Fine Books and Manuscripts

Thomaeus, Nicholas Leonicus | The 1555 Gryphius edition of De Varia Historia Libri Tres

Lot Closed

July 16, 05:07 PM GMT

Estimate

1,200 - 1,800 USD

Lot Details

Description

Thomaeus, Nicholas Leonicus

De Varia Historia Libri Tres. Lyon: Sebastian Gryphius, 1555

16mo (114 x 54 mm). Woodcut printer's device on title [Baudrier 2bis], woodcut initials, italic type, guide-letters, 3 decorative initials, 31pp. index at rear. Eighteenth-century French green morocco, triple gilt borders, spine gilt with burgundy morocco lettering pieces, edges gilt, marbled endpapers.

The 1555 Gryphius edition, first published in 1532

Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus, a Venetian scholar, was the Aristotelian Professor of Philosophy in Padua who taught a young Copernicus, and who was highly praised by Erasmus. This work largely concerns the history of the Mediterranean and the bordering countries in antiquity. Among the topics discussed are Sardinia, the influences of Greece, Northern Africa, the tribes of Numidae, the Balearic Islands, the story of the tyrant of Syracuse.

Sebastianus Gryphius, the book's publisher, was a German bookseller, printer, and humanist. He mostly published law and administration works in Gothic script, as well as Latin classics, and translated Greek to Latin.

REFERENCE

Adams L-505; Baudrier VIII 280; OCLC 614503521

Jean-Baptiste Du Halde | Description géographique… de l'empire de la Chine, Paris, 1735, 4 volumes, modern period style calf gilt

Estimate: 3,000 - 5,000 GBP

Benjamin Franklin | The work that led to the establishment of the University of Pennsylvania

Estimate: 20,000 - 30,000 USD

(John Armstrong) | An exceedingly rare Franklin imprint

Estimate: 8,000 - 12,000 USD

Sir Alec Guinness | His marked-up copy of Hamlet

Estimate: 4,000 - 6,000 GBP

Binding—Rudyard Kipling | Le Livre de la Jungle [and Le Second Livre], Paris, 1919, illustrated by Paul Jouve, two original illustrations by Jouve, art deco binding by Henri Creuzevault

Estimate: 30,000 - 40,000 GBP

Benjamin Franklin | The first French edition of Franklin's landmark work on electricity, evidently a presentation copy

Estimate: 4,000 - 6,000 USD

[Euphrate, Gérard d’]

Le premier livre de l’histoire & ancienne cronique... Paris, Vincent Sertenas, 1549. In-folio. Maroquin rouge du XVIIIe siècle. Édition originale d'un des plus beaux livres illustrés de la Renaissance.

Estimate: 10,000 - 15,000 EUR

Aphthonios

Aphthonii Progymnasmata... 1642. Reliure aux armes de Jacques-Auguste II de Thou. [On joint :] Horace. Opera. London, John Brindley, 1744. Jolie reliure de John Brindley.

Estimate: 1,500 - 2,000 EUR

Binding—Sangorski & Sutcliffe—Omar Khayyam | Rubaiyat, London, 1872, third edition, in a magnificent jewelled Peacock binding

Estimate: 15,000 - 20,000 GBP

Publius Vergilius Maro | Baskerville's Virgil, the gift of Benjamin Franklin to Francis Hopkinson

Estimate: 35,000 - 50,000 USD