ABBIATE FORIERI, Matteo.

La Colonna di chiesa santa. Panegirico detto nella solennizata festa di S. Agostino nella Chiesa de...

Milan, Lodovico Monza, 1660.

Very rare panegyric given at the Church of San Marco in Milan to mark the feast day of St Augustine in 1660, by the Milanese lawyer Matteo Abbiate Forieri, an annual event on behalf of the lawyers of the city’s Scuole Palatine.

£175

ACQUAVIVA, Claudio.

Meditationes in Psalmum XLIV, & CXVIII.

Rome, Bartolomeo Zanetti, 1616.

First edition of these Jesuit meditations on two of the Psalms, a copy bound in the Soresini workshop for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

£1550

ADRICHEM, Christian van; Francesco BALDELLI, translator.

Gerusalemme e suoi dintorni ai tempi di Gesù Cristo. Mappa e descrizione...

Genoa, Tipografia arcivescovile, 1882.

Scarce first edition thus of Baldelli’s sixteenth-century translation of this guide to Jerusalem for pilgrims by the Dutch cartographer Christian van Adrichem, instrumental in popularising the Stations of the Cross, and the basis for maps of the Holy Land well into the eighteenth century. The caption...

£200

[ADVENT.]

Praeparatio ad nativitatem Domini Nostri Jesu Christi ad excitandos animi affectus ex missali Romano, et breviario collecta...

Turin, Ignazio Soffietti, [c. 1790].

An extremely rare short liturgical text to be used in the festive season from 16 to 24 December, complete with music, with a hand-coloured title-page and in decorative wrappers.

£475

[ALBUM.]

The Conversational Album. For recreative Instruction and Amusement. London, Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.,

[and booksellers in Birmingham, Brighton, Boston, Liverpool, and Manchester], [c. 1873].

An amusing late-Victorian book of printed conversation starters for both ladies and gentlemen, completed in manuscript by members of the Backhouse, Mounsey, Richardson, and Barclay families of Darlington and Sunderland. Darlington had a particularly high Quaker population, especially active in banking...

£1500

[ALEXANDER VII, Pope.]

Vero e pieno ragguaglio delle ceremonie fatte per l’incoronazione di N. Sig. Alessandro papa...

Rome and Florence, nella stamperia di S. A. S. alla Condotta, 1655.

Very rare first(?) edition of this detailed and entertaining account of the coronation of Pope Alexander VII in April 1655, capturing the splendour, colour, and emotion of the occasion.

£450

[ALMANACK.]

Le triomphe de la vertu. Sujets tirés de la Sainte Bible.

Paris, Janet, [1814].

A very rare biblical almanack for 1814 by Janet, attractively illustrated with engraved plates depicting episodes from the Old Testament.

£300

[ALVISET, Jean Antoine.]

L’Ange gardien. Pour les devotes confreries des Saincts Anges Gardiens. Par un prestre de l’eglise...

Lyon, Jacques du Creux, 1647.

Very rare devotional manual for female and male members of the Confraternity of the Guardian Angels established in the church of St Peter in Besançon, in eastern France, in 1643, with a separately published and seemingly unrecorded appendix detailing its rules.

£350

ANTONIUS de Vercellis.

Sermones quadragesimales de XII mirabilibus Christianae fidei excellentiis [with additions by Ludovicus...

Venice, Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, [for Alexander Calcedonius], 16 February 1492/93.

A remarkable copy of the first edition of Antonius de Vercellis’ sermons, owned and annotated by three contemporary Franciscans, one of whom, Andrea Alamanni, may be the confessor who administered Machiavelli’s last rites.

£8500

[AQUHORTIES.]

Abstract of the Rules and Regulations for the Students in the College of Aquhorties …

Edinburgh, Printed by J. Moir, Paterson’s Court, [1799?].

Broadside rules for the newly established Aquhorties College, the only Roman Catholic college in Scotland, presumably designed to be posted up around the school.

£850

[ARCHCONFRATERNITY OF THE MOST HOLY CRUCIFIX.]

Distinta descrizione della machina, luminari, ed ordinanza nella solenne processione...

Rome, per il Casaletti, 1775.

Rare record of a procession made by members of the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Crucifix from the church of San Marcello in Rome to Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican in the jubilee year of 1775.

£250

[ARCHCONFRATERNITY OF SAN GIOVANNI DECOLLATO.]

‘Arciconfraternitas Sancti Ioannis decollati’.

Rome, second half of eighteenth century.

An unusual woodcut – likely intended for use as a badge – bearing the insignia of the Arciconfraternita di San Giovanni decollato, a Roman archconfraternity which provided comfort and company to those condemned to death, most notably Giordano Bruno in 1600.

£500

ARIAS, Francisco.

Paleys der deughden begrypende de naervolghinghe der alder-heylichste ende weerdichste Maghet Maria. Eerst gemaeckt...

Antwerp, Gheleyn Janssens, 1609.

First Dutch edition of this work of Marian devotion by the Spanish Jesuit and ascetical writer Francisco Arias (1533–1605), first published in Spanish as De la imitacion de Nuestra Señora in 1588.

£375

AUGUSTINE, Pseudo-, et al. 

Opusculum multarum bonaru[m] rerum refertum, ut sunt.  Diui Augustini meditationes, et eiusde[m]...

Venice, Pietro Quarengi, 6 March 1512. 

Uncommon edition of various devotional works, comprising: the pseudo-Augustinian Meditations, Soliloquies, and a treatise on the word of God; meditations on the human condition, and a letter on leading the perfect life, attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux; a short sermon assigned to Peter Damian; Anselm’s...

£750

AUGUSTINUS TRIUMPHUS [i.e. AUGUSTINUS de Ancona].  

Summa de potestate ecclesiastica.

Augsburg, [Johann Schüssler,] 6 March 1473.

First edition of this highly important and influential magnum opus of political theory, a defence of papal supremacy.

£22500

BACON, Francis.

Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica, civilia, et theologica, nunc primum edita. Cura & fide Guilielmi Rawley...

London, R. Daniel, impensis Octaviani Pulleyn, 1658.

First edition, second issue of this collection of the philosophical, political, and theological writings of Bacon, including numerous essays previously unpublished, and the first appearance in Latin of a biographical sketch of the philosopher by William Rawley (c. 1588–1667), Bacon’s literary...

£1250

[BARNABITES.]

Vesperae quae cantantur solemniter a clericis regularibus S. Pauli, in ecclesia SS. Blasii et Caroli de urbe. D. Augustinus...

[Rome, 1693 and later.]

A finely executed manuscript comprising texts to be sung at Vespers by the Clerics Regular of Saint Paul – better known as the Barnabites – in the church of Santi Biagio e Carlo ai Catinari in Rome, bearing signs of adapted use over time.

£2750

BARONIO, Cesare.

Martyrologium Romanum, Gregorii XIII auctoritate recognitum … nunc ante mortem auctoris, ab ipso … revisum,...

Mainz, Johann Theobald Schönwetter, 1631.

Uncommon edition of Cesare Baronio’s important revision of the Roman Martyrology, in an attractive binding and with interesting provenance.

£875

[BASKERVILLE PRESS.]

The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church,...

Third and final edition of Baskerville’s octavo prayer book. The prayers for the Royal Family on cancels B8, C6, and D3 include the name of Queen Charlotte, whom George III married in 1761. This copy also includes the ‘occasional prayers’ which were only printed for part of the edition and are...

£1200

BATTEN, Henry, and Henry VINER, composers and arrangers.

Responses, Suffrages, Tersanctus, and Chants, as used in...

Penzance, Viner’s Musical Repository, 1844.

Exceedingly rare first and only edition of these Penzance-printed Tractarian hymns and chants composed by the local minister and his organist.

£300