Contemporary First-Hand Account by An English Officer
of
The Napoleonic War in the Iberian Peninsula
with
6 Engraved Plates
&
Fold-Out Map of Battle at Corunna
London, 1809

By An Officer [Robert Kerr Porter]. Letters from Portugal and Spain, Written During the March of the British Troops Under Sir John Moore. With A Map of the Route, and Appropriate Engravings. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809. Very good in original ¾ leather, marbled boards and endpapers. 320pp. Treats of the English defeat at the hands of Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsular war. With 6 plates – Salamanca, Field of Battle at Vimeira, Vale of Tancos, Trajan’s Bridge, Mountain of Nogallis, and Corunna (where the British commander, Sir John Moore, was killed in action). Fold-out engraved map of Corunna.

Biographies of Early Spanish Explorers & Conquistadors of the New World:

Francisco, Juan & Gonzalo Pizarro;
Columbus, Hernan Cortes, Alonso de Ojeda, & Diego Garcia de Paredes
Composed by
Francisco Pizarro’s Great Grandson, Pizarro y Orellana

First Edition—Madrid, 1639

Pizarro y Orellana, Fernando. Varones Ilustres Del Nuevo Mundo. Descubridores, Conquisadores, Y Pacificadores Del Opulento, Dilatado, Y Poderoso Imperio De Las Indiad Occidentales. Sus Vidas, Virtud, Valor, Hazañas, Y Claros Blasones. Ilustrados...Con Singulares Observaciones Politicas, Morales, Iuridicas, Miscelaneas, Y Razon De Estado; Para Mayor Autoridad De La Historia, Y Demonstracion Della, Y Su Utilissima Leccion. Madrid: Diego Díaz de la Carrera, 1639.

Very good copy. A collection of biographies of Spanish discoverers, conquistadors, and other figures involved in the early exploration and colonization of the New World, composed by a great grandson of Francisco Pizarro. Pizarro y Orellana, who held office in the Supreme Council of Castile, composed the work with the aim of simultaneously defending his ancestors Francisco, Juan, and Gonzalo Pizarro and laying claim to rights and grants due their descendants. "In order to hide this intention he cleverly included in his work biographies of other prominent discoverers such as Columbus, who by then was almost forgotten, Hernán Cortés, Alonso de Ojeda, and Diego García de Paredes. All the biographies are written in the same elevated tone of admiration, the narration being constantly enhanced with numerous erudite notes and comments in which the deeds of the subjects are favorably compared to those achieved by the great heroes of antiquity

A fine mid-17th- century biographical compendium, providing extensive information about several key figures in the discovery and conquest of Spanish America. Sabin 63189. Palau 227687. $10,000

18th Century French Funerary Architecture
With 31 Full-Page & 9 Folding Plates
Of Funerary Architecture

Recueil de Descriptions des Pompes Funebres, Faites en l’Eglise de Notre-Dame de Paris, & dans celle de l’Abbaye Royale de S. Denis, depuis l’Annee 1760, jusqu’en 1774. De l’Imprimerie de P.R.C. Ballard, seul Imprimeur,pour la Musique de la Chambre, Menus, Plaisirs du Roi, & d Monseigneur le Comte d’Artois, rue des Mathurins. 1774. Very good in original full leather; raised bands and gilt decorations in spine panels. Quarto. Gilt dentelle; marbled endpapers. Descriptions of the mausoleums and catafalques of:
Ferdinand VI and Marie de Portugal (1760)
Louise Elisabeth de France (1760)
Louis-Joseph Xavier de France (1761)
Marie-Amelie de Saxe, Reine d’Espagne (1761)
Louis, Dauphin de France (1766—3 plates);
Philippe de Bourbon (1766—3 plates)
Stanislas Leszczynski, Roi de Pologne (1766—3 plates)
Princesse Elisabeth Farneze (1766—3 plates)
Marie Josephe Albertine de Saxe, Dauphone de France (1767—4 plates)
Marie-Charlotte Leszczynska, Reine de France (1768--8 plates)
Charles Emmanuel III, Roi de Sardaigne, Duc de Savoye. 3 folding and 1 full-page plate.
Louis XV, Roi de France & Navarre (1774) 6 folding, 3 full-page plates

With 31 full-page and 9 fold-out engraved plates of funerary architecture including elevations and plans of mausoleums and catafalques (ornate platforms used to display a coffin during a funeral). Possibly lacking one plate in the section on Louis XV’s funeral. Beautifully printed; each section with separate title page, decorative initial and elaborate engraved head-piece. $4,000

Giunta Edition of 1522
With 140 Woodcuts

Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus. De Architectura libri decem…additis, I. Frontini de aqueductibus. Edited by Giovanni Giocondo. Florence: heirs of Filippo Giunta, November 1522. 2 parts in one octavo volume. Very good in a contemporary vellum binding, with hand-lettered spine. Page edges red.. Woodcut printer’s pictorial device on title and verso of last leaf; 140 woodcut illustrations including floor plans, elevations, architectural details such as columns, and construction details of masonry and carpentry. 19th century bookplate of English antiquarian Eliot Hodgrin. A new, corrected typesetting, in italic, of the 1413 Giunta edition, edited by the Dominican friar Giovanni Giocondo of Verona (1435-1515), an important figure among early Renaissance antiquaries. Vitruvius’ work is followed by Julius Frontinus’ De aqaedictibus urbis Romae, “ouvrage d’une grande utilite pour la connaissance de l’architecture ancienne” (Hoefer XVIII, 913). $8,500

African-American Poet James Weldon Johnson’s
Translation of the Opera Goyescas
First Performed at the Metropolitan Opera, 1916

[James Weldon Johnson]. Granados y Campina, Enrique & Fernando Periquet y Zuaznabar. Goyescas, An Opera in Three Tableaux. English Version by James Weldon Johnson. New York: G. Schirmer, 1915. From G. Schirmer’s Collection of Opera-Librettos. 42 pp. Very good in original decorative wraps. Johnson had great success as a lyricist early in the century but found that tastes had changed when he attempted a return to songwriting in 1914. He did successfully translate the libretto for this opera which the Metropolitan Opera performed in 1916. Granados, the composer of the piano pieces from which this opera was adapted, attended the premiere but drowned on his return trip to Europe. when a submarine torpedoed his boat. Rare. $850

Incunabulum – Bologne, 1499
Greek & Latin Proverbs with Commentaries
Woodcut Printer’s Logo

Beroaldus, Philippus. Oratio proverbiorum. Bologne, Benedetto Hectoris, 1499. 27ff. Woodcut printer’s logo at rear. Very good in full blind-stamped calf. First edition with commentaries on Greek and Latin proverbs. Dedicated to Christhophorus Vaitimillus, a young Bohemian aristocrat and student of the author at the University of Bologne. In Latin with a few passages in Greek. Printed in Roman typeface, single column, with notes in margins.
$10,500