Printing in the Western world began with Johann Gutenberg and his monumental Bible of 1455. The invention of printing from movable type changed the production of books from being written out by hand, one at a time, to printed editions as we know them today. This led to a vast increase in the publication of books, encompassing a multitude of both religious and secular subjects. Books printed in the fifteenth century, known as incunabula (a term which refers to "the cradle" of printing), are prized as artifacts of the infancy of printing ...
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Birmingham: John Baskerville, 1772. Quarto. 280pp. Although Baskerville is responsible for several editions of De Rerum Natura, this edition is perhaps the rarest, with only scattered holdings throught Great Britain and one in the United States. This copy is particularly beautiful, with marbled endpapers and bound in full vellum, with... More
Los Angeles: Kenneth Karmiole, Bookseller, 1981. Quarto. 28pp. One of 164 copies. Scriptores Astronomici Veteres is a collection of Greek and Roman astrological texts, of which the most important is Maternus's Mathesis, the most extenstive astrological book from antiquity. Here, the original leaf is from Liber Octavus, printed by Aldus... More
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1938. Quarto. 53pp. One of 297 copies printed for the Book Club of California by Edwin and Robert Grabhorn. Tipped-in is a leaf from the Polycronicon, with a rubricated initial on the recto and verso. It contains a passage on the campaigns of Cyrus the Great... More
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1938. Quarto. (2)ff.,15pp. One of 260 copies. The original leaf is from folio ccxiii of the Pynson 1509 edition. The essay by James D. Hart is decorated on each page with charming color-printed facsimiles of woodcut fools. Leaf lightly stained, else fine. Bound in linen-backed printed... More
Los Angeles: Plantin Press for Bernard Rosenthal and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, 1971. Folio. 13pp. One of 193 copies printed for Bernard Rosenthal and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge at the Plantin Press, with an original leaf printed on vellum by Peter Schoeffer at Mainz in 1472. It is one of... More
Los Angeles: Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop, 1950. Tall quarto. 62pp. One of 300 copies printed by the Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop. The leaf is from the portion of the Chronicle on the sixth age of the world. It bears two woodcuts on the recto and six... More
(Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 1471). Single leaf. Pope Clement V, most notable for his suppression of the Knights Templar and moving the seat of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, wrote this text as a supplement to the 1140 Decretum of Gratian. These, along with a series of other additions by... More
(Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 1473). Single leaf. Gregory IX's Decretales completed the work of the Decretum of Gratian to systematize the mass of pronouncements issued throughout the Early Middle Ages. In his Decretales, first produced in 1234, Gregory IX paid particular attention to the doctrine of perpetual servitude of the Jews... More
London: Jacob Tonson, 1712. Quarto. 370pp. Engraved frontispiece and six inserted plates, one of which is a fold-out, as well as various head- and tail-pieces and engraved initials at the beginning of each book. The engravings bear the signatures of various pressmen and engravers, including Gilliam van der Gouwen and... More
Paris: Simon du Bois for Geoffrey Tory, 1527. Octavo. 140ff. With twelve woodcut illustrations from thirteen blocks, Tory's "pot cassé" device on title page and colophon, and each page with a four-piece border in twenty-six distinct combinations. The lower blocks of several borders feature coats of arms, including those of... More
