53rd New York Antiquarian Book Fair!!
Spring in New York means it's time for the Antiquarian Book Fair. As usual the event proved as splendid as it was engaging, for both historians and sauvants of rare books, prints and maps from around the world.
Dealers from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom were among the biggest players as were so very many American rare book dealers.
The opening photo above came from the stunning booth of Les Trois Islets, a rare book dealer from France. The picture below shows a fabulous tome, The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendes Pinto, an Engish edition from London 1653. Earler Portuguese editions, not to mention Latin editions of this volume, are equally sought after. The dealer is Frederik Muller Rare Books of the Netherlands.
And if Mendes Pinto is not enough, Muller has quite many Jesuit maps and books relating to the Age of Discovery. For example, St. Francis Xavier, 52 missionary letters in Latin and published in Antwerp in 1657.
If the Law is your interest, there's the famous French Ordonnance de Louis XIV,
which lists the Colbert Reforms. The work dating from Paris in 1667, was the first in a long series of legislation by Jean-Baptiste Colbert whose grand reform programme "would provide a model for the enlightened despots of the next century." The book is being sold by Leo Cadogan of London, himself a sauvant of fine books and literature of ages past.
And yes, comparatively speaking, there are more modern selections...
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