Leo Cadogan Rare Books

Leo Cadogan Rare Books Ltd specialises in unusual or iconic items - books, manuscripts, broadsides or pamphlets - from the cultural and intellectual life of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods.

©Tom Miller

About

Leo Cadogan Rare Books Ltd specialises in unusual or iconic items - books, manuscripts, broadsides or pamphlets - from the cultural and intellectual life of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. The business was established in 2007. Leo Cadogan (owner) entered the book trade straight out of university, in 1997. Before setting up on his own, he worked for two of London's finest antiquarian firms, and was manager of the antiquarian department of an important London bookshop. He also took time to do postgraduate studies in the Renaissance, gaining an MA and a reading ability in medieval European law.

We are members of the UK's ABA (Antiquarian Booksellers' Association), the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), and the PBFA (the UK's Provincial Booksellers' Fairs Association). We abide by their codes of conduct and ethics, whose coverage includes the proper description of books.

For any queries, please get in touch.

Documents

Leo's lockdown list

Seventeen recently catalogued items to take you through the world, from sixteenth-century Mexico through to eighteenth-century Barcelona and the art churches of Antwerp.

Books, manuscripts and more for March 2020

All sorts of things await you in this new 47-item list!

BOOK OF THE MONTH

DOSSIER FOR MEXICO CITY'S FIRST WOMEN'S CONVENT

A dossier of papal briefs, bulls and privileges compiled between 1576 and 1588, for the Convent of Our Lady of the Conception, the first women's convent of Mexico City (founded 1540). Items from the archive of this important but now defunct institution are rare (we only know of one other outside Mexico, at the Library of Congress).

CHRISTINA THE ASTONISHING (CORDOBA, c.1740)

Very rare first Spanish edition of this life of the fascinating holy woman Christina the Astonishing (1150-1224), the book was written and published in Mexico by a Jesuit, but is here printed in the author's original hometown. Our copy was owned by a Cordoba cathedral and convent chaplain (later a canon) who according to another note in our book funded the edition. One modern commentator has noted of Christina, “a woman who three or four centuries later would have been burned as a witch, who nowadays might have been on medication, in an institution, or even living rough, in the Middle Ages moved from cows to castle, an honoured and valued member of the community”. It is very interesting to see the cult of this woman on both sides of the Atlantic, and also to learn how texts could move from the New World to Europe.

Gabriel Vaca, OFM, 'Libro Muy provechosso' (Valladolid 1553)

Rare book of sermons for Lent, written on a medical theme. The illustrated title-page shows an early Spanish example of colour-perking, where a colour has been overprinted via tone blocks.

LECTURES BY AN ENGLISH JESUIT IN PERUGIA

Illustrated student notes on lectures on Aristotle's 'Physics', given in Perugia, 1647 by John Simcocks, SJ (1609-1695), later a missionary to England, probable author of a controversial English-language printed work, and courtier to the exiled King James II in Saint-Germain.

BOTANICAL MANUSCRIPT WITH ENTRIES OR HEADINGS FOR 3551 DIFFERENT PLANTS

A nine-volume manuscript, dating from the earlier nineteenth century.

A RARE COLLECTION OF LETTERS ON ALCHEMY

Francesco Onofrio di Marsciano, 'Clavis arcis Hermetis' ([Cologne] [c.1743]).

WORKING COPY OF A 16th-CENTURY SCHOLAR

A copy of Aristophanes' plays, printed in Florence, 1525, owned and annotated by the Greek scholar Johann Hartung (1505-1579).

[Duhan, Laurent:] Brevis Introductio ad phisicam

Illustrated lecture notes from the university of Paris, 1701, covering classes on physics by Laurent Duhan (1656-1726), the author of the popular textbook 'Philosophus in utramque partem'.

After Antonio Tempesta, 'Twelve Emperors on Horseback'

An unlocated set of twelve prints (five featured in this photograph), of the first twelve Caesars on horseback, after the famous and influential series by Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630).

“The ‘Twelve Emperors on Horseback’ issued in 1596 are among the most successful and influential prints that Tempesta ever produced. The impact of the series can be gathered not only from numerous engraved copies, but also from pictures of rulers and noblemen on horseback by Rubens, Van Dyck, Zurbarán, Velazquez and many others that were produced throughout the Baroque age. Even Jacques-Louis David’s painting ‘Napoleon at St. Bernard’ is indebted to the visual standards of representing supreme rulership which Tempesta created and diffused in these etchings [...]” (Eckhard Leuschner, Introduction to the series in The Illustrated Bartsch 35/2, p. 153).

IMPORTANT TEXT IN SPANISH BOOK TRADE HISTORY

[Spain. Book trade] [Gonzalez de Ribero, Blas:]

Señor. Los libreros de los reynos de Castilla y Leon, por si, en nombre de los hombres doctos della, professores de todas ciencias, curiosos de saber, y de tener en varia leccion, y erudicion entretenido el tiempo, postrados à los Reales pies, con humildad debida, valiendose de las leyes Reales [...]
[n.pl.] [n.pr.] [c. 1636].

Folio, fols. 4. Woodcut first initial. Some spotting and soiling, especially to first page, a good copy, stab holes but no evidence of glue at spine, in modern vellum boards, MS note to p. 1, “No. 138”.

Lawyer’s plea on behalf of the booksellers of Castile and Leon, against the extension of a sales tax (‘alcabala’) to books. An interesting economic text, the author carefully sets out the parlous state of the contemporary trade.