Il Decameron, Boccacio’s most famous work, was penned between 1351 and 1353. The title comes from the Greek deca meaning ten, and hemera meaning day which refers to the framework of the story. Set in the year of the Black Death [1348], seven ladies and three gallants meet in a Florentine Church where they decide to flee the city to the hills of Fiesole. There they entertain themselves by recounting stories all of the ten days. The Decameron is composed of more than one hundred novelle composed of anecdotes, fabliaux, folk stories and fairy tales–all of ancient lineage for the contemporary audience of the fourteenth century.
The compilation includes many influential and celebrated stories that were recycled, especially by Shakespeare. “Bernabo of Tenou was the plot of Cymbeline; “Gillette of Narbonne” of All’s Well that ends well. As late as 1820, John Keats used Isabella or the Pot of Basil as the substance of his poem as well as the title.

Lesser known than his contemporary and companion Petrarch, Boccacio nevertheless is credited with the initial introduction of their style and content, the first in the Italian or European canon of literature. He is entitled to a place beside Petrarch as founder of the Italian Renaissance.

The Giunti publishing family were the great rivals of the Aldine Press as the Giunti aggressively captured large portions of the lucrative Italian governmental and Church's printing business. Their printing enterprise spread from Italy, to Spain and France between 1489 to 1628. From their base in Florence and Venice, family members set up printing presses in Burgos, Salamanca, Madrid, Valladolid, Lerma and Lyons.

16 p.l., 585, [79] p.

Mounted title page; Signatures: * 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; ** 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; a 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; b 2, 3, 4, ^ [8]; c 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; d 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; e - z 2, 3, 4 ^ [8] / aa, bb, cc - hh, 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; ii [misbound] r 497 v 498; ii 2 [499]; ii 3, [501]; ii 3 v [506]; [ii 4 r] 507; [ii 4 v] 504; [ii 5 r] 505; [ii 5 v] 502; ii 4 r [503] v [508]; [ii 6 r] 509 : kk, 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; ll, mm, 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; nn 2, 3, 4 ^ [8], [nn 8 verso] 176; oo recto [75] verso [578];] oo 2, oo 3 ^[6]: oo 5 r [585] v, register followed by colophon with place printer & date; oo 6 recto [blank], verso, printer’s device. end of pagination. // [79]pp., Tavola Sopra Il Libro Chiamato Decameron Proemio: signatures: pp 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; qq - ss 2, 3, 4 ^ [8]; tt 2, 3, ^ [6]: tt 5 r: errori; tt 5 v errori con’t, followed by register, colophon with place, printer & date; tt 6 r [blank], v, earlier printer’s device.

References : Adams B174.

William Blake's etching from Lavater's Physiognomy, 1789-1798

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION OF LAVATER'S PHYSIOGNOMY Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801), Essays on Physiognomy, Designed to Promote the Knowledge and Love or Mankind, illustrated by more than 800 engravings... London, John Murray, 1789-1798. Quarto in five volumes. Lavater's first English translation is a magnificent five volume quarto with wide margins and heavy cream paper, hound in contemporary diced calf. A work of great importance in the history and development of psychiatry, Essays on Physiognomy was the most famous and extensive work on the subject. Physiognomy is the study of the face or countenance, particularly viewed as an index to mind or character. Authored by the Swiss clergyman and physician J.K. Lavater, his theories found particular favor in Germany and France. In Lavater's introduction: "Physiognomony, or, as more shortly written physiognomy is the science or knowledge of the correspondence between the external and internal man, the visible superficies and the invisible contents." "The immediate effect of form on every eye, the latent principle which is the basis of that effect, which inhabits every breath, the influence derived from this impression on conduct and action, in every department of life, are self-evident truths, and need as little to be proved as the existence or smell or taste."

(Lavater continued...)

Essays on Physiognomy is a monumental work considering all aspects of the "the dignity of human nature," illustrating its strengths, weaknesses, moods, illnesses, heroes and villains. The book is to be savored and every page pored over for new images to enchant the eye. The work is even more famous for its extensive and stunning portraiture, with its splendid illustrations prepared by some of the leading engravers of the period, including William Blake. Works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Durer, Holbein, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Hogarth, Gillray and others too numerous to enumerate, depict great men of the time and of history: scientists (Newton and Descartes), writers, philosophers (Socrates, Locke, Voltaire, etc.,) scholars, medical men (Vesalius, Diemerbrock), biblical characters, and royalty.

There is in addition a marvelous series of engravings of the particular parts or the body, the eyes, ears, noses, mouths, hands with gestures, facial expressions depicting every emotion known to human, and finally a superior assemblage of various animals, birds, insects, and snakes

Throughout the text you will find many hundreds of large text engravings, vignettes, headpieces and tailpieces. Some of the small engravings are breathtaking for their immediacy and impact. Also interesting is the list of subscribers, common in such an elegant undertaking as this one, published over nine years in fascicles paid for by their subscription, is a hand-list or all the privileged people in an age that was in as much radical revision as we are today.

It is a book for our age in that it is a timeless convening of the "homogeneousness of all the individuals of the human species," remarkable for its beauty, unique in its full range or depiction or human nature and human form. A single sample of the depiction of the range of human emotion in act and portrait suffices to display the breadth of the striking portraiture is the depiction of a knight seated broodingly over his "just assassinated mistress. Fettered by remorse of conscience, accused by the presence of his victim, he deplores his madness, but repents it not; he detest it, and yet still applauds himself for it. A character of such force was capable of committing a premeditated crime in cold blood. Before giving himself up to it, he beheld it not in all its blackness: and even
after the fatal blow, he does not yet feel it in all its enormity."

The quintessential Robert Adam Swarbrick, John.
Robert Adam and his Brothers: Their lives, work and influence on English architecture, decoration and furniture. London: B.T. Batsford, 1915. Quarto, blue cloth with gilt title on spine and cover. Frontispiece, x, 316pp, 224 illustrations (b&w photographic plates. A well produced book which reviews in considerable detail the work of, particularly John Adam, and the influence he and his brothers had upon all aspects of English architectural and decorative achievements. Comprehensive study, richly illustrated, remains the standard work on Scottish architect Robert Adam whose architecture informed fashionable taste of the 18th century.
$ 225

 

19th Century edition of Shakespeare in Fine Binding
Shakespeare, William. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare with a Life, Glossarial Notes, and One Hundred and Seventy Illustrations from the Plates in Boydell's Edition. Edited By A.J.Valpy. In fifteen volumes. London: Printed and Published by A.J.Valpy Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1832-1834. 12mo in fifteen volumes. Engarved frontispiece portraits in Volumes I [engraved by Freeman after the Chandos portrait] and XV [by T. Starling] and 170 outline plates executed on steel, in the first style from Boydell’s 1802 edition. Bound in 3/4 vellum over marbled boards, marbled endpapers, spines elaborated stamped in gilt
with binder’s morocco pastedown stamped in gilt w/ author and volume; t.e.g. A fine, tight set of an important early 19th century collection of the collected works, fully illustrated.
$ 2350