Atlases from the 15th to the 18th century.
First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle
printed in July 1493, illustrated with 1809 woodcuts.
Schedel, Hartmann. Liber Chronicarum. Chronique de Nuremberg.
A la fin: “Consummatu autem duodecima mensis Iulii. Anno Salutis n’re. 1493. »
Nuremberg, 12 juillet 1493.
Large folio [452 x 305 mm], (20) preliminary leaves, 300 ff. and (5) ff. inserted between ff. 266 and 267 (without final blank). Complete with the 3 blank leaves CCLIX-CCLX-CCLXI; inner margin of the double-page map at the end of the volume reinforced.
Bound in 19th Century brown blind-stamped morocco, decorated ribbed spine.
First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, illustrated with 1809 woodcuts.
Fairfax Murray, II, 394 ; Hain 14508 ; Proctor 2084 ; B.M.C. II, 437; Muther 424; Schreiber 5203; Dogson, I, 228; Goff S 307; Leclerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 533.
Most European towns are engraved on double or single pages: Jerusalem, Rome, Venice, Firenze, Augsburg, Vienna, Nuremberg (345 x 520 mm), Constantinople, Strasbourg, Salzburg, Ulm, Munich, Prague, Basel, Cracow, …
These famous woodcuts were produced by Wolgemut, Albrecht Dürer’s master from 1486 to 1490.
That’s one of the most spectacular incunable evidence about Fifteenth-Century Europe.
« The Chronicle and the Schatzbehalter are the two first important books with original illustrations published at Nuremberg and with the exception of Bredenbach, the earliest books printed in Germany of which the woodcuts can be assigned with certainty to a known draughtsman ». Dogson.
A charming wide-margined copy (452 mm high), complete with the 3 blank leaves that are often missing.
Price: € 75 000
An exceptional copy of the Braun & Hogenberg
preserved in its contemporary uniform decorated bindings.
Cologne, 1575-1588.
BRAUN, Georg and HOGENBERG, Franz. Civitates Orbis Terrarum.
Cologne, G. von Kempen, 1575-1588.
4 volumes folio bound in contemporary full calf, spines decorated with gilt fleurons, later arms gilt-stamped in the center of covers. Contemporary uniform bindings.
1 preliminary. leaf of volume 4 bound in volume 3, pl. 43 of volume 1 and 25 of volume 4 come from another copy and were bound in the present copy a long time ago, slight browning and waterstaining, pl. 31 and 1 of volume 4 slightly stained, loss in the margin of pl. 54 of volume 2.
The earliest printed book showing all the Western and Mediterranean towns at the end of the Renaissance.
Koeman, II, B & H 1-4.
Volumes 2 and 4 are from the first edition, volumes 3 and 1 are from the second and the fifth Latin editions respectively.
Two other volumes were published few years later, between 1598 and 1617.
The illustration consists of 4 frontispieces and 236 engravings depicting 374 views of towns and plans.
All the engravings were finely contemporary hand-coloured.
The authors of this work are Georg Braun (1541-1622) from Cologne and the engraver Franz Hogenberg (1540-1590).
The “Civitates” were one of the major works from the last quarter of the 16th Century. The publication of this great work spread over 45 years and most of recorded copies are incomplete.
The present work describes towns of France, Italy, Spain and the Levant (volume 1), from the Netherlands, the Channel Islands, Central Europe and Russia (volume 2).
« The supreme value of this work lies in its survey of European towns and cities jus tat the time when draughtsmen were capable of conveying a wealth of information in a single portrayal ».
The earliest, the most beautiful and the most spectacular book of architecture from the Renaissance, dedicated to the representation of towns of Western and Mediterranean world, coloured at the time.
An exceptional copy, complete with all the engravings, preserved in its contemporary uniform decorated bindings, with the frontispieces and the 236 plates finely contemporary hand-coloured.
Provenance: ex libris and arms of the Tempsford Hall Library (from 19th Century).
Price: € 275 000
******
Ortelius’ pocket-atlas in Italian, complete with its 108 full-page maps,
preserved in its contemporary binding.
Venice, 1667.
ORTELIUS, Abraham. Theatro del mondo.
Venetia, Per Scipion Banca, 1667.
16mo [133 x 93 mm] of (4) ll., 232 pp., (8) ll. 108 full-page engraved maps.
Bound in contemporary stiff vellum. Handwritten exlibris on the half-title: « Bibliotheca Neorelli ».
Italian pocket-edition of Ortelius’ atlas, illustrated with 108 full-page engraved maps.
Philips 478 ; Tooley 31.
« The commercial success of the pocket-atlas was considerable. It was translated into French and Latin (now in prose) and was reprinted several times, long after Pieter Heyns had moved into the Netherlands together with his son Zacharias in 1588. In the year of Pieter Heyn’s death (1598), his son, Zacharias, then living in Amsterdam, repeated the successful best-seller of his father by publishing another Miroir du Monde, using woodcut”. Koeman.
The illustration contains a world map and the continents’ maps: Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. The 103 other maps represent each country for which a note has been written on the opposite page.
The first edition in Italian was printed in 1608.
A charming copy preserved in its contemporary vellum binding.
Price: € 9 500
