Discover our catalogue of the upcoming Antique Books and Livres d'Artistes auction
Proud of the ever-increasing results from year to year and the new record of sales obtained in 2021 with more than € 1.5 million, the department of books and manuscripts opens the auction calendar with a proposal increasingly focused on sophisticated works and collectors' rarities.
Lot 29_Dante Alighieri
Commedia. Venice: Vindelino da Spira, 1477
Estimate: € 40,000 - 60,000
The selection proposed in this first appointment is still of the highest level, as we can see from the exquisite incunabula edition of Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia (estimate € 40,000 - 60,000) printed in 1477, which includes the first publication of Boccaccio's Vita di Dante, with a comment by Cristoforo Berardi from Pesaro. The excursus in different periods and sections winds among noteworthy authors such as the Ephemerides novissimae motuum coelestium by Cornelio Malvasia (estimate € 8,000 - 12,000), printed in 1662, notable for the presence of one of the first maps of the lunar surface made by the astronomer Geminiano Montanari.
Lot 216 Cornelio Malvasia; Geminiano Montanari
Ephemerides novissimae motuum coelestium
Modena: Cassiani, 1662
Estimate: € 8,000 - 12,000 
Lot 241 Vitruvio
De architectura libri dece. Translate by Cesare Cesariano (c.1478-1543)
Como: Gottardo da Ponte, 1521
Estimate: € 18,000 - 25,000
Among the illustrated books, the most outstanding is the Italian translation of Vitruvius' De Architectura (estimate € 18,000 - 25,000) printed in Como in 1521 with a comment by Cesare Cesariano, as well as the splendid atlases by Blaeu and Janssonius published in Amsterdam between 1640 and 1646. The first one includes all the then known world (estimate € 30,000 - 50,000), the second one is the first maritime atlas published in the Netherlands (estimate € 12,000 - 18,000).
Lot 156 Willem Blaeu, Joan Blaeu and Johannes Janssonius
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum sive Novus Atlas
Amsterdam: Blaeu (vols. 1-3) and Janssonius (vol. 4), 1644-1646
Estimate: € 30,000 - 50,000
In the artist's books section, remarkable is also the particular version of Romeo and Juliet by W. Shakespeare by Salvador Dalì (estimate € 25,000 - 35,000) - published by Rizzoli in 1975 - with a beautiful original gouache by the artist.
Lot 269_Salvador Dalì
William Shakespeare - Romeo e Giulietta
Milan: Rizzoli, 1975
Estimate: € 25,000 - 35,000