the maps of Sinai, Egypt, and Palestine were finally taken out of the Dépôt de la Guerre, which, for security reasons, had so far kept under seal. Famous naturalists and illustrators contributed, such as Jacques Barraband, Pierre-Joseph Redoute, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Jules-César Savigny. The quantity and accuracy of the information provided surpassed any work published before the expedition. The monuments were measured and described with remarkable precision. Even inscriptions whose mystery had not yet been understood were reproduced with great fidelity.

VERGIL

FINELY ILLUSTRATED EDITION

VERGILIUS MARO, Publius. L’Opere di Virgilio mantoano cioè la Bucolica, la Georgica, e l’Eneide, commentate in lingua volgare toscana, da Giovanni Fabrini da Fighine, da Carolo Malatesta da Rimene, et da Filippo Venuti da Cortona.

Venice, Appresso gli Heredi di Marchiò Sessa, 1588.

£

Folio, ff. 450; A-D8 E4 F-Z8 2A-3K8, last blank missing. Three works in one volume. Roman and Italic letter. Double-column, Decorated initials, head- and tailpieces, large printer’s device (a cat with a mouse in mouth and motto “dissimilum infida societas”) on t-p within elaborate borders. 40 illustrations: 11 woodcuts in the Eclogues, 4 in the Georgics, 12 large or full-page images, one for each first page of each book of the Aeneid, plus a set of 13 famous illustrations of Dante’s Inferno only for book no. 6. Slightly browned, occasional spotting and burnings, some waterstains, thumb marks and offsetting. Final three leaves worn with hole affecting part of the text, particularly on the last leaf. In contemporary vellum over boards, rubbed and damaged at corners and edges, curious ink decorative scribbles on both covers and on recto of front endpaper, representing peacocks.

Third edition of this fine Italian translation of Virgil’s works, beautifully illustrated, by the three sixteenth-century maximum experts of the Latin poet: Giovanni Fabrini, Carlo Malatesta, and Filippo Venuti; also provided with their commentaries. In this beautiful work were used the woodblocks of the 1519 edition, which were modelled on the illustrations of the celebrated Strasbourg version printed by Gruninger (1502). The sixth book of the Aeneid shows the same illustrations used in the Vellutello edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia (Marcolini 1544).

 

MARLIANI, Bartolomeo

FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED EARLY GUIDES OF ROME EMBELLISHED BY FINE ENGRAVINGS

Urbis Romae Topographia.

Rome, in aedibus Valerij dorici & Aloisij fratris,…, 1544.

£9,750

FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Folio, ff. 6, pp. 122 [2], A6, A-B4, C-L6. Italic letter, some Roman and Greek. T-p without ornamentation, woodcut initials. 23 fine woodcut illustrations, including a folding double-page engraved map of Rome signed by the calligrapher Giovanni Battista Palatino (Frutaz 12); very large woodcut printer’s device (Pegasus) on recto of final leaf with register and imprint date. First issue, which shows the text of the privilege from Pope Paul III. Small hole due to the moulding of a little area of the upper margins of the first three initial leaves. Extensive waterstaining affecting the book throughout, along gutters and foot margins. Light soiling, or spotting, and thumb marking to margins of some pages. Folding plate with the plan of Rome somewhat worn, with some parts partially detaching. In contemporary limp vellum, missing ties, cover edges slightly ragged. A good well-margined copy on thick paper, despite the waterstains.

The FIRST illustrated edition of this important guide to Rome, dedicated to Francis I.  The text, first published in 1534 by Antonio Blado with a dedication by Rabelais, was substantially amended and enriched with woodcut plans, views, and sculptures for the present edition. Born towards the end of C15th to a noble Milanese family, Bartolomeo Marliani dedicated his life to the study of Roman archaeology. This work was the pre-eminent account of the antiquities of classical Rome of his day, many of which were to suffer subsequent alteration or disappearance. This edition is one of the masterpieces of Renaissance classical architecture and has remained justly sought after throughout four and a half centuries. The enduring importance of the work is that it tells us what the city was like before many of its ancient ruins were altered, incorporated or swept away in the great building activities of the later C16th and C17th . Marliani’s approach to the archeology of Rome differs considerably from that of his predecessors, especially Giacomo Mazzocchi, in that he gives far more prominence to architectural and sculptural detail than to inscriptions, which had almost solely occupied earlier archaeologists. Illustrations include a map of Rome, the mythological founders of the city Romulus, and his brother Remus with the she Wolf, the Laocoon, the Circus Maximus, the Pyramid, the Pantheon, and the Obelisk. The depiction of the statue of Laocoon is one of the earliest; Marliani had been present in Rome for the discovery of the statue in 1520.

BM STC It. p.418;  Fowler p.189; Olschki 17512; Brunet III 1437-8 “Edition ornée de bonne gravures sur bois…..Elle est rare, assez recherchée, et néanmois à bas prix”.  Mortimer, Harvard C16 It. 284 (with 4 reproductions); Censimento 16 CNCE 34273; Culot, Bozerian roulettes 19, 42, palettes 3, 12, signatures 1; Adams M-610; Berlin Kat. 1831; Schudt 605.