The October 17 Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale focused largely on early printed medical, scientific and travel books but also included, at $24,000 (£18,180), a first edition in Greek of the works of Herodotus.
Translated by Lorenzo Villa and edited by Aldus Manutius, this copy of a work published at the latter’s Venetian press in 1502 was in an 18th century calf gilt binding bearing the arms of a Venetian Doge, Mario Foscarini.
Sold for $9000 (£6820) was a first American edition of Nicholas Culpeper’s Pharmacopoeia Londinensis; or, The London Dispensatory.