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 about De Rerum Natura
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 about Julius Firmicus Maternus and the Aldine Edition of the Scriptores Astronomici Veteres
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 about An Original Leaf from the First Edition of Alexander Barclay's English Translation of Sebastian...
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 about Two Essays on the Decretum of Gratian
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 about The Nuremberg Chronicle: A Pictorial World History from the Creation to 1493. A Monograph by...
(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 about Leaf from the Decretales
(Bologna: Caligola Bazalieri, 1501). Quarto. (94)ff. This edition is based on the version published by Caligola Bazalieri’s brother, Bazaliero Bazalieri, in July 1491. The text is Ovid’s Heroides, a collection of imaginary letters written from ancient mythological heroines to the lovers who abandoned or mistreated them, including Penelope, Dido, Ariadne..... More about Epistolas Ouidii: Cum commentariis Ubertini: Et epistolas Sabini poetae singularis: Ac epistolam...
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 about De Rerum Natura
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 about Horae in laudem beatissime virginis Marie. Secundum consuetudinem ecclesiae parisiensis
