First edition of a suite of prints reproducing a sylloge of inscriptions and monumenta sepulchralia, compiled by a Silesian nobleman, Siegfried Ribisch (1530-1584), during his ten-year peregrinatio academica across Europe (1545-1554). A remarkable and highly desirable copy: fabric bindings of the sixteenth century are now seldom encountered on the market.
First edition of Selden’s description of twenty-nine Greek and ten Latin inscribed stones in the collection of Thomas Howard, second Earl of Arundel (1586-1646). These had been acquired by Arundel from an agent in Symrna in 1626-1627, in competition with the Provençal scholar Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. Selden’s book, prepared with help from the royal librarian Patrick Young (Junius) and Richard James (Cotton's librarian), spread the fame of the collection throughout learned Europe.
First printing of a discussion and interpretation of about one thousand Greek abbreviations for words and numerals, compiled to correct and augment deficiencies in the Graecorum siglae lapidariae published in 1746 by Francesco Scipione Maffei. This copy is from the library of the theologian Lüder Kulenkamp (1724-1794), whose library was sold at auction in Göttingen, May 1796 (lot 7402).
(28 × 28 cm), 72 pp., illustrations. Publisher’s pictorial wrappers. - Loan exhibition of objects chosen to show the evolution of written media. ¶ Light shelf wear.