Gonnelli Casa d’Aste
BOOKS, AUTOGRAPHS AND MANUSCRIPTS
Florence, 6-7-8 October 2026
SESSION I
Tuesday 6 October at 2:00 pm CET
Autographs, Photographs and Ephemera, Manuscripts, Music, Orientalia
SESSION II
Wednesday 7 October at 10:00 am CET
Futurism, 20th-Century Books, The Golden Age of British Illustration, Art Books and Anastatics
SESSION III
Wednesday 7 October at 2:00 pm CET
Falconry, Hunting and Fishing, Playing Cards, Tarot and Divination,
Early and Rare Books Printed in Oriental Scripts,
Incunabula and Post-Incunabula
SESSION IV
Thursday 8 October at 10:00 am CET
Books Printed from the 16th to the 19th Century (Part I)
SESSION V
Thursday 8 October at 2:00 pm CET
Books Printed from the 16th to the 19th Century (Part II)
Gonnelli Casa d’Aste is pleased to announce the dates of its customary autumn auction dedicated to Books, Autographs and Manuscripts, which will be held from Tuesday 6 October to Thursday 8 October. Over the three days of the auction, 628 lots are offered for sale, divided into five sessions.
The first session, dedicated to Autographs, Photographs and Ephemera, Manuscripts, Music and Orientalia (lots 1-101), opens with the much-anticipated Photography section, featuring an album of extremely rare albumen photographs of Mecca and Medina, c. 1885-1888 (lot 2, starting bid €400), including several photographs by ‘Abd al-Ghaffār, the first Arab photographer of the Holy City of Islam, and Incontro Hitler Mussolini, a photographic report on Hitler’s visit to Mussolini in Florence in May 1938 (lot 9, starting bid €600).
Among the Autographs, highlights include the original manuscript of the two-act comedy Chi è cchiù felice 'e me?.. by Eduardo de Filippo, with an autograph inscription by Peppino de Filippo (lot 24, starting bid €1,500), a historical document from 1797 bearing Napoleon’s autograph signature (lot 46, starting bid €900), and an important letter from Alessandro Volta to Napoleon, written in 1812 (lot 55, starting bid €500).
The Manuscripts section is dominated by the Libro de giustitiati nella città di Ferrara. Manoscritto della Confraternita dei Battuti Neri della Morte, dated 1441-1717, an extraordinary illustrated testimony to the activities of the Confraternita della Morte (lot 61, starting bid €9,000), and by the splendid illuminated Antiphonarius, produced in the second half of the 15th century by master’s from northern Italy, with incredibly refined miniatures (lot 58, starting bid €4,500).
The Music section includes autographs by Verdi, Puccini, Callas, Khachaturian, Saint-Saëns and many others, as well as a manuscript collection of Sonate per violino e continuo from the first half of the 18th century, and a rare and enchanting 19th-century album devoted to the tarantella (lot 78, starting bid €800).
The Orientalia section boasts a fine selection of Judaica, with various manuscripts containing sections of the Torah and two Esther Scrolls. The outstanding Siddur of daily and festive prayers in Hebrew (possibly Ferrara), a 16th-century manuscript (lot 90, starting bid €1,200), takes pride of place. We also highlight other Persian, Ottoman and Ethiopian manuscripts, as well as two intriguing codices from the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
The second session is dedicated to Futurism, 20th-Century Books, The Golden Age of British Illustration, Art Books and Anastatics (lots 102-226). In the Futurism section, particular mention should be made of La veglia dei lestofanti. Commedia Jazz by Anton Giulio Bragaglia (lot 104, starting bid €360), a very rare first-edition booklet documenting the first Italian performance of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Also noteworthy is a substantial group of books by Marinetti, including a copy of the celebrated Zang Tumb Tuuum of 1914, with a signed dedication reading “FuturisMarinetti” (lot 116, starting bid €480).
The 20th-Century Books range from literature to theatre, travel books to illustrated volumes, with rarities such as Les arbres nains japonais, the first Western monograph devoted to the art of bonsai (lot 156, starting bid €900), and publications of great historical interest such as Beijing, 1959 (lot 135, starting bid €360), a superb commemorative photographic album devoted to Beijing, and the collection of issues of The Masses and The Liberator (1916-1918), two of the most influential journals of the early-20th-century American intellectual left (lot 149, starting bid €300).
The section devoted to the Golden Age of British illustration includes works by Aubrey Beardsley, William Timlin, Kay Nielsen, Edmund Dulac, Harry Clarke and Arthur Rackham, among which we highlight a copy of Le Morte Darthur from 1893-94, Beardsley’s first great masterpiece (lot 173, starting bid €400).
The session concludes with a group of fifty Art Books, led by Le Surréalisme en 1947 by Marcel Duchamp (lot 202, starting bid €2,600), the catalogue of the celebrated exhibition curated by Breton and Duchamp, and by Drawings for the Bible from 1960, the legendary double issue of the art magazine Verve featuring 24 splendid colour lithographs by Marc Chagall (lot 198, starting bid €1,200). Also noteworthy are Vecchia Auto from 1968, a renowned work by Buzzati, rarely found complete with the original engravings (lot 195, starting bid €600), an extraordinary artist’s book-object, a unique copy entirely hand-painted by Lucia Marcucci (lot 213, starting bid €1,500), and various books illustrated by Salvador Dalí, as well as works by Maria Lai, Asger Jorn and many others.
The third session includes four engaging sections: Falconry, Hunting and Fishing; Playing Cards, Tarot and Divination; Early and Rare Books Printed in Oriental Scripts; and the customary group of Incunabula and Post-Incunabula (lots 227-360). The Falconry, Hunting and Fishing section comprises more than 50 lots, including a complete and exceptionally wide-margined copy of one of the finest Renaissance collections of plates devoted to hunting: Jan Bol’s Venationis, piscationis, et aucupii typi in the extremely rare second edition (1582, lot 237, starting bid €3,500). In the Playing Cards, Tarot and Divination section, highlights include an example of Andrea Ghisi’s extraordinary “mentalist” game, the Laberinto (1616, lot 292, starting bid €5,500); an extremely rare, complete first edition (1540) of Le Sorti [...] intitolate Giardino di pensieri... by Francesco Marcolini, a bizarre Renaissance Book of Fortune (lot 294, starting bid €6,000); and a copy of the unobtainable edition of Triomphi... composti sopra li Terrocchi in laude delle famose gentil donne di Vinegia (1534) by Troilo Pomeran (lot 299, starting bid €1,500). In the section of Early and Rare Books Printed in Oriental Scripts, among the many elusive curiosities, the highlight is the Alphabetum tibetanum of 1759, the extremely rare first edition of the first printed treatise on the Tibetan language to appear in the West (lot 320, starting bid €2,400). Finally, the Incunabula and Post-Incunabula section features an extraordinary Valturio, De re militari (1483), formerly owned by Tammaro De Marinis and Raffaello Bertieri (lot 327, starting bid €15,000), and a fine complete copy of the 1500 edition of Ketham’s celebrated Fasciculus medicine (lot 335, starting bid €10,000).
The fourth and fifth sessions, dedicated to Books Printed from the 16th to the 19th Century (lots 361-628), feature numerous books on medicine and anatomy, including a second, complete and handsome copy of Ketham’s Fasciculus, dated 1522 (lot 358, starting bid €10,000); Casseri’s extraordinary De vocis auditusque organis historia anatomica (lot 434, starting bid €5,000); a copy of William Cheselden’s Osteographia, the finest and most spectacular atlas of bone anatomy of the 18th century (lot 440, starting bid €4,000); and a first edition of Andrea Vesalius from 1543 (lot 616, starting bid €6,000). There are also various works on astronomy and astrology, including two important works by Kepler: the Harmonices mundi libri V of 1619 (lot 512, starting bid €15,000), and the Tabulae Rudolphinae of 1627 (lot 513, starting bid €8,000), as well as a copy of the first lunar atlas featuring the earliest images of Mars, Francesco Fontana’s Novae cœlestium, terrestriumque rerum observations (1646) (lot 479, €10,000), and a copy of Redento Baranzano’s Uranoscopia, a work of pure astrology that supported the Copernican system (lot 402, €6,000). There are several travel books, including a small but fascinating section of Jesuit letters containing an unobtainable set of six works relating to travels in China, Japan, the East Indies and Africa between 1610 and 1614 (lot 606, starting bid €4,000); exceptional historical works such as Jacopo Strada’s Imperatorum Romanorum of 1559, a monumental and magnificently illustrated work and one of the greatest examples of Renaissance antiquarian and numismatic publishing (lot 594, starting bid €12,000); and the Traité d'amitié et de commerce, conclu entre les Roi et les États-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale, the extremely rare first treaty between the United States and a foreign country (lot 524, starting bid €4,000). As always, there are also curiosities for every taste and budget, such as Pierre Le Loyer’s IIII. livres des spectres ou apparitions et visions d'esprits, anges et demons of 1586, the first edition of a fundamental treatise devoted to spirits and demons, with a macabre note by the 19th-century spiritist Léon D'Ourches (lot 517, €1,200), and the extremely rare Russian edition of the lavish typographical masterpiece ISTORIYA I PAMYATNIKI VIZANTIISKOI EMALI (1892), describing the collection of Byzantine enamels of A.V. Zwenigorodsky, whose copies were intended for members of royal families and prominent figures throughout Europe and Asia, here complete with the author’s portrait, present in only some copies (lot 514, starting bid €5,000).
Viewing of the lots at our premises:
Wednesday 30 September - Saturday 3 October: 9:30 am-1:00 pm | 2:00-5:30 pm CET
Monday 5 October: 9:30 am-1:00 pm | 2:00-5:30 pm CET
For further information:
Gonnelli Casa d’Aste
Via Fra’ Giovanni Angelico 49 – 50121 Florence, Italy
Tel. +39 055 268279
www.gonnelli.it – segreteria@gonnelli.it
