Search Results: Titles starting with P from Bruce McKittrick Rare Books

Paris: A. Lotrian, 1530. Late 19th-century Jansenist blue morocco (Capé, rubbed), gilt-lettered title and turn-ins, all edges gilt, silk marker. In this illustrated chapbook romance of chivalry "the heroine escapes the destiny imposed by tradition and authority" (Crécy & Brown-Grant, tr.). Characterization, not the marvelous, drives the narrative, which was an immediate success, particularly among women. This is THE ONLY COPY KNOWN OF THIS PRINTING.  Set in southeastern France and the Middle East in 1271, this tells of the knight Paris and the princess Vienne, whose attempt to marry across different social ranks forces her into prison and him into exile. In lieu of romances' customary magical devices, the protagonists' cunning and trickery shapes the tale. "One of the most natural and charming of the pre-Renaissance heroines" (Bennett), Vienne dodges suitors through dissimulation. Paris travels in disguise to Alexandria, Babylon, Jerusalem, the Sultan's court and the land of Prester John.  As… Read More

Lyon: D. de Harsy for S. Vincent, 1538. Contemporary limp vellum (stained, spine damaged), overlapping edges, contemporary gothic lettered manuscript title in a cartouche on the front panel with the owner's initials and arms on the sides and below, manuscript spine title, evidence of four ties. Second Edition. Employing Bembo to draft and send these five hundred eighty-one chronologically arranged letters, Pope Leo X addressed Raphael, Lucrezia Borgia (with whom Bembo had a notorious affair), rulers from England to Hungary to Venice and dozens of Italian city states, friends' daughters, prelates, humanists, merchants, intimates and artists. Bembo's poem on Lago di Garda and five of his private letters to Longolius, Budé and Erasmus conclude the volume - an early reader censored Erasmus' name from the title and text. Nice copy (spot on one leaf), a couple of uncut edges, early signature of Do. Sofronio ?Parri, bookplate of Guelfo-Sitta. ¶Erdmann, Ars epistolica 65.

?Milan: s.n., 1786. Original printed wrappers (spine slightly defective), uncut. These thirty-three articles propose municipal administrative reforms in Austrian Lombardy - Milan, Mantua, Cremona, Pavia, Lodi, Como, Gallarate and Bozzolo. This covers zoning, street and building maintenance, quartering of troops, price caps, police, sanitation, fire companies, victuals, investigatory powers.... Penalties are set for various transgressions. The folding tables (with printed paste-over corrections) are to be completed by the person in charge of transportation. A folio edition appeared the same year. I have located one example of either outside Italy (Regensburg). ¶Bibliografia delle edizioni giuridiche antiche in lingua italiana II(3): 1024; Bertarelli, Inventario I: 170.

Rome: F.M. Calvo, 1524. CONTEMPORARY BLIND- AND GILT-DECORATED ROMAN BINDING of brown morocco over paper boards, panels with straight and curved frames, branches, flames, daisies and a ropework central medallion (some gilding lost, corners and tips slightly defective), vellum pastedowns and their stubs (see below), evidence of eight green fabric ties, all edges gilt. First Edition of the color theorist, classical scholar and playwright's first book of verse. In late 1523, Telesio (1482-1534) was called from Milan to Rome, where he immediately praised the newly elected Pope Clement VII in print, joined the humanist circles of Giovio and the future Pope Paul IV and secured the patronage of Gian Matteo Giberti, this book's dedicatee.             The present collection includes two pieces that herald themes in Telesio's 1527 stage play. Other poems describe a bronze lamp given by a nobleman named Lampius (nomen omen), the 1521 explosion of a gunpowder depot in the Castello Sforzesco and the… Read More

Venice: G.A. Valvassori, 1564. Contemporary limp vellum wrappers. Bound with: MINTURNO, Antonio Sebastiano. Bp. of Crotone.        c. 1497-1574.      Poemata, Ad...M. Antonivm Colvmnam.  Venice, G.A. Valvassori 1564. 8vo. 38, [1], [1 blank] leaves. Bound with: MINTURNO, Antonio Sebastiano. Bp. of Crotone.        c. 1497-1574.      Epigrammata, Et Elegiae.  Venice, G.A. Valvassori 1564. 8vo. 15, [1 blank] leaves. Ad I-III: Only Editions, elegant Neo-Latin verse. Almost the whole of the first work celebrates Emperor Charles V and his rule in Italy. The second work has nine pieces, each on a theme and each with its own dedicatee - Paolo Giovio ("History"), Pope Clement VII ("Pallas"), Pope Paul III ("Rome"). The third volume mixes contemporary, classical and intimate subjects. Minturno's book on the art of Latin poetry was a staple. Original condition (minor worming in some upper inner corners). ¶Ad I-III: Oberlé, Amoenitates poeticae latinae modernae 159. Ad I: Ellinger,… Read More

Paris: C. Cellier, 1708. Contemporary gilt red morocco (rubbed, minor neat repairs), spine with dotted blooms and sprays, gilt-lettered title, all edges gilt over marbling.             In French, Italian, Spanish and Latin, this collection ranges explores seventeen verse forms, sestinas to romances, fables to glosas. The author found inspiration in Cervantes, Tasso, Petrarch, Lope de Vega, Horace, Catullus, Juvenal, Tacitus, the Bible and Amadís de Gaula, and he here translates excerpts of Anacreon and the Iliad into French and into Italian. He riffs on noblewomen, nuns, courtesans, the death of a dog, Neapolitan inscriptions and a maritime conflagration at Tobago in 1677. Already a member of the Académie française, HE SUCCESSFULLY FABRICATED A PETRARCH CANZONE to enter the Accademia della Crusca. No North American library owns the set. In very good condition (two quires toned), bottom edge of two leaves still conjugate, signatures of André marquis de Bourbon de Monte, armorial bookplate… Read More

Paris: Richard, 1801. Polished red calf-backed marbled boards (Laurenchet), flat spine with gilt-lettered title. Only Complete Edition of this exhaustive account of the author's medical museum, exhibiting the wax specimens he made himself over a quarter century. The objects were divided into three classes - human anatomy, human diseases, natural history -  and thirty-eight sub-categories, each beginning with a description of the models on view with special emphasis on pregnancy, child birth, reproductive organs, venereal disease and newborns. Larded with case histories, personal opinion, ethnography, legislative recommendations and medical advice, the text shows the universal application to which the author put his cabinet of curiosities. For instance, his models of young women and men both prior to and after their first act of masturbation unleashes his views on the evils of onanism. The one-hundred-twelve-entry table of contents provides access to every class of specimen. In good condition (pale… Read More

Tours: A. Vauquer, 1779. Contemporary gilt-ruled green morocco (slightly worn), flat spine gilt with foliage and flowers in the ruled compartments, saffron endleaves, all edges gilt, blue silk marker.             First Edition, composed expressly for the leisured class wishing to take up painting on their annual country holiday. An accomplished goldsmith known for his skillful painting restoration, Dutens lays out the basics of drawing adults and children, of human anatomy, of osteology and myology, of clothing, of landscape, of perspective and of light and shadow before moving to color and color harmony, the placement and arrangement of figures and finally a chapter on facial expression. He names his sources and encourages the reader to consult them.            Dutens suggests having to hand an articulated mannequin to aid in figure modeling and a modest portfolio of select prints to train the eye and to serve as patterns. the longest section is on color. He treats miniatures on vellum… Read More

Tours: J. Rousset for G. Bourgeat, 1553. Mid-19th-century gilt red morocco, wide border of small partly pointillé tools, gilt spine and title, all edges gilt, green silk marker. Only Edition. Brèché adopts the order, article by article, of the statutes of his native Touraine for the Promptuaire, at once commentary on and concordance to the competing, complementary and conflicting customary laws of a dozen major jurisdictions across France. He points out differences among them and closes with the Tours coutumes. The work was not superseded until the 1780s. A nice copy, a couple of lower margins uncut, manuscript notes on a half dozen leaves, early signatures of JM Gerard Const-, Jacques Gerard, G. Parrie?t, D. leblant and armorial stamp in red of Giuerzic s[eigneu]r de Gerard. ¶Gouron & Terrin, Bibliographie des coutumes 2074; Camus, Bibliothèque...des livres de droit 116; Répertoire bibliographique des livres imprimés en France au XVIe siècle VII: 28,9.