Recent acquisition: Atlas of England and Wales (c. 1579)

Folio (17 x 12 inches). Engraved allegorical frontispiece showing Queen Elizabeth as patroness of Astronomy and Geography attributed to Remy Hogenberg (laid-in), full-sheet engraved plate with 84 escutcheons facing a table of towns, 35 full-sheet engraved maps (one folding) after Saxton by Hogenberg, Lenaert Terwoort, Cornelis de Hooghe, Augustine Ryther, Francis Scatter, and Nicholas Reynolds, letterpress index of maps, the maps, frontispiece, and tables ALL IN FINE CONTEMPORARY HAND COLOR AND LAVISHLY HEIGHTENED WITH GILT AND ARGENT, ALL POSSIBLY BY MARCUS GHERAERTS (TRUUSJE GOEDINGS). FINE CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH CALF GILT BINDING BY JEHAN DE PLANCHE in "Lyonnese" style (i.e. Jehan de Planche II, possibly working in London from about 1567-72 and later).

Recent acquisition: Historia Naturale. by Gaius Plinius Secundus (Latin translation by Cristoforo Landino, c. 1476)

 

Translated from Latin into Italian by Cristoforo Landino. [413] leaves, lacking the first & last blanks. 50 lines, spaces for initials with guide letters. Handsome Roman & Greek types. Illuminated by a contemporary Italian artist (see below). Two vols. Large folio (415 x 275 mm.), 19th-century French dark blue straight-grained morocco, gold-tooled to a sober neo-classical design, sides panelled with triple gold fillets enclosing diaper and palmette rolls in blind, an inner panel of a single gold fillet framing gilt cornerpiece tools in gold and a different blind palmette roll, spines divided into six blind- & gold-tooled compartments, the second and sixth compartments lettered in gold, board edges gilt, turn-ins decorated with blind roll & gilt fillets, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, paper outer flyleaves, vellum inner flyleaves, by René Simier, with his gilt stamp "Simier R[elieur]. du Roi" in lower compartment of spine of Vol. I (a few nicks and scratches to covers, trifling wear at corners and extremities of spines).