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Islamic Culture

Eyewitness account of the bombing of Algiers in 1688

ESPINOSA, Antonio de. Copia de una carta que ha escrito desde la ciudad de Argel el padre procurador Fray Antonio de Espinosa, religioso calzado del Orden de la Santissima Trinidad, redencion de cautivos, y administrador de los cinco reales hospitales, que su sagrada religion tiene en aquella ciudad.
(Colophon: Madrid, Sebastian de Armendariz), 12 October [1688]. Small 4to (19 x 14 cm). With a large woodcut initial with a parrot. Disbound. 6 ll. Full description
€ 2,500
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First edition of nearly all Euripides plays, in Aldus's best and last Greek, type:
Thomas More's fictional hero gave a copy to the Utopians in 1516!

EURIPIDES. [Title in Greek then Latin:] Tragoediae septendecim [recté octodecim], ex quib[us]. quaedam habent commentaria. & sunt hae. Hecuba[,] Orestes[,] Phoenissae[,] Medea[,] Hippolytus[,] Alcestis[,] Andromache[,] Supplices[,] Iphigenia in Aulide[,] Iphigenia in Tauris[,] Rhesus[,] Troades[,] Bacchae[,] Cyclops[,] Heraclide[,] Helena[,] Ion[, Hercules furens].
(Colophon to each volume: Venice, Aldus Manutius, February 1503). 2 volumes. 8vo. With Aldus's anchor device on the last page of each volume, printed in Aldus's beautiful Greek type.Matching limp vellum (made from 2 leaves from a ca. 1560/70? Spanish legal manuscript), constructed or reconstructed ca. 1900. [268]; [190] ll. Full description
€ 40,000
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Notorious forged binding, gold-tooled with Ottoman imagery painted red, white and green on dark brown

FLORUS, Lucius Annaeus. [Epitome rerum Romanarum].
Leiden, Adriaen Wijngaerden (colophon: printed by Philippe de Croy), 1648. 8vo (18 x 12 x 3 cm). With an engraved allegorical title-page by Cornelius van Dalen. Contemporary or near-contemporary calf. The decoration on the binding is believed to have been executed in Bologna ca. 1880/1900 by a group of forgers: each board with the same scene, showing 2 women in Ottoman costume, one kneeling to play a qanun (Turkish zither) at left and the other perhaps dancing at right, framed by drapery as though on a stage, with a crescent moon and 5-pointed star in each corner and the name "IBRAHIM" at upper left, the whole in a frame of double fillets. The figures' skin is painted white and the clothes and drapery red and green. The crescent moon and star repeat in spine compartments 1 and 3-5. [32], “595” [= 535], [69], [4 blank] pp. including the integral engraved title-page. Full description
€ 28,500
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The standard handbook on geomancy, a divination system with Arabian origins, including a 12th-century translation of a work by the Arab Alfakini, published here for the first time

FLUDD, Robert, Henri de PISIS and ALFAKINI. Fasciculus geomanticus, in quo varia variorum opera geomantica continentur.
"Verona" [= Frankfurt am Main], 1687.
With: (2) Tabulae geomanticae, seu liber singularis de tribus ultimis ex antiquo manuscripto de anno MDXXXV. Iam primo luci datus, annexis duabus tabellis huic studio mirè inservientibus, caeteroquin utilibus & jucundis.
Frankfurt am Main, Johann David Zunner, 1693.
2 works in 1 volume (with ad 1 bound after ad 2). 8vo. Ad 1 with title-page printed in red and black, 5 (of 6) large folding letterpress tables, 1 double-page engraved folding plate with 2 engraved illustrations, and some woodcut illustrations and numerous letterpress geomantic figures in text. Ad 2 with 2 letterpress folding tables following text, and nearly 200 pages of letterpress tables with geomantic figures. Contemporary overlapping vellum, with the manuscript title on the spine. 647, [1 blank]; 197, [1 blank] pp. Full description
€ 4,500
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The first world chronicle to include bio-bibliographies of Arab scholars

FORESTI DE BERGAMO, Jacobus Philippus. Supplementum chronicarum.
Brescia, Boninus de Boninis, 1. XII. 1485. Small folio (21 x 31 cm). Double rules along inner margins of text and between table columns, rubricated throughout. Contemporary richly blind-tooled vellum over wooden boards, bound in the monastic shop of the Würzburg Benedictines, two clasps. [1 blank], [18], [1 blank], [3], 358, [1] ll. Full description
€ 65,000
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No more than 16 piastres for a litre of wine

[FRENCH MANDATE FOR SYRIA AND THE LEBANON]. Recueil des Arrêtés et Décisions de la Z. O. (24 Octobre 1918 - 31 Août 1920). Interessant toutes les branches de lAdministration: Administration Civils, Justice, Finances, Hygiène Publique, Agriculture, Douanes.
Beirut, Impimerie des Lettres J. G., 1924. 8vo. Original printed wrappers. 188 pp., 2 final blank leaves. Full description
€ 1,500
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"one of the most renowned nineteenth-century photobooks"

FRITH, Francis. Egypt and Palestine. Photographed and described.
London, James S. Virtue, [1858-1859]. 2 volumes. Folio (44.5 x 32.5 cm). With 76 photographs on plates by Francis Frith (ca. 14.5-16.5 x 21.5-23 cm), each with a separate leaf of text. Contemporary red morocco, gold-tooled spines and boards, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Full description
€ 40,000
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