Bernard A List of New Quaritch Acquisitions May 2016

Bernard

Quaritch

A List of New

Acquisitions

May

2016

LATE-RENAISSANCE MADRIGALS

1.

ANGELICO, Michelangelo. Madrigali di Michelangelo Angelico Vicentino. Vicenza, Giorgio Greco, 1604. Small 4to, pp. [iv], 100; with a full-page woodcut architectural border including the coat of arms of an unidentified noble family showing three shields within a central oval, woodcut initials, numerous decorative woodcuts on nearly all pages; closed tear to the final leaf (no loss), but an exceptionally clean, crisp copy in dark impression, bound in nineteenthcentury half calf, marbled boards; minor wear to extremities and spine. £1750 Very rare first edition: a gathering of a hundred madrigals, mostly of amorous content and apparently arranged in a sort of canzoniere, by Angelico, a physician and poet from Vicenza who was known in academic circles as Cynthio Pierio. Affiliated to the prestigious Vicentine Accademia Olimpica, Angelico was also fond of writing verse in the stilo pedantesco, a kind of inverted macaronic style mixing vernacular stems with Latin structures, modelled on Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and employed mostly for satirical purposes. These madrigals however, in a pure vernacular as codified by Bembo, open with a composition which clearly nods to the model of Petrarch’s Rime, likening the author to a ship’s pilot struggling in stormy seas. Petrarch’s, Bembo’s and Michelangelo’s works and the whole tradition of Italian Cinquecento lyric poetry provide Angelico with the thematic and formal tools for the collection, which appears to have been organized so as to tell a story: the sorrows and joys (some of them very physical and explicitly celebrated) of love are followed by some poems composed for the marriage of prominent contemporaries, while the last composition turns suddenly from human, unresolved passions to divine, everlasting and perfected love. While Angelico’s satirical verses in stilo pedantesco have attracted some academic attention, the madrigal cycle so far has not, to our knowledge, been the subject of any specific study. A second edition was published in Venice two years later by Marco Guarisco, and three of the wedding compositions found their way into a 1611 anthology. Extremely rare. A sole copy traced worldwide, in Italy (Vicenza); not in OCLC.

2.

[AUSTRALIA – GOLD RUSH.] Part-printed ‘Statement of Particulars required from Persons about to emigrate to Australia’, completed in manuscript, 1852-3. Double folio sheet, with a printed header and 25 column headings, completed in the same clerical hand. £250 + VAT IN EU A register of 17 emigrants, all from Gloucestershire, mostly heading to Adelaide and Geelong, listing the applicants’ names, ages (18 to 57 but mostly 20s and 30s), spouses, children, parents and grandparents, along with the date of application (17 March 1852 to 22 January 1853); all applications are marked ‘approved’.

Though gold had been discovered in Australia before 1851, the news had been effectively suppressed for fear of destabilising the economy. The 1851 rush began in May with a discovery at Ophir (New South Wales) by Edward Hargreaves, a veteran of the California rush; it soon spread to Victoria, with large finds at Clunes in July and Ballarat in September. The Gold Rush was one of the major causes of massive immigration in the years immediately following – Australia’s population grew from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7m by 1871. The present emigrants may not all have had gold fever, though the eight heading for Geelong would have been within striking of Clunes and Ballarat; the six aiming for Adelaide were possibly chasing recent finds in the Adelaide Hills, though they would have been somewhat disappointed – Echunga, for example, had already peaked by January 1853. Others are headed for the new colony of Moreton Bay (Queensland) (Richard Pritchard, who later established the first brickworks), and for Van Diemen’s Land.

3.

BALDUINO, Girolamo. Quaesita, tum naturalia, cum logicalia. Naples, Mattia Cancer, October 1550.

Folio, ff. [ii], 50; with decorative woodcut initials, text printed in italics; light soiling on the titlepage, occasional very mild foxing, but a very good copy rebound in old vellum; contemporary ownership inscription on the title-page, by the Neapolitan Dominican friar Egidius de Andrea, responsible for some polemical ink marks in the text and the satirical altering of the author’s name in the title and elsewhere (see below). £7500 Extremely rare first edition of this controversial commentary on Aristotle and Averroes which, involving other Greek, Arab and Roman philosophers, attempted to bring to the fore the limitations of Aristotelian logic at the dawn of the age of scientific discoveries, when the questions around how to build knowledge became fraught with tension between traditional, scholastic procedures and the new challenges of pre-Galilean decades. Balduino, educated in Padua, obtained his widest success in his Neapolitan years, of which this very rare first edition was a fruit. The loudest opposition to his balanced assessment of the usefulness and limits of Aristotelian logic in modern science came from Zabarella in Padua, whose largely unwarranted attack upon Balduino generated a prolific diatribe. Its result was a new separation of philosophy from theology and then metaphysics. Though Balduino’s work cannot be strictly considered an immediate precursor of Galileo’s, it is nonetheless the case that it played an important role in the formation of the scientist’s thought on logic and science: Galileo cites Balduino’ Questions (but in a later edition, of 1569) in his works on epistemology and logic preserved in the manuscript MS Gal 46 (see Wallace, Prelude to Galileo, Essays on Medieval and Sixteenth-Century Sources, p. 197). The prelate who was the first owner of this copy, one Aegidius de Andrea, a Dominican from Naples who inscribed the title-page with his details, harboured dismissive thoughts regarding Balduino: he underlines some of the most controversial, anti-scholastic passages, and touches in ink the author’s name, twice turning it from Balduinus into Babbuinus, preceded by epithets such as ‘ignorantissimus’. USTC 812076; EDIT16 4015; apparently no copies recorded outside Italy.

PUBLIC HEALTH IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND – IN PHOTOGRAPHS

4.

BALLARD, Edward, Dr. ‘Report by Dr. Ballard on the Effluvium Nuisances arising in connexion with various manufacturing and other branches of industry’ [in three parts, printed in:] Sixth [Seventh; Eighth] annual report of the Local Government Board 1876-77 [1877-78; 1878-79]. Supplement containing the Report of the Medical Officer for 1876 [1877; 1878]. London, George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1878[-1879].

3 vols in 4to, pp. 111–284 + 9 Woodburytype photographs + 25 engraved plates (most folding, some coloured) with numerous diagrams and tables to the text; photographs approx. 4½ x 6½ inches (11 x 16.5 cm.), captioned below; pp. 84-138 + 8 engraved plates (3 folding) with diagrams and tables to the text; pp. 42-320 + 3 Woodburytype photographs + 38 engraved plates (most folding, some coloured) + 2 unnumbered engraved plates with numerous diagrams and tables to the text; photographs each approx. 4¾ x 7½ inches (12 x 19 cm.), captioned below; library stamps or labels in two vols; boundin upper wrapper loose in final vol; in various bindings, ranging from full cloth to half sheep with buckram boards, all titled on spine; a little rubbing to edges of a couple of volumes, generally sturdy. £2200 An intense investigation into public health in Victorian England. The photographs illustrate conditions in a Suffolk glue factory and a London gas works, and accompany lengthy reports on the effects of these trades and factory conditions on workers’ health. In his Concluding Remarks, Ballard mentioned that eight of the twelve photographs ‘are from negatives taken for me at the expense of the proprietors of works’ and that the entire report involved visits to 850 establishments. The extent of his work on this subject is clear from the length of Ballard’s reports in comparison to the others presented in the volumes. The stability of the Woodburytype process, which exhibits no deterioration, leaves clear, detailed views.

In the 1876 report Ballard presents Freeman Wright’s glue factory in Needham Market, Suffolk as an exemplary display of how best to carry out the task of making glue and describes the cleanliness he finds there: ‘And all this was not the result of a special preparation for my visit, for I only arrived in Ipswich on one evening, and visited these works early the next morning’ (p. 187, 1876). He lists the 15 businesses and their locations, plus the dates he visited, describing in detail the process of fellmongering and glue-making. The series of images depict each stage, and show the interiors and exteriors of the factory buildings, the workers and foreman/owner, and the final products in both skins hanging to dry and barrels labelled ‘Glue’. ‘Mr. Wright has kindly permitted photographs of his works to be taken for the purposes of this Report; and I append them with the object of showing in how tidy and cleanly a manner it is possible to conduct processes which are too commonly performed in an uncleanly and slovenly manner’ (pp. 187-8). Thirty businesses were visited for the section on the Manufacture of Coal Gas in the 1878 report, in which Ballard illustrates the Gaslight and Coke Company’s Fulham works. ‘The process of loading the waggons and barge are illustrated by the accompanying photographs taken by direction and under the superintendence of Mr. McMinn [manager of the Fulham Gas Works for the purposes of my report’, p. 125. Several diagrams, some in colour, explain the structure of ovens and flues in other gas works Ballard visited.

Dr. Edward Ballard wrote medical textbooks and produced reports on the unsanitary living conditions in Victorian London as a government medical officer. In 1856 he was appointed by the Vestry of St. Mary’s Parish, Islington as their first Medical Offer, with an annual salary of £250. This followed the Metropolis Local Management Act and the Nuisances Removal Act for England in 1855, requiring each Vestry to appoint a Medical Officer and also authorising them to appoint a Sanitary Inspector and Inspector of Nuisances. Ballard was an enthusiast for preventive medicine, and was a member of the Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

BOTHERING YOUR HEAD ABOUT THE PAST

5.

BATTY, John. The Scope and Charm of antiquarian Study … Revised and enlarged … London: George Redway … 1883. [Bound with:]

KERSLAKE, Thomas. The Liberty of independent historical Research … 1885. Two works, 8vo., pp. 34; and pp. 66, with a drop-head title; very good copies bound in contemporary green buckram, some spotting to endpapers; ownership inscription of John E. Prichard to title-page. £150

First edition of The Liberty of independent historical research, second edition of The Scope and Charm of Antiquarian Study. “What is the use of bothering your head about the past?” asks John Batty, a Yorkshire antiquary; he provides an answer in this beguilingly written guide to the pleasures of antiquarian study. From ‘monumental erections’ to ‘caves, tumuli, and barrows’ via ‘heraldry’, ‘ancient wills’ and ‘painted glass’, his guide is as exhaustive and charming as the title promises. The bookseller Thomas Kerslake provides an altogether less relaxing view of antiquarian study in The Liberty of independent historical Research, a scathing criticism of General Pitt Rivers’s excavation of the Pen Pitts in Somerset. He conjures up an image of antiquaries ‘panic-stricken’ in the face of State interference in the preservation of ancient monuments, before going on to reaffirm (as he had argued in two previous papers) that the Pen Pitts were the remains of a buried city, not as Pitt Rivers (more plausibly) claimed, a quarry.

PIONEERING THEORY OF STATISTICS ALSO A RARE AMERICANUM

6.

BOSE, Johann Andreas. Introductio generalis in Notitiam Rerum publicarum Orbis Universi. Accedunt eiusdem Dissertationes de Statu Europae quibus omnium eius Imperiorum iuxta et Imperantium numerus, Religionis item, litterarum, bellique ac pacis ratio, qualis nuper erat, designatur. Jenae, J. Bielki, 1676. 4to, pp. [xvi], 370, [22]; with an engraved portrait of the author; some browning due to paper stock, a few light water stains, but a very good copy in contemporary vellum. £3000 First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624-1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’ marshals data and outlooks ranging from geography to economics and trade, politics, history, sciences, religion, and includes several remarks about the age of discoveries, particularly noting the impact of the Europeans’ encounter with America. The book is of considerable theoretical importance, as it sets out a specific status for the discipline of statistics within the realm of the human sciences. Bose ‘analyzes the differences between the universality of politics (constitutional doctrine) and the singularities of history. Statistics, Bose reasons, is therefore not part of political philosophy, since it does not manifest itself in the discussion of constitutional law as applied to a given state. Nor can statistics be classed as a genus of history writing, which “represents individual state actions with the details of time, space, social condition, character and other circumstances” […] Instead, statistics bestows a “more general treatment” […] on the details of history. [It] represents the concerns of individual states “principally from a universal point of view and not tied to this or that point in time or these or those specific persons”.

In accordance with the famous formula from Aristotle’s Poetics, which claims that poetry, in the medium of probability, brings the singularities of history closer to the universality of philosophy, statistics is poetical. Statistics is the poetry of the state’ (R. Campe, The Game of probability. Literature and calculation from Pascal to Kleist, Stanford University Press, 2013, p. 244). Not all of Bose’s works passed muster with censorship. Yet his career at Jena was a success: after holding of the chair of history for seven years, counting Leibniz and Pufendorf among his most illustrious pupils, he became rector in the same University. Not in Sabin, not in Brunet. See Robert Horvath, La France en 1618 vue par un statisticien hongrois, Márton Szepsi Csombor, in: ‘Population’, 40e année, n°2, (1985) pp. 335-346.

7.

[COMMONPLACE BOOK.] A manuscript collection of poems and epitaphs. Yorkshire, c. 1823-6? Folio., ff. [18], plus blanks, written in a neat italic hand; another folio leaf with an election ballad, possibly original, is laid in loose; dampstain to head of first two leaves, else in very good condition, in the original drab paper wrappers, slightly worn at head and foot, a couple of dampstains to covers. £650

An attractive but anonymous commonplace book collecting poems (some possibly original), epitaphs (mostly with a Yorkshire origin), and popular ballads, with an election poem (again possibly original) inserted on a loose leaf. The contents include Charles Lamb’s ‘Dick Strype’, Robert Burns’s ‘Jessie the Flower of Dunblaine’, and Michael Thomas Sadler’s ‘On the Banks of the Dove’. Among the less literary productions are ‘The Vulture of the Alps’ which relates the malign adventures of the titular child snatching vulture and ‘Henry and Rosa’, in which Henry explains how his excessive admiration of the female sex has caused him to break all of the Ten Commandments. Several pages are devoted to epitaphs collected from the churchyards of various Yorkshire towns, including Hovingham, Nunnington, and Aldborough. These appear to have been copied in person (there are notes of visits), but the other poetry probably derives from contemporary periodicals or literary folios. The loose poem, written in the same hand, celebrates the election of John Arden as mayor of Beverley. The poet describes the ‘chairing’ of the successful candidate through the town and the ringing of bells and drinking which celebrated his election. Arden served nine times as mayor from 1787, but it is probably his terms in 1823-4 or 1826-7 that are referred to here; Arden’s father, also John Arden (d. 1792), tutored Mary Wollstonecraft during her time in Beverley in the 1780s, and she maintained a correspondence with his daughter Jane throughout her teens and early twenties.

THOUGHT READER REQUESTS MEETING WITH QUEEN OF SPAIN

8.

CUMBERLAND, Stuart. Autograph letter signed (‘Stuart C. Cumberland’) to Sir Francis Clare Ford. [Madrid] Hotel de Paris, 18 January 1887. With an autograph letter from Ford, signed ‘F.C. Ford’, forwarding Cumberland’s letter to Mrs Ford. British Legation Madrid, 20 January 1887. Two letters, 8vo bifolia, pp. 4 and 4; a few faint creases but very good. £100 + VAT in the EU A nice letter from the famous Victorian thought reader Stuart Cumberland (1857-1922) to the British minister in Madrid Sir Francis Clare Ford (1828-1899), seeking Ford’s assistance in inviting ‘people about the court’ to one of his soirées, and noting ‘I invariably get a royal highness or two on such occasions’. Cumberland is confident that the Spanish Queen (Maria Christina of Austria) ‘would be glad to witness some of my experiments at the Palace’, and writes ‘I have been very cordially received at the principal courts of Europe & the East, & there is scarcely a monarch of note that I have not personally experimented with’. In forwarding the letter on to Mrs Ford, Ford writes that Cumberland’s experiments were ‘perfectly marvellous’. Cumberland was an opponent of spiritualism and attributed mediumship phenomena to muscle reading and trickery.

IRISH PUBLIC RECORDS

9.

DUHIGG, Bartholomew Thomas. A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Manners, &c. &c. &c. on the Expediency of an immediate and separate Record Commission to investigate, illustrate and arrange the Records of Ireland … To which is annexed Mr Duhigg’s Letter to the Speaker, in 1801 … Dublin: Printed by Isaac Colles … 1810. [Issued with:] DUHIGG, Bartholomew Thomas. A Letter to the Rt. Hon. Charles Abbot, on the Arrangement of Irish Records, and the Assimilation of Irish to English Statute Law … Dublin. Printed by J. Barlow … 1801. Two works, 8vo., pp. 40; and pp. 37, [1]; here bound separately, stitched in early speckled wrappers, probably for the bibliophile Sir Thomas Phillipps. £275 First editions of both works (the second as reissued along with the first), a presentation copy ‘To the Vice Provost [of Trinity College, Dublin] from the Author’ and annotated by the recipient ‘J. B. [John Barrett] 2 Decr 1810 / Ex dono Authoris’. The Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 also entailed a union of two different bodies of statute law, and Duhigg, a legal antiquary and librarian to the King’s Inns, Dublin, quickly proposed, in his Letter to … Charles Abbot, the necessity of a careful collation of Irish statutes to allow their assimilation into the new system. But the Rebellion of 1803, led by Robert Emmet, intervened, one of its victims being the Lord Chief Justice, Arthur Wolfe, and by 1810 Duhigg had to take up the cause again. In particular he contrasts the ‘princely register-office’ in Edinburgh (completed 1788) with ‘that disgraceful modern ruin, the King’s-Inn hall and library’ in Dublin, the one a place of ‘publicity, accuracy, and œconomy’, the other a home to ‘detected fraud, concealed management, and confirmed jobbing’.

10.

FISHER, John. Sacri sacerdotii defensio contra Lutherum. Cologne, [Hero Fuchs for] Peter Quentel, 1525. 8vo, ff. [68] (last leaf blank), gothic letter except for title and index, large woodcut on title of the royal arms of England supported by two putti, large and small woodcut initials; contemporary annotations, markings and underlinings throughout in red ink, the date ‘1526’ added in the same hand at the end of the text; small worm-track in first three leaves, just entering edge of woodcut arms on title. [bound after:] RUPERT, of Deutz. De divinis officiis libri XII. [Cologne, Frans Birckmann,] 1526. 8vo, pp. [xlii], [iv, blank], 590, [2, blank], gothic letter, several large woodcut initials; a few annotations in the same hand as those in the Fisher; small wormtrack in upper outer corner of first two leaves, just touching a few letters on verso of title. Together two works in one volume; contemporary pigskin, covers blindstamped to a diaper design, two functioning clasps; soiled and slightly rubbed, later paper labels at head and foot of spine. £2750

I. John Fisher’s defence of the priesthood against the attacks of Luther. This is one of three editions to appear in 1525; of the three, that dated June 1525 (VD 16 F1240) is probably the first – its errata have here been corrected. The present edition contains a dedicatory epistle from the Dominican Johannes Host von Romberch to Arnold von Tongern not found in the earlier edition.

‘Fisher, who devotes the first section of his Defensio to the patristic sources, then turns to the Greek tradition in support of the mystical power of the priesthood. His use of Damascene, Gennadius, Cyril, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Eusebius, Origen, Ignatius, Polycarp, ps.Dionysius, Philo, and [ps.-]Clement, while obviously a product of almost uniquely deep learning, complements the Latin tradition . . . . Fisher is able to present an historical argument, for example by weaving a catena of patristic interpretations of the figure of Melchizedek, which defends the order of priesthood in a way that presents the reformers’ objections to ordination as anachronistic for locating the origins of the sacrament in comparatively recent history’ (Ralph Keen, ‘The Fathers in Counter-Reformation theology in the pre-Tridentine period’, in I. Backus, ed., The reception of the Church Fathers in the West from the Carolingians to the Maurists, 1997, vol. 2, pp. 701–44, pp. 731–2). II. First published in folio earlier the same year by the same publisher. Rupert’s exegesis and theology, deeply concerned with such crucial questions as the nature of the Eucharist, the problem of evil, freedom and divine will, permeated medieval Western thought; his discussion on the mystery of the altar became central in Luther’s and Zwingli’s critique of the doctrine of the Sacraments. Provenance: Ritter von Waldauf’schen library in Hall (Tyrol), with stamp on title of first work in volume and large engraved bookplate. I. Adams F547; VD 16 F1238. OCLC records five locations in the US (Pierpont Morgan, Pontifical College Josephinum, Princeton Theological Seminary, Saint Bonaventure University, and United Library). II. VD 16 R3783.

11.

FORDYCE, James. Addresses to young Men … The second Edition. London: Printed for T. Cadell … 1777. Two vols., small 8vo, pp. [4], viii, 329, [3, ads]; [4], 368; offset from turn-ins to title-pages else a fine copy in contemporary speckled calf, spines gilt, red morocco labels. £200 Second edition, uncommon, of Fordyce’s popular conduct book for young men. The work was published a sequel to his Sermons to young Women (1766), a work probably best known for its censure by Mary Wollstonecraft and its pointed appearance in the hands of Mr Collins in Pride & Prejudice. Here, similarly unenlightened chapters deal with ‘the Respect due to Young Men’, ‘On a Manly Spirit, as opposed to Effeminacy’ etc. If Mr Collins chooses the Sermons to be read aloud to the women of the Bennet family, it is the Addresses that he takes as his own moral compass.

12.

[FRANCE.] Sumario de intrada, spesa, et governo del re Henrico II di Franza. [France, c. 1551.]

Manuscript in Italian on paper, small folio (270 x 200 mm), ff. [6] (first leaf blank except for title on recto: ‘Entr[ada] d[e]l Regno di Francia’), written in a clear mid sixteenth-century Italian hand, partly foliated (‘81’–‘85’) in a different hand; sometime folded (presumably for sending), but in very good condition; modern cloth portfolio. £950

An informative account of the economics of the French kingdom during the first years of Henry II’s reign (1547–1559). The linguistic features of its prose, and especially the consistent use of ‘nz’ instead of ‘nci’, suggest it was written by one of the knowledgeable envoys or spies of the Venetian Republic. A reference to the royal offspring allows us to date the manuscript to the first half of 1551: the only two living male heirs to be mentioned are Francis (b. 1544, later Francis II) and Charles (b. 27 June 1550, later Charles IX), who is described as not yet a year old. The date is confirmed by the fact that the future Henry III, born in September 1551, is not listed among the king’s sons. The report provides an analysis of France’s income, expenditure and general organization. The total earnings of Henry II, mostly from taxes, including those on salt and wine, are calculated at more than six million scudi; the outgoings are reckoned to be about the same (‘quasi altrotanto’). Prominent among these outgoings are the salaries of a huge number of military and civic officers as well as the expenses of a vast army, a sumptuous court and the personal retinues of Catherine de’ Medici (calculated at over 200,000 francs), the king’s daughter Marguerite (over 80,000 francs) and the Dauphin, later Francis II (over 100,000 francs). The twelve Peers of France are listed, a marginal note drawing attention to the paradox that one of them happens to be France’s most bitter enemy, the Emperor Charles V, who legitimately inherited the fiefdom of Flanders from his father in 1506. Among the higher nobility listed are the Duke of Longueville, son of Mary of Guise, Queen of Scotland, and Diane de Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois since 1548. A skilled courtier and prominent book collector, Diane was very close to Francis I and became Henry II’s favourite mistress. Her influence over the latter was extremely strong: in the tournament in which he was mortally wounded, Henry had on his lance Diane’s ribbon rather than the Queen’s. Provenance: Sir Thomas Phillipps, from his MS 21133.

13.

GRAZZINI, Anton Francesco, editor. Tutti i trionfi, carri, mascherate ò canti carnascialeschi andati per Firenze, dal te[m]po del Magnifico Lorenzo vecchio de Medici; qua[n]do egli hebbero prima cominciame[n]to, per infino à questo anno presente 1559. Con due tauole, vna dinanzi, e vna dietro, da trouare agieuolmente, e tosto ogni canto, ò mascherata. Florence, [Lorenzo Torrentino], 1559.

8vo, pp. [xx], 465, [7]; usual errors in pagination including the omission of numbers 305-328, title within ornamental woodcut border, engraved initials; pp. 299-396 are wanting as almost always, but are supplied in manuscript replicating almost exactly the layout and content of the missing printed text (see below); title leaf reinforced at outer margin, very occasional light stains and foxing, narrow margins touching a few signatures and pages numbers; in 18th-century red morocco, gilt rolled foliate and floral border to covers with gilt ornaments to inner corners and a gilt centre-piece composed of leaves, flowers, acorns and dots, spine richly gilt in compartments, gilt lettering-piece, gilt edges and turn-ins, edges gilt and marbled, floral endpapers; extremities slightly rubbed, two small wormholes to tail of spine; inscriptions to front free endpaper. £3500 A handsome first edition of this famous collection of Florentine masques and carnival songs from the time of Lorenzo de’ Medici, collected by the Italian poet and playwright Anton Francesco Grazzini (aka ‘il Lasca’), with the ‘Canzoni’ of Giovanni Battista Ottonaio, missing in so many copies, supplied here in beautiful manuscript facsimile. The collection opens with the ‘Trionfo di Bacco e Darianna’ by Lorenzo de’ Medici, one of his carnival songs, which, it has been speculated, may have been intended to endear the author to the popular classes.

The text of Ottonaio’s fifty-one ‘Canzoni’ published here by Grazzini did not impress Ottonaio’s brother Paulo, canon of the Basilica of San Lorenzo. Paolo demanded that the Tutti i trionfi be immediately withdrawn from sale, secured the backing of Cosimo de’ Medici, and forced Grazzini to remove the ‘Canzoni’ from his collection. Paolo then published his own edition of this brother’s songs in 1560, which was also printed by Lorenzo Torrentino. Hence most copies of the Tutti i trionfi lack pp. 299-396, on which Ottonaio’s work appeared. The manuscript facsimile of Ottonaio’s ‘Canzoni’ which fills the gap in our copy is executed with such elegance and skill that it is hard to tell that it is manuscript at all. We have spotted only a few minor differences between the manuscript here and the printed pages preserved in the copy at the Warburg Institute (which has been digitised): the fourth line of the ‘Canto delle Pancaccie’ on V6v is indented, and the last line of X1r is missing ‘se’. An inscription facing the title-page boasts of the completeness of this copy and explains the usual excision: ‘Edizione intiera, come l’ha in Londra il Duca di Devonshire, e in Venezia il Sigr. Giuseppe Smith, e forse qualcun’ altro. Tutti gli altri esemplari sono mancanti perchè il Lasca, che ne fu l’editore, ad instanza di Paolo fratello di Gio. Batta dell’Ottonaio, fu obbligato a tagliare le carte dalla pag. 298 sino alla pag. 397.’ A faint pencil inscription underneath gives deserved credit to the scribe of the missing pages in this copy: ‘ma non sono a stampa ma manuscritte di mano straordinariamente abile.’

The copies of this edition in the John Rylands Library and at The Morgan Library include the 1560 edition of Ottonaio’s ‘Canzoni’ as a substitute for the missing pages. We are not aware of any other copies where the usual lacuna has been made good in manuscript. Adams F614; Brunet V, 988 (‘Recueil très-difficile à trouver complet ... sans la lacune qui existe ordinairement depuis la p. 298 jusques et y compris la 396e’); Gamba 264; Melzi, Anonime e pseudonime, v. 3, p. 182.

CORPUS CHRISTI AT AIX-EN-PROVENCE

14.

[GRÉGOIRE, Gaspard.] Explication des cérémonies de la Fête-Dieu d’Aix en Provence, ornée de figures du Lieutenant de Prince d’Amour; du Roi et Bâtonniers de la Bazoche; de l’Abbé de la Ville; et des Jeux des Diables, des Razcassetos, des Apôtres, de la Reine de Saba, des Tirassons, des Chevaux-frux, etc. etc. etc. Et des airs notés, consacrés à cette fête. Aix-en-Provence, Esprit David, 1777. 8vo, pp. [ii], 220, with a portrait frontispiece and 13 folding plates (including one of music); a very good, large, unwashed copy in 19th-century maroon morocco, gilt inner dentelles, gilt edges, by H. Duru; rebacked, preserving original spine. £350 First edition of this detailed account of the popular religious celebrations held at Aixen-Provence to mark the feast of Corpus Christi. The festivities, remarkable for their mixture of the sacred and profane, were established (or at least largely given their form) by René of Anjou around 1462. Each year they were preceded, on Pentecost Monday and on Trinity Sunday, by the election of various figures who were to play a crucial role in the organisation of the revelries: a ‘Lieutenant de Prince’ from amongst the townspeople or law students, a ‘Lieutenant de l’Abbé de la Ville’ from amongst the artisans, and a ‘Roi de Bazoche’. On Corpus Christi itself a series of set pieces or ‘jeux’ were staged: ‘les Jeux des Diables’, in which Herod is tormented by demons with long sticks; ‘les Jeux des Razcassetos’, representing four lepers, one of whom wears an old wig which is brushed and combed by the other three; ‘les Jeux des Tirassons’, dramatising the Massacre of the Innocents; ‘les Jeux des Chevaux-Frux’, a sort of tourney with underskirt-horses, and so on. Gaspard Grégoire (1715–1795) was a prominent silk merchant of Aix whose son Gaspard junior perfected the art of creating a picture woven in velvet. The Grégoires no doubt played a leading role in the Corpus Christi festivities and probably supplied cloth for the costumes. The distinctive plates in this volume were engraved by Gaspard fils after drawings by his brother Paul. The plate of music gives the tunes associated with five of the ‘jeux’. Barbier II 378; Cohen-De Ricci 367; Lipperheide Sl 20; Ruggieri 614; Watanabe-O’Kelly 2224.

A CAST OF THE HEAD OF A MURDERER

15.

GRENVILLE, George Nugent, second Baron Nugent. Autograph letter signed (‘Nugent’) to John Elliotson. Lilies, Aylesbury, 25 March 1845. 8vo bifolium, pp. 4; very faint trace of previous mounting to edge of last page, very good. £100 + VAT in the EU An interesting letter from the liberal politician Nugent to the physician and mesmerist John Elliotson regarding his request for a cast of the head of the murderer John Tawell. Tawell (1784-1845) was convicted of murdering his mistress, Sarah Hart, with prussic acid on New Year’s Day 1845. He was the first person to be arrested as a result of telegraph communication, when a message was sent by police in Slough informing colleagues of Tawell’s imminent arrival at Paddington Station. Nugent’s letter, written three days before Tawell was publicly hanged at Aylesbury, makes it clear that Elliotson (1791-1868), founder of the London Phrenological Society, had requested a cast of Tawell’s head ‘for Phrenological purposes’. Having spoken to the governor of the jail where Tawell was imprisoned, ‘a most humane and excellent person’, Nugent states that no cast will be taken of Tawell’s head, out of consideration for the feelings of his wife. After a brilliant academic career at Brasenose College, Oxford, Nugent (1788-1850) entered Parliament for Aylesbury and gained national prominence in the causes of anti-slavery, parliamentary and penal reform, religious liberty, free trade, and popular education. In this letter he refers to his ‘forwarding to Sir James Graham a petition, very importantly signed, for the abolition of all Capital Punishments’. The residence from which Nugent wrote this letter, called Lilies, became a popular venue for literary men and politicians of the day.

16.

[HIGH LIFE TAILOR]. Three illustrated clothing catalogues. Paris: Draeger, c.1905-1910. Three pamphlets, pp. [8] (15 x 12.5 cm); pp. 12 (14.5 x 22 cm); and pp. 8 (10 x 21 cm), all three illustrated (one in colour) and with a total of four cloth samples; fine copies in illustrated wrappers. £225 Three clothing catalogues issued by ‘The High Life Tailor’, a Parisian fashion company. The High Life Tailor proudly proclaims that thanks to its unique business model (all clothes are made in-house) that it is able to offer garments with ‘le maximum de qualité au minimum de prix.’ These lavishly illustrated catalogues bear witness to the quality of design and fabric available to the firm’s customers. The pictures show dapper gentlemen and elegant ladies sporting the characteristic fashions of the period. In the first catalogue, for Winter 1905-6, the (moustachioed) men wear high collars, top hats and carry canes; the women are all elaborate hats and bows, with dresses at floor-length. In the next two catalogues which are evidently of a later date, the ladies’ hem lines have risen (almost) above the ankle and their dresses and hats are much less elaborate; the men are now clean-shaven, wearing turn ups, and sporting boaters and bowlers as well as top-hats. Each catalogue provides cloth samples, and one even prints a jingle, ‘Epitre a mon Habit’, extolling the virtues of fashion.

THE FINELY-PRINTED FIRST EDITION OF A ‘MAJOR COLLECTION OF LETTERS BY LAWRENCE’

17.

LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward. Letters to E.T. Leeds, with a Commentary by E.T. Leeds. Edited and with an Introduction by J.M. Wilson with a Memoir of E.T. Leeds by D.B. Harden & Illustrated with Line Drawings by Richard Kennedy. Andoversford: The Whittington Press, 1988. 4to (282 x 200mm), pp. xxii, [2 (editorial note, verso blank)], 140, [4 (colophon and 3 blank pp.)]; mounted photographic frontispiece, 10 illustrations after Richard Kennedy printed in ochre, 9 fullpage, illustrations in the text, 6 lithographic plates bearing illustrations recto-and-verso, some after Lawrence, title printed in brown and black; original cloth-backed boards by The Fine Bindery, spine lettered in gilt, upper board with design after Kennedy, original slipcase; very slightly bumped at head of upper joint, slipcase very slightly rubbed at extremities, nonetheless a fine copy, without the loosely-inserted errata slip by J.M. Wilson, 1990, found in some copies but not noted by either Butcher or O’Brien; provenance: M.J. and P.A. Staines, Tenbury Wells (booklabel on upper pastedown). £400 First edition, limited to 750 copies, this no. 179 of 650 bound in quarter buckram. A ‘major collection of letters by Lawrence [... which] are especially revealing of the Carchemish period’ (O’Brien), comprising fifty-three letters from Lawrence to Leeds (the Assistant to the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford), dating from 1909 to 1935, and relating principally to archaeological matters (some thirty-six were written from Carchemish): ‘This new information is interesting enough in itself – but it is also extremely important in other ways. First, because it sheds new light on the early relationship between Lawrence and D.G. Hogarth, and, second, because it makes nonsense of the reasons suggested by some biographers for Lawrence’s appointment to the British Museum’s Carchemish excavations. The evidence is therefore immensely important’ (J.M. Wilson, quoted in the prospectus for the work). Interspersed between the letters are passages from a previously unpublished memoir of Lawrence, which Leeds wrote in 1938. Butcher The Whittington Press 94 (‘one of the most important books that the Press had published to date’); O’Brien A263.

MARVELS IN MINIATURE

18.

[MINIATURE WRITING.] GUNNER, Charles. Twenty-four cards bearing examples of microscopic writing. [Egham, 1937-1942]. Together £2500 Stunning examples of miniature writing by the internationally renowned miniaturist Charles Gunner, of Egham, Surrey, all in an excellent state of preservation. Gunner gained fame for producing incredible specimens of miniature writing and illustration, including a tiny manuscript book on Windsor Castle for Queen Mary and illustrations on grains of rice. This collection comprises texts of religious and historical importance minutely written within the same space as that occupied by small coins and stamps, or shaped to form letters and words. Highlights include a splendid miniature watercolour of Windsor Castle, the Lord’s Prayer written on one edge of a thin piece of card and on a small circle of gold leaf, and copies of broadcasts by George VI and of Winston Churchill’s 1941 Mansion House speech. In 1936 Gunner was captured on a British Pathé film, ‘Marvels in miniature’ (ref. 1656.16), performing similar feats to those collected here. Examples of his work are preserved in the Royal Collection and at Egham Museum. These cards belonged to the artist Frank O. Salisbury (1874-1962), known as ‘Britain’s Painter Laureate’ for his portraits, large paintings of historical events, and stained glass. He no doubt enjoyed these gifts from Gunner, especially the card with his name composed of the text of the Lord’s Prayer in minute letters. A full list of contents is available on request.

19.

MORI, Ascanio de’. Prima parte delle Novelle [all published]. Mantua, Francesco Osanna, 1585. Sm. 4to, ff. [4], 139, printed in italics throughout, woodcut printer’s device on title, woodcut initials and type ornaments; contemporary vellum. £600 First edition, complete, of this set of 15 Renaissance short stories by Ascanio de’ Mori, a client of the Gonzagas of Mantua who was acquainted with Tasso during his stay in the city. He had published Giuoco piacevole in 1575 with the same publisher and was made Administrator of Ceresara (a Gonzaga possession) in 1576 holding this position until 1583. Despite the title citing this volume as a ‘first part’, the work is complete as it is: no second part ever appeared. For about three hundred years from the end of the thirteenth century until the end of the sixteenth century Northern Italy witnessed prolific production of stories under the name Novelle which are the precursors of our modern prose fiction. The better known authors in the genre are Barberino, Boccaccio, Sacchetti, Fiorentino (from whose Pecorone Shakespeare took the story of the Merchant of Venice), Matteo Bandello (after Boccaccio the most famous), Molza, and Firenzuola. Ascanio de’ Mori is less wellknown; jealousy, marital deceit, dowries, confidence tricks, and money figure here as they do in other collections. Each story, with a short dedicatory preface and on occasion a short verse, is dedicated to a Gonzaga or other notable. USTC 843570; EDIT 16 47029

20.

ROBERTS, William. Memorials of Christie’s. A Record of Art Sales from 1766 to 1896 … London, George Bell and Sons, 1897. 8vo., pp. xvi, 329, [1]; ix, [1], 375, [1], with a frontispiece to each volume and 62 further plates; some light foxing to the fore-edge but a very good copy, untrimmed in the publisher’s brown cloth, corners slightly bumped. £250 First edition of this photographically-illustrated history of the world famous auction house. After a brief account of the life of James Christie, the company’s founder, Roberts proceeds to chart the firm’s triumphal progress, sale by sale. The descriptions of the more recent sales are especially well illustrated, with numerous photographs of the highlights of the most famous collections to pass through the firm’s hands, including the Hamilton Palace collection (which was photographed by James Craig Annan).

A REVOLUTIONARY TRIPLE-AGENT: ‘I HAVE COLLECTED A NUMBER OF SECRET AMERICAN PAPERS’

21.

SMITH, Joshua Hett. Two autograph letters, signed, the first ‘To the Unknown Author of the Eulogium on the Narrator of the Causes which led to the Death of Major André’, 6 February 1809. The second to the publishers Cadell & Davies about the poet Anna Seward, 17 August 1809. 3 pages 4to., on a bifolium, with integral address label; and 1 page 4to.; creased where folded, a little dusty, else in good condition. £1350 + VAT in EU A revealing letter from a penurious Joshua Hett Smith, infamous for his involvement in the treason of Benedict Arnold and Major André, written shortly after the publication of his exculpatory, but probably untrustworthy, Authentic Narrative of the Causes which led to the Death of Major André (1808). Smith (1736?-1818) was a New York lawyer from a prominent family, and a member of the New York provincial congress. To evade suspicions of loyalist sentiments, he provided intelligence to Robert Howe at West Point, and then to Benedict Arnold, who took over from Howe in August 1780, though he may also have continued to work for Howe. Arnold, planning to surrender West Point to the British, chose Smith to meet the British partner in his compact, Major André, and escort him to Smith’s house (later known as ‘Treason House’), where Arnold and André discussed their plans on 21 September. However, the following morning, when the ship that was due to carry André back to safety was badly damaged, he was forced to take an overland route, escorted part of the way by Smith. After they had parted ways, André was captured, denounced as a spy, tried (Howe was on the board), and hanged. Smith was also tried by a military court but acquitted, only to be jailed by civil authorities; having escaped from prison he made his way to New York disguised as a woman, and thence to England.

Consensus has not been reached about whether Smith was Arnold’s dupe, or whether he was in fact a triple-agent, helping to set up Arnold and André – certainly much of his behaviour, including advising André to doff his military uniform, contributed to the latter’s downfall. Even the long period that intervened before the publication of the Authentic Narrative did not diminish his calumny in the eyes of the public, despite the inclusion of Anna Seward’s famous ‘Monody on Major André’ at the end. Here he pleads poverty with an untraced supporter: ‘The emolument of that publication has in the Sale of 1000 in the Short space of a few months gone to the Booksellers, while the unfortunate sufferer … is, and has been languishing in so deep an Abyss of Missery [sic] with a wife and two children …’ ‘The amiable Authoress of the Monody [on Major André, Anna Seward] has furnished me with a Number of authentic anecdotes, and papers relative to the early life of that major’, which might serve ‘to resuscitate the Memory of that gallant young Man’. ‘To these I have collected a Number of secret american and other state papers, with some original letters from Washington on that Occasion, with a drawing of Major André on the awful morning of his Execution, to compose in the Fac Simile of Washingtons writing’, as well as a number of engravings. Neither his vaunted petition to the Commons for £60,000 compensation, nor any further publication of secret papers, were forthcoming, and his reputation was never rehabilitated. The second letter here tries another tack, attempting to hawk to the publishers Thomas Cadell and William Davies ‘an original Correspondence’ between Anna Seward and William Hayley.

CALIFORNIA PIONEERS

22.

SPURR, George Graham. The land of gold. A tale of ’49. Illustrative of early pioneer life in California, and founded upon fact. Dedicated to California pioneers ... With seven illustrations. Boston, A. Williams & Company, 1881. 8vo, pp. ix, [3], 271, [1, blank], with seven plates; a few marks and creases to corners, slight staining to p. 76, short tear to fore-edge of p. 47-8 and 205-6; otherwise a very good copy in publisher’s maroon cloth stamped in gilt and black; light wear to extremities, covers lightly rubbed; bookplate of the United States Life-Saving Service. £100 First edition. ‘This narrative ... is contributed to the file of literature for the purpose of keeping green the memory of the achievements of the early pioneers in California, and to show future generations what it cost to add what was once a wild unbroken solitude to civilisation and fame’ (Preface). The illustrations include ‘Capturing the Grizzly Bear’. Spurr would later publish A fight with a grizzly bear: a story of thrilling interest (1886). Cowan, A bibliography of the history of California p. 606.

TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN THE WEST MIDLANDS

23.

THACKER, Anthony. A treatise containing an entire new method of solving adfected quadratic, and cubic equations, with their application to the solution of biquadratic ones ... and a set of new tables for finding the roots of cubics, invented by the late ingenious Mr. A Thacker, deceased; but calculated entirely, and in a great measure exemplified, by W. Brown, teacher of the mathematics, at the Free-School, in Cleobury, Shropshire. The second edition. Birmingham, T. Aris, E. Cave, J. Fuller, 1748. 8vo, pp. viii, 115; half-title partly detached, a little worm tracking to inner margin between quires I and M (touching a few letters), otherwise a good copy; ink stamp of John Blackmore to half title. [Bound with:]

BROWN, William. Problems in practical geometry. Containing not only the common theorems for planimetry, rectification of curves, stereometry, finding the convex surfaces of solids, and gauging, but several new ones never before made publick. Digested in a short, yet comprehensive manner, for the use of schools. Birmingham, T. Aris, E. Cave, J. Fuller, 1748.

8vo, pp. iv, 67, [1, errata], woodcut diagrams; some browning, leaves F2-3 slightly loose, a few stains and marks, but a good copy; some near contemporary marginal annotations. Two works bound together in contemporary boards, remnants of sheep spine, remnant of marbled paper to lower cover; worn but holding firm. £750

Two rare mathematical works by the West Midlands teachers and writers Anthony Thacker (d. 1744) and William Brown (1714-1773). In addition to teaching mathematics at Birmingham free school, Thacker published A miscellany of mathematical problems in 1743, and contributed to and edited The Gentleman’s Diary and The Ladies Diary, both of which regularly included mathematical problems. His posthumous Treatise containing an entire new method was first published in 1746 by his friend William Brown, and is here in the very rare second edition. Brown taught at the free school in Cleobury, Shropshire. His Problems in practical geometry, written for the use of his ‘brother school-masters’ and presented as a series of problems, theorems and examples rather than ‘tedious rules’, is here in the first edition; a second enlarged edition followed in 1753. Thacker and Brown were part of a growing community of mathematical teachers up and down the country at this time, which, while centred in London, was particularly strong in the West Midlands.

Both works are rare. ESTC, COPAC and Worldcat together record a single copy of the Thacker, at Birmingham Central Libraries; and four of the Brown, at at Manchester, University College London, Yale, and Chicago. ESTC T176383; ESTC T210434.

INSCRIBED BY DENIS HEALEY TO HIS MOTHER

24.

WOOLF, Virginia. Between the acts. London, The Hogarth Press, 1941.

8vo; a fine copy in the original publisher’s cloth, spine lightly sunned, a few minor marks on the sides; preserving the original printed dust-jacket designed by Vanessa Bell, slightly chipped at the extremities of the spine, with a few small ink marks to the back; presentation inscription ‘To Mother, with love, from Denis, August 1941’. £550 First edition, first issue, a copy preserving the original dust jacket, of Virginia Woolf’s posthumously-published novel. A dedication copy from Denis Healey to his mother, acquired and gifted very soon after the publication of the book (July 1941) in August 1941, when Healey, fresh from graduating at Oxford, was serving as second lieutenant in various locations in North Africa and Italy in the Second World War. Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey (1917-2015) served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983. Healey had been introduced to Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group in his Grammar school years at Bradford by the master. He harboured a lifelong predilection for the writings of Virginia Woolf and the work of Leonard, who was a friend. In his autobiography, considered to be one of the best political autobiographies of the twentieth century (The time of my life, 1989), he wrote ‘Virginia Woolf, a writer who never fails to refresh me … Virginia Woolf has been as much an unseen presence during our years at Alfriston as Yeats was when we were living at Withyham’. Kirkpatrick A26a; Woolmer 488.

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