Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Of Unicornes Hornes. Illustrated by Alan James Robinson. Introduction by Jan van Dorsten - Rare Book Insider
book (2)

Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Of Unicornes Hornes. Illustrated by Alan James Robinson. Introduction by Jan van Dorsten

More from Uncategorized
book (2)

COLLECTION DES PLUS BEAUX NUMÉROS DE COMOEDIA ILLUSTRÉ ET DES PROGRAMMES CONSACRÉS AU BALLETS & GALAS RUSSES DEPUIS LE DÉBUT A PARIS 1909-1921

Folio, green silk over thick beveled boards with large inset color illustration from Natalia Goncharova's design for "Firebird". Endpapers color- stenciled with names of the dances, dancers, composers, and choreographers, and in the center that of the impresario Serge Diaghilev. Silk faded; a little edge wear to bottom of front board. An exceptionally nice copy of this magnificent book. A compilation of the most important special issues of the theatrical periodical "Comoedia Illustré" and souvenir programs for the 1909-1921 seasons of the Ballets Russes, compiled by the program publishers themselves, Maurice and Jacques de Brunoff, Explanatory forewords by the critic Valerian Svetlov. Lavishly illustrated with photographs and black and white and splendid color plates, some heightened with gilt and silver, of the dancers, costumes and stage decor. Work by Léon Bakst, Valentine Hugo, André Derain, Alexandre Benois, Mikhail Larionov. Natalia Goncharova, José Sert, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Dancers include Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara, Karsavina, Michael and Vera Fokine, and Ida Rubenstein. Léon Bakst's brilliantly exotic and vivid designs for costumes and stage design revolutionized theater and fashion in the first quarter of the 20th century, drawing on Neo-Russian, Orientalist, and ancient Greek motifs. The May 1917 issue is devoted primarily to the ballet "Parade". In his introduction, "Parade et l'Esprit Nouveau", Guillaume Apollinaire coins the term "surrealism", laying the foundation for this movement. "Parade" is a collaboration among Erik Satie, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Léonide Massine, and Serge Diaghilev. Picasso's costumes are depicted in two pochoir-colored plates: "Costume de Chinois" and "Costume d'Acrobate". A copy is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (rebound without the original cover plaque by Goncharova) and another copy is featured in the 2019 exhibition "Hymn to Apollo/The Ancient World and the Ballets Russes" at the NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.
book (2)

Viridarium Gregorianum sive Biblia Gregoriana, New Testament (A Garden or Bible of Gregory); in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment

FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT OF A RARE NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY COPIED BY A NAMED SCRIBE. In Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment, Southwest Flanders or Hainaut (Tournai?), c. 1350. Dimensions 240 x 170 mm., 120 folios, complete, catchwords in red and brown ink, quire signatures, written by a single scribe in a university bookhand, scrolling cadels at top lines sometimes in human and animal forms, numerous red and blue/black penwork initials of five to seven lines. BINDING: Nineteenth-century marbled boards and doublures, parchment covering corners and spine, spine title in red and black with filigreed decoration in red. TEXT: A New Testament commentary, Jacobus Folquerius's Viridarium Gregoriana , mined from many of Gregory the Great's works, drawing occasionally on Alulfus of Tournai's Gregorialis . The text is known in only three other manuscripts; this copy was, until now, apparently unknown, and is certainly the only of its kind on the market. PROVENANCE: Based on the script, this manuscript was copied c. 1350 by a scribe trained in Southwest Flanders or Hainaut (Tournai?). The parchment's texture and penwork initials are also consistent with this region. The scribe, moreover, names himself on the final folio: "Hic liber est scriptus ludofus sit benedictus." Ludolfus is otherwise unknown. The Germanic name Ludolfus, coupled with the manuscript's northwestern physical features, is consistent with production in this region; an auction record indicates this manuscript was previously in a Bordeaux private collection, although the blue pencil note in English suggests an interruption in French ownership. CONDITION: some small spots and parchment discoloration occasionally clouding text, several original holes in parchment once stitched, rodent damage to bottom inner corner of last two quires, minor cockling of leaves due to tight binding, some chipping on binding cover, edges, and hinges, staining on front flyleaves and some ink transfer to flyleaves adjacent to book block, overall in good condition. Full description and images available. (TM 1054)
book (2)

Bemühung den Aberglaube zu stürzen.

FIRST EDITION, [12], 187pp., woodcut printers device, head and tail-pieces, slight foxing to first few leaves, marginal tear to 135/136pp not affecting text, contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spine gilt, red and green morocco labels, a.e.r., marbled endpapers, 8vo, Munich, Lentner, 1785. The Bavarian ‘Witchcraft War’ First Edition of this important work on the witch hunt craze that was so endemic in Bavaria during the mid eighteenth century. Ferdinand Sterzinger (1721-1786), a Bavarian priest of the Theatine order and one of the leaders of the Bavarian attack on witchcraft in the 1760s, wrote this deeply sceptical work. As an Enlightened Catholic thinker, he found the notion of physically dangerous demons silly and unbiblical. As a prominent member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Sterzinger ignited a noisy discussion on witchcraft in his “Academie Address” which he delivered on 13th October 1766, a decade after the last execution of a witch in Bavaria. In a speech that was only sanctioned on a technicality, Sterzinger launched a full-frontal assault on witchcraft beliefs. He defined witchcraft beliefs as “common prejudice”, skirting around the Academy’s rule forbidding the discussion of religious topics. Sterzinger treated the belief in witchcraft as a laughable superstition, relegating the theological authority of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas into the era of fairy tales. Sterzinger was tactful enough to establish certain reservations to avoid offending church authorities. His concessions reveal some of the fundamental paradoxes of the early Catholic Enlightenment, which was considerably more tradition-bound than its Protestant counterpart. Sterzinger could not dare take the decisive step of rehabilitating all the victims of the persecutions as innocents. However this did not diminish Sterzinger’s resilient insistence that “witchcraft is [ ] in and of itself an empty and vain nothingness, a prejudice and imagining of unstable minds”. His speech, swiftly issued in printed form, touched on the Bavarian witchcraft war (Bayrischer Hexenkrieg), the last major public debate on the subject in early modern Europe. Sterzinger’s presentation was well received in all German speaking regions, winning approval from champions of the Enlightenment. [ VD 18 13823132;, Ackermann IV, 918;Exorcism and Enlightenment, Midelford, 2005; Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria, Behringer, 2002]
book (2)

Visions of Barsoom: 100 Years of John Carter (TM)

[Pasadena, CA]: Robert B. Zeuschner, 2012. 12 1/2 x 18". First edition. Outer orange envelope, slightly creased and marked, title and illustration in black, signed by artist Thomas Yeates, in very good + condition. Inside the envelope are 25 lithographed images printed on slick paper, some of them quite rare, celebrating Edgar Rice Burroughs' famed swordsman who traveled from Earth to Mars, sizes of image vary, 3 plates are signed by artist Thomas Yeates, stiff cardboard keeps plates in place, one page folded pamphlet describes the production and plates in detail, signed by the compiler, all in fine condition.This portfolio was published for the Edgar Rice Burroughs convention in Woodland Hills, California. The compiler, Robert Zeuschner) has published a scholarly book on Burroughs and has been the assistant editor of the Burroughs Bulletin. Most of the original images are the property of Edgar Rice Burrous, Inc. The plates range from 1913 to 2011. The art on the envelope is by Thomas Yeates and appears on page 69 of the combined volume, "John Carter of Mars", Fall River Press, 2009. It depicts a scene found in chapter 10 of A Princess of Mars: "Springing upward, I struck him full in the face as he turned at my warning cry, and then as he drew his short-sword I drew mine and sprang up again upon his breast, hooking one leg over the butt of his pistol and grasping one of his huge tusks with my left hand while I delivered blow after blow upon his enormous chest." (from the pamphlet inside)
book (2)

Lyndon B. Johnson Signing Pen for Voting Rights Act of 1965

"One of the pens used by the President, August 6, 1965, in signing S. 1564, An Act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes," per original printed slip in original box. Clear barrel pen, "The President-The Whitehouse" printed in white, with "Esterbrook" on the nib, 6 3/8 in. long. With additional artifacts. This artifact came from Arnold "Pappy" Noel (1922-2009), a longtime news photographer who at that time was in the Public Affairs Office of the Secretary of Defense. Noel earned his nickname in World War II as a B-29 tail gunner. After the war and his retirement, he joined United Press International as a newsreel and still photographer, filming presidential and White House events, marches on Washington and Selma, fires and riots in Washington and Detroit, and early NASA events. At the 1968 Democratic Convention, he became part of the story when he was injured and arrested for refusing to hand over his film of "excessive abuse of law enforcement agents towards demonstrators." He was president of the White House Press Photographers Association for two years, leaving the press corps to work as a public affairs assistant to President Ford. Historical BackgroundThe Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred discrimination and segregation in education, public facilities, jobs, and housing. President Kennedy sent the Act to Congress in 1963, but the Judiciary Committee held it back. Gaining support after the September 1963 March on Washington, it still did not pass until July of 1964, after Kennedy's assassination. Even then, the job was still not done. On March 15, 1965, a week after Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed the nation, declaring that "all Americans must have the privileges of citizenship regardless of race." He announced that he was sending a new bill to Congress with more power to prevent states and election officials from denying southern blacks the vote.The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed poll taxes, literacy tests, and other practices that had prevented southern blacks from voting. Where local authorities continued to disfranchise African Americans, it authorized the attorney general to send federal officials to register black voters and authorized the federal government to supervise elections. There was an immediate effect. By the middle of 1966, over half a million Southern blacks had registered to vote, and by 1968, almost four hundred black people had been elected to office.
book (2)

De anima brutorum, quae hominis vitalis ac sensitiva est, exercitationes duae.

Two parts in one volume. 4to (197 x 149 mm). [56], 16, 33-565 (i.e. 563), 11 pp., 8 engraved plates of brain anatomy (5 folding); imprimatur leaf bound opposite title, longitudinal half-title g2 bound before the divisional title g1 for part one; page 563 misnumbered 565; general index at the end. Signatures: [pi]2 A4 b-f4 g2 2A-Z4 Aa-Zz4 Aaa-Yyy4 Zzz4(Zzz1 + "Zzzz Aaaa"4, Bbbb2). Bound in full contemporary speckled English calf, rebacked with new morocco spine label lettered in gilt, corners mended, endleaves renewed, dark sprinkled edges (rebacking rubbed, joints cracking). Text with light even browning, occasional spotting mostly to outer margins; instances of very faint blue vertical bands on some leaves, perhaps offsetting from bookmarks that are no longer in place; book block mostly split before p. 87; leaf Zzz4 with small patch of paper torn at fore-margin not affecting text. Provenance: Dr. Michael Stone's Psychiatry Collection. Complete except for the 4 publisher's advertisement leaves found in some copies. ---- FIRST EDITION, Oxford imprint, published shortly before the first octavo edition the same year, and thus the true first. In this earliest English work of medical psychology, Willis describes the phenomenon now known as paracusis Willisii, based on his observation of deaf woman who could hear only when a drum was beating. Willis recognized the difference between the symptoms of gross brain disease and those of mental illness. Because he postulated a disturbance of the brain and nerves in terms of disordered "animal spirits" in the absence of pathological findings, he is often considered the first to have equated mind disease with brain disease. Also includes probably the earliest description of general paralysis. References & Bibliography: Norman 2244. Garrison-Morton-Norman 1544; Hunter & Macalpine, pp. 187-92. - Visit our website to see more images!