{"title":"Illustrated Wonders","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA rigorously assembled selection of antiquarian books documenting the visual culture of the early modern period. This collection features foundational emblem books, isolarii, and artistic treatises distinguished by exceptional woodcuts and copperplate engravings. From the rigorous geometry of Renaissance proportion to the elaborate allegories of humanist thought, these volumes trace the evolution of the illustrated book. A curatorial view of how early printings deployed visual marvels to map the world, codify art, and explore the limits of human imagination.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"cursus-theologicusfalse","title":"Cursus Theologicus","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrevi \u0026amp; Clara Methodo In Tres Partes \u0026amp; Sex Tomulos Early 18th-century vellum binding with curious provenance. Theological Course in a Brief and Clear Method, in Three Parts and Six Volumes Contemporary Vellum Koln (Coloniae Agrippinae) Joannis Schlebusch n\/a - sold as binding Binding in vellum, richly tooled in blind with floral motifs and ornaments, in part designed as strings of pearls. The central panels of both covers display a small decorative medallion. The binding was originally fitted with two clasps: one is still present and functional, the other is partially damaged. The edges are painted blue. From the very beginnings of book history, Bibles and sacred texts often bore splendid bindings: their covers, lavishly adorned, emphasized the importance of the content and were meant as acts of devotion.  For this reason, they were preserved in the church treasury rather than the library, considered part of the liturgical apparatus. Even sacred works intended for private use were frequently given elaborate bindings, executed with costly and precious materials. Such is the case of this binding in vellum, richly decorated and with partial clasps - with a curious provenance. An ex-libris and stamp read Bibliothek des Kapuzinerklosters Eichstätt, tracing the book’s provenance to the Capuchin monastery founded in the seventeenth century. There, the friars assembled a working library to support preaching, pastoral care, and study. Over time, the collection grew into a remarkable repository of theology, philosophy, history, and the natural sciences, reflecting both the order’s intellectual pursuits and the cultural currents of the region. Following the monastery’s closure in the twentieth century, stewardship of the library passed to the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. This volume is probably a survivor of the 2007 “incident” that provoked considerable controversy in Germany: it emerged that the University library had pulped 80 tons of books and journals, including roughly a quarter of the 300,000 volumes of philosophy and theology originally donated by chapuchin monasteries of Bavaria for inclusion in the University library’s collections. An inquiry commissioned by the Government of the Free State of Bavaria eventually concluded that no valuable works had been discarded or destroyed. The binding and story of trhis book mirror each other: on the outside, a vellum cover tooled with pearls, floral flourishes, and medallions, meant to proclaim devotion as much as to protect the text. On the inside, a provenance that carries it from Capuchin shelves to university vaults, narrowly surviving the great “book pulping scandal” of 2007. It is at once an artifact of faith, artistry, and controversy: a survivor with style.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46922137272555,"sku":"00012025000","price":250.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/025_001_bright.jpg?v=1758323876"},{"product_id":"east-of-the-sun-and-west-of-the-moon-old-tales-from-the-north-asbjornsen","title":"East Of The Sun And West Of The Moon. Old Tales From The North","description":"\u003cp\u003eA luminous blend of Norwegian folklore and jewel-like, sinuous Art Nouveau plates. Orignal Illustrated Cloth London Hodder \u0026amp; Stoughton Pp. xv, 284, [2]. Dark yellow fabric hard cover, with title at spine and illustration at front cover in blue and black. Spine partially damaged. Folio A4 missing (between title page and first page, probably white). Illustration on p. 19 misplaced at p. 21 - resulting in a blank page at 19, as issued by the publisher. 24 beautiful colored illustration (in the pagination) on free leaves glued to the respective papers manually. Many b\/w illustrations in the text, and decorative elements. A very subtle and uniform browning. Very beautiful copy. Reference: Grolier Children’s 100, 66. Richard Dalby, The Golden Age of Children’s Book Illustration, 2002. One of the great fairy tales of Northern Europe, East of the Sun and West of the Moon has enchanted readers for centuries with its blend of romance, adventure, and myth. Rooted in Norwegian folklore, it tells the story of a young girl who follows a white bear to a distant castle, discovers his hidden identity, and sets out on a perilous quest to rescue him, traveling - as the title suggests - to a land beyond imagination. This early 1920s edition is brought vividly to life through the luminous illustrations of Kay Nielsen, the celebrated Danish artist of the Golden Age of book illustration. Nielsen’s work, with its sinuous lines, jewel-like colors, and dreamlike Nordic atmosphere, gave the tale its definitive visual form and secured his reputation alongside Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. His plates for this story are among the most iconic of his career, marrying Art Nouveau elegance with a distinctly Scandinavian sense of wonder. First published in 1914, this beautiful volume has been reprinted many times up to the present day. Nielsen’s unique style and talent for combining the eerie and fantastic with beautiful decorative effect was at its peak with this set of illustrations (Dalby, p. 90).  A classic of fairy-tale literature and illustration history, this edition stands as both a testament to the enduring power of folklore and a showcase of Nielsen’s genius at the height of his career. This book feels like a fairy tale twice over: once in the story itself, and again in the way it’s illustrated. The moment you open it, you step into Nielsen’s jewel-like dreamscape, where every line curves like a spell and every color seems to glow from within. It is both a familiar and a strange experience: an old Norwegian tale made modern by one of the great illustrators of the Golden Age. Fairy tales survive, wander, and get retold- and sometimes, like this volume, they come down to us with their own story etched into their very pages.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46922137370859,"sku":"00012025000","price":580.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/028_005_bright.jpg?v=1758323890"},{"product_id":"le-cabinet-de-sainte-genevieve-molinet-ertinger-1692","title":"Le Cabinet de la Bibliotheque de Sainte Genevieve","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan data-sheets-root=\"1\"\u003eDivisé en deux parties. Contenant les antiquitez de la réligion des Chrétiens, des Egyptiens, \u0026amp; des Romains. (...) Des Animaux les plus rares (...), des Coquilles (...), des Fruit etrangers (...) 1692 First Edition The Cabinet of the Library of Saint Geneviève [1] frontispiece; [1] title-page; [1] Molinet's portrait. Pp. [6], 224, [8]; 45 table plates outside the pagination, including 4 double-page plates. Contemporary vellum, minor staining; inner hinge of the front cover slightly damaged, but solid. Ownership signature and very small stamp at the title page. 2 frontispieces, portrait of Molinet, and 45 plates, all fresh and crisp, with very wide margins. An excellent, well-preserved copy with superb and richly detailed engravings. Reference: Nissen ZBI 2861; Tchmerzine Livres figurés du XVII Siècle p. 143. 16 1\/2 x 11 x 1 3\/4 French Forty-five plates to document one of the first museums and libraries, still shimmering with Baroque wunderkammer flair. A sumptuous and richly illustrated description of the Cabinet de curiosités and library of the Abbey of Sainte Geneviève in Paris; founded n the 6th century, it was one of the earliest Parisian cabinets that blended erudition, material culture, and library practice, placing Sainte-Geneviève among the great centers of learning before the Revolution. It is today across the square from the Panthéon, administered by La Sorbonne. During the Mediaeval ages the Library was already famous throughout Europe; after some difficult times during the Wars of Religions, the library was brought back to life beginning in 1619, during the reign of Louis XIII, by Cardinal Francois de Rochefoucauld, who donated six hundred volumes from his personal collection. In 1673, Claude Du Molinet became librarian and founded a small museum, the Cabinet of Curiosities, with Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, medals, rare minerals and stuffed animals, within the library. By 1687 the library possessed twenty thousand books, and four hundred manuscripts. This volume, curated by Du Molinet himself, represents one of the most important testimonies to early modern collecting and the origins of museography. The first part of the volume is devoted to antiquities, while the second focuses on natural history. It presents a comprehensive survey of the abbey’s holdings. The plates, engraved in fine taille-douce by Franz Ertinger, depict the grand library and its cabinets filled with rare birds, fossils, coral branches, medals, engraved stones, minerals, and other marvels. The preface emphasizes the collection’s demonstrative, pedagogical, and scientific purpose, with several objects originating from the celebrated collection of the scholar Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. Through its rigorous organization and didactic presentation, this work stands as a milestone in the history of collecting and museum studies. The Cabinet de la Bibliothèque de Sainte-Geneviève is one of the most visually sumptuous monuments of early modern scholarship. Its engravings by Franz Ertinger form a veritable museum on paper, chronicling the breadth of human curiosity at the end of the seventeenth century. Each image, both scientific and poetic, reveals the meticulous arrangement of Claude Du Molinet’s cabinet de curiosités, a harmonious dialogue between art, faith, and natural philosophy. Among the most impressive plates, the first seven (many in double-page format) offer panoramic views of the library and museum as they appeared: breathtaking galleries lined with bookshelves; cabinets of antiquities, specimens, and curiosities; every object placed with intention, every species rendered with accuracy and grace, reflecting both scientific observation and Baroque wonder. A total of forty-five copperplate engravings methodically explains the collections of Sainte-Geneviève, including medals and hundreds of ancient coins; antiquities and religious objects; exotic marvels such as a lizard from Brazil, the horns of rhinoceros, giraffe, and “unicorn,” a mandrake root shaped like a human figure, a so-called “mermaid’s hand,” and fossilized shells and corals, together with rare birds, fish, shells, and coral branches. Each plate is both an artwork and an intellectual map, a microcosm of the universal order Molinet sought to represent. Claude Du Molinet (1620-1687). French historian, antiquarian, and librarian, especially renowned for his historical and numismatic knowledge. He was the official librarian of the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève from 1675 to 1687; he published a few works, but left above all a large number of manuscripts, most of which are currently kept in the reserve collection of the Sainte-Geneviève library. His masterpiece, The Cabinet of the Library of Sainte Geneviève, is a landmark work documenting one of the earliest museums of art, nature, and science, uniting faith and curiosity in the Baroque age. A paper museum of Baroque wonder? Yes please. Molinet’s cabinet turns curiosity into museography: unicorn horns, mandrakes, strange birds and fish, Egyptian relics, classical ruins, fossils, and minerals all staged with theatrical poise - and with the same earnest seriousness. A seventeenth-century world tour in engravings, plus a few enchanting panoramic views of a four-centuries-old library: we can't resist.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Fenice Antiquaria LLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47138687451371,"sku":"69-1692--5800-3046-2025","price":5800.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/069_010_41999057-fd2b-4324-b92c-0ac5719e5422.jpg?v=1764641468"},{"product_id":"presuhn-decorations-murales-pompei-1878","title":"Les décorations murales de Pompéi; with Choix des plus belles et intéressantes peintures de Pompéi","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis magnificent volume represent one of the most important 19th-century archaeological documentations of Pompeii’s wall paintings. Émile Presuhn, a German archaeologist who lived in Italy for eight years, worked with local artists to produce exact chromolithographic copies of frescoes that in many cases have since been lost or severely deteriorated. Published by Weigel in Leipzig between 1878 and 1882, and printed by Ramboz et Schuchardt in Geneva, the work was conceived expressly for artists, industrial schools, and students of antiquity, as stated in its subtitle. The plates illustrate the full range of the four Pompeian decorative styles, from restrained geometric schemes (including the celebrated grottesche) to complex architectural fantasies populated with mythological figures, capturing both artistic quality and archaeological context.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47811296002283,"sku":"78-1878--2200-317-2025","price":2200.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/0078_IMG_6885.jpg?v=1771034492"},{"product_id":"verdizotti-giovanni-mario-cento-favole-morali-1577","title":"Cento favole morali","description":"\u003cp\u003eVerdizotti, a close associate and pupil of Titian, authored both the texts and the woodcut images for this rare but renowned collection of fables, which stands as a high point of Venetian Renaissance illustration. The volume brings together one hundred moral fables, each accompanied by its own xylographic table, drawn from ancient and more recent sources and uniting Aesopic narrative with Renaissance humanist ethics. Animals, mythological figures, and exemplary characters appear within carefully constructed landscapes that reflect the artist’s background. The work enjoyed wide circulation and lasting success, owing to both the appeal of the texts and the quality of the illustrations, and it continued to be reprinted into the later seventeenth century. The present third printing corresponds closely in form and content to the first edition of 1570 and the second of 1575.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47811296035051,"sku":"85-1577--3400-1946.23-2025","price":3400.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/0085_IMG_6849.jpg?v=1771135548"},{"product_id":"saint-aubin-art-du-brodeur-1770","title":"L'Art du Brodeur","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Art of the Embroiderer. 1770 First Edition Pp. [1], (4), 50, 10 plates, (2), [1] r.e. Paris Saillant \u0026amp; Nyon et Desaint Contemporary half calf, spine with seven raised bands, gilt title on a leather label; marbled boards; slight scuffing to the edges; some fading to the upper portion of the leather on both boards. Marbled endpapers. Bookplate to the upper pastedown of P.J.A. Morange. Gathering G browned. Woodcut headpieces and tailpieces. Fresh plates. A very good copy. A famous volume from the apogee of French decorative arts, in which Saint-Aubin codifies embroidery as a disciplined art and cultivated expression of an elevated lifestyle. In fact, the treatise forms part of a broader eighteenth-century effort, overseen by the Académie des Sciences, to codify the métiers of luxury.  L’Art du Brodeur unites historical reflection with technical precision, tracing the practice from antiquity to its most refined manifestations in the courts of Europe. Saint-Aubin advances embroidery as an art where balance, proportion, and harmony derive from the primacy of drawing. His reflections on materials and global traditions, from Chinese silk to the inventive transformation of natural substances, situate the craft within a broader testimony on human industry and ornament. The authority of the treatise is attested by its enduring reception: Emile Zola in Le Rêve draws extensively on Saint-Aubin’s work: its workshop scenes, vocabulary, and even compositional details closely modelled on the engravings and terminology of L’Art du Brodeur (source: the Voltaire Foundation). A comprehensive manual of techniques, encompassing relief embroidery both high and low, gold and silver thread applied over shaped supports, shaded gold, satin stitches in their traditional and modified forms, chain stitch, tambour, couching, knots, sequins, appliqué, and white work. These instructions occupy the first 31 pages and are followed by a vocabulary explaining the principal terms necessary to understand the art of embroidery (pp. 32–41), an explanation of the illustrative tables (pp. 42–50), and finally ten etchings, each composed of multiple detailed elements. The plates, executed by Augustin de Saint-Aubin, render tools, patterns, and procedures with notable clarity. The author, active within a family of embroiderers who rose from provincial origins to Parisian distinction, inherited a craft already dignified by royal patronage. His father held the title of Brodeur du Roi, and Charles-Germain himself enjoyed the favour of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour, adopting the designation Dessinateur du Roi pour la Broderie et la Dentelle. What is more delicate than embroidery, and more luxurious than the French court of the eighteen century? This manual marries technical precision with artistic beauty, documenting what the king and his court adored, and elevating craftsmen (and craftswomen) to celebrity status, so much so that even Émile Zola drew inspiration from it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48097442201835,"sku":"81-1770--870-460-2025","price":870.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/0081_IMG_7562copy2.jpg?v=1776294163"},{"product_id":"bocchi-symbolicarum-quaestionum-1574","title":"Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere","description":"\u003cp\u003eQuas serious ludebat, libri quinque. Emblems or Symbolic Questions, of different kinds, which the author played seriously, in five books. 1574 Second Edition Pp. [1] f.e., [48], CCCLVII, [1], [1] r.e. Bononiae (Bologna) Apud Societatem Typographiae Bononiensis Contemporary yapp binding in limp vellum, with a gilt double fillet border and foliate corner pieces to the boards; the smooth spine is divided by five double fillets enclosing four floral rosettes. Some expected rubbing to the edges and spine, particularly at head and foot. The title page bears a circular ink stamp ex-libris of Pasquale Oliva, 1976, and a second armorial ex-libris label of the Lamberti family with the motto \"Cosa fatta capo ha\"; a third ex-libris appears on the front pastedown, for Malesci, with the motto \"Silendo volo\", signed by the artist B. Bartoccini, 1990. A fresh, wide-margined, clean copy in excellent condition throughout. Achille Bocchi's Symbolicarum Quaestionum de Universo Genere is one of the most intellectually ambitious emblem books of the sixteenth century. First published in Bologna in 1555 at Bocchi's own Nova Academica Bocchiana press, the work appears here in its second and final edition of 1574 — the first publication issued by the newly founded Società Tipografica Bolognese. The title announces its programme through the phrase serio ludere — playing seriously — a humanist ideal in the spirit of Horace's Ars Poetica, placing the work within a tradition that includes Erasmus's Adagia and the emblem literature inaugurated by Alciati's Emblemata of 1531. Bocchi's relation to Alciati was one of intellectual kinship: the Syntagma index records at p. 87 the dedication Ad Andream Alciatum amicorum optimum - to Andrea Alciati, best of friends - an explicit homage to the founder of the genre embedded within the body of the work itself. Symbolic literature is treated here not as light diversion but as a vehicle for theology, philosophy, moral inquiry, and philology, structured across four formal classes as the Syntagma makes clear. The visual programme is equally distinguished. The 151 full-page copperplate engravings were executed by Giulio Bonasone after designs principally by Prospero Fontana, with some attributed to Parmigianino. Bonasone, who is believed to have trained with Marcantonio Raimondi, brought to the plates a formal elegance well suited to Bocchi's allegorical register. For this 1574 edition, the plates were retouched throughout by Agostino Carracci — then seventeen years old and at the very beginning of his career as an engraver — who also appears to have newly engraved plate I in copper, replacing the woodcut that had served in the 1555 printing. The occurrence of first and second states varies from copy to copy, making precise collation complex, as noted by Ruth Mortimer. A further biographical thread connects the artists: Prospero Fontana, who provided the majority of the designs, later opened the Bolognese painting school attended by the young Carracci cousins, making the Symbolicarum Quaestionum a small but telling document in the formation of that tradition. The work comprises five books and 151 emblems, each furnished with a Latin or Greek title, an individual dedication, a verse epigram, and a full-page copperplate illustration. The complete scholarly apparatus is present in this copy, including the Syntagma — a thematic index distributing all 151 emblems across four classes: theological and metaphysical emblems; natural philosophy; ethics, governance, and exemplary conduct; rhetoric, dialectic, and language. Greek formulae pervade the scholarly apparatus, and the four-class structure draws on Aristotelian categories, while the emblems themselves engage extensively with mythographic and Neoplatonic traditions (the two strands running in productive parallel rather than strict philosophical alignment, in a manner typical of the Bolognese university milieu). The dedicatees map the intellectual geography of mid-sixteenth-century Italy: Cosimo I de' Medici receives the opening emblem Sapientiae species inenarrabilis; other dedicatees include Andrea Alciato, Farnese and Sforza family members, alongside civic emblems such as the city of Bologna. Among the most visually pleasing images are the moral ones, addressing governance, avarice, patience, ambition, and military virtue alongside classical exempla. A work of exceptional scholarly completeness, representing one of the summits of the Renaissance emblem tradition in its most refined printed form. Humanist gems on paper: Bocchi turns theology, myth, and philosophy into emblems, while Parmigianino and a teenage Agostino Carracci show their mastery on some plates, engraved by Giulio Bonasone on designs by Fontana.  Serious play (quoting the title page), and utterly our weakness.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48097442234603,"sku":"83-1574--2100-1470-46109.7256944444","price":2100.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/0083_IMG_7363copy.jpg?v=1776195748"}],"url":"https:\/\/fenicebooks.com\/en-kr\/collections\/illustrated-wonders.oembed","provider":"La Fenice Antiquaria","version":"1.0","type":"link"}