A very scarce, elegant Spanish chart of the Gulf Coast including the entire Texas coastline and extending east to the Florida Panhandle. Three of its insets relate to Texas; they are of the Matagorda Inlet, the Galveston Inlet and Bay, and the mouth of the Sabine River. The chart also..... More
This remarkably detailed and precise map of the Paru River, a northern tributary of the Lower Amazon in Pará State, was clearly the result of a thorough exploration of the river. There is a strong probability that it was in some manner associated with the much-honored French explorer, Jules Crevaux..... More
An attractive example of this classic, Dutch map of Spain and Portugal. The allegorical cartouche depicts Europa and a trio of putti upon a plinth supporting the arms of the Spanish Habsburgs. A banner proclaims the Spanish motto “plus ultra.” In the lower left corner of the map upon the..... More
One of the earliest charts of the Barbary Coast, Madera and the key Atlantic stepping stones of the Azores to appear in a Dutch nautical atlas. The sheet includes two charts of the coast of Morocco, a harbor chart of Punto del Gada, and a plan and chart of Angra..... More
This beautiful engraving of Angra on Terceira depicts the city and its surrounds under attack by sea. Ships menace the harbor, and fires can be seen springing up in the fields beyond the city walls. The Portuguese stronghold on this key Atlantic port of call..... More
“One of the most attractive [maps] of the Americas”(Burden) in a beautiful example. Blaeu’s map reveals the state of knowledge of the Northeast at the critical moment when England and the Netherlands were establishing colonies there. It “is one of the earliest to name ‘Nieu Amsterdam’” (Burden) and shows Plymouth..... More
This scarce map of the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean north of the Equator displays the British colonial holdings, exclusive of those in India. The map attempts to reinforce British colonial claims in the region shown, and it further illustrates that Britain’s reach at the time fully embraced what has..... More
One of the rarest and most attractive La Freri maps of all of Italy, offered here in an unrecorded state. Borri reports that only a few examples of this finely engraved map have surfaced. “Di questa magnifica carta, quasi sconosciuta sino a pochi anni orsono, sono noti pochissimi esemplari …” ..... More
Rare 3-sheet engraved view depicting the ancient Campidoglio in Rome, an understudied and somewhat mysterious piece first published by Antonio Salamanca (1479-1562) in the middle of the 16th-century and thereafter at times included as part of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the famed composite atlas of graphic material related to antique... More
![[Opera,comprising:]De venarum ostiolis. Hieronymus FABRICIUS.](/pictures/thumb/203.jpg?v=1548787672)
First editions of these four tracts (the second, De locutione, is the first folio edition; see below), including Girolamo Fabrizio’s (c. 1533-1619) two most important works, the De venarum ostiolis, and the De formato foetu. The De venarum ostiolis is of one of the great rarities of anatomical literature: Fabrizio’s..... More
![A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America with the Roads, Distances, Limits, and Extent of the Settlements, Humbly Inscribed to the Right Honourable The Earl of Halifax … [Imprint:] Publish'd by the Author Febry 13th 1755 according to Act of Parliament, and Sold by And: Millar opposite Katharine Street in the Strand. John MITCHELL.](/pictures/thumb/250000.jpg?v=1548705454)
A remarkable example of the work that was the map-of-record at the birth of the United States and which continued in this role through several decades in the early life of the country. Not only is the map itself exceptionally well-preserved, but also, in a remarkable survival, the original slip..... More
![[Uranographia Britannica] / [Atlas Celeste]. John BEVIS.](/pictures/thumb/5806.jpg?v=1548449446)
Rare first and only printing of the English astronomer John Bevis’s (1695-1771) legendary Uranographia Britannica [c. 1748], a celestial atlas of both high astronomical ambition and artistic beauty which was never formally published, its engraved sheets languishing in legal limbo, sequestered by the courts for some 35 years after the... More
Rare first and sole edition of this illustrated emblematic devotional guide to ward against the Seven Deadly or “Capital” Sins: pride, avarice, lust , envy, gluttony, anger and sloth. Each features a finely engraved didactic image by Wolfgang Kilian on which the reader is to meditate, accompanying a Latin text..... More
Rare 19th-century shipping guide to the Pacific coast ports of North America and Hawaii. The volume was issued by the J. D. Spreckels & Bros. shipping company operating out of San Diego to highlight their services in the region and to orientate potential clients to the particular requirements of each... More
Rare first German edition of Las Casas’ excoriating eyewitness report on the Spanish in the New World, the Account of the Destruction of the Indies. The anonymous, but no doubt Protestant translator of the present work uses Las Casas’ narrative as an anti-Spanish polemic in response to the current Habsburg..... More
Very rare first and sole edition of this work on the underlying principles of insurance contracts and business ventures, focusing in particular on the psychological, ethical, and mathematical dimensions of gambling and risk-taking. Beginning with the premise that man’s most fundamental urge is to gain wealth, Codronchi discusses the effects..... More
Rare first and sole edition of this clear and systematic treatise on civil architecture, by Bergamo architect Nicolino de’ Calepio, of interest for the regional interpretation of classicizing forms. The treatise is divided into five parts, beginning with a discussion of building materials and other fundamentals such as taking measurements..... More
Extremely rare printed proclamation concerning trade between the Danish West Indies – St Croix, St Thomas, and St John – with the mother territories of Denmark, Norway, and Schleswig-Holstein. In order to promote trade in sugar, wool, and coffee, Christian VII announces several tax breaks and confirms a monopoly of... More
Extremely rare offprint of this study of hermaphroditism in a higher animal (a goat) – viewed very much as an abomination of nature. The work is illustrated with a large lithographed plate depicting both the external and internal anatomy of the hermaphrodite. Citing earlier work on hermaphroditism in Aldrovandi, Bauhin... More
![Instructiones ad munera apostolica rite obeunda perutiles: missionibus Chinae, Tunchini, Cochinchinae, atq[ue] Siami accomodatae. François / LAMBERT DE LA MOTTE PALLU, Pierre.](/pictures/thumb/B5250.jpg?v=1548438506)
First edition of a rare and fundamental handbook for seventeenth-century missionaries to Indochina. The volume is a formative document by François Pallu (d. 1684) and Pierre Lambert de la Motte (d. 1679), founding members of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris and driving forces behind the establishment in 1665..... More
Auction catalogue of the library and art collection of the English author George Daniel (1789-1864) – sold over ten days in 1864 at Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge in London – here in a copy fully annotated with names of purchasers and prices realized. Daniel’s library was especially rich in Elizabethan..... More
Very rare edition of Gedike’s instructional book for students of Latin in the Kingdom of Hungary. The work is divided into two parts: a selection of example passages with occasional explanatory notes, and a Latin-German-Hungarian-Czech dictionary. The present copy is the enlarged second edition, of which we have only been..... More
Only edition of this very rare celestial atlas: Schiller’s masterwork. The Coelum Stellatum Christianum presented the most recent stellar information in a completely different context, redrawing constellations with subjects from Christian iconography in place of traditional figures from classical mythology. For the signs of the zodiac, for example, Schiller substituted..... More
Rare 18th-century engraving – relating to the Spanish Flota de Indias and to the important naval port of Cadiz – printed by the renowned Remondini firm of printmakers, a company noted for aggressively expanding its print selling business far from its home base in the Veneto. The hand-colored print depicts... More
Rare first edition of this illustrated biography and genealogy of Matilda of Canossa, the medieval “sublime heroine” of papal fidelity, and one of the rare medieval women remembered for her military accomplishments. Intent on dispelling various misconceptions about her as well as honoring her kinsman Alberico Cybo Malaspina, to whom..... More