Printed books
Comparison is made with the same edition and, where this can be established, the same issue or state. Repeated listings of the same copy are counted only once.
Rare books · Manuscripts
The Reserve
The Reserve brings together FOLIA MUNDI’s most sought-after editions, manuscripts and sets. Each piece is chosen for its rarity, history and presence, then accompanied personally on its way to the next library. No sale is automatic.
4 itemsAdmission standard
One clear rule: fewer than six.
According to our review of principal public markets and the information available to us, a piece may enter The Reserve only when fewer than six comparable copies, sets or pieces are currently circulating. Scarcity must also be matched by genuine bibliographical, historical, aesthetic or provenance interest.
Coherent sets
The volumes must form a bibliographically or historically coherent set. Comparison is made with equivalent groups, not with each volume taken separately.
Manuscripts
Comparison draws on manuscripts related by content, tradition, date, support and binding. Their individual characteristics complete that study.
FM 0001 · Available through The Reserve
Præadamitæ
A controversial seventeenth-century theological work in the first duodecimo issue, preserving its folding map of the Holy Land and several old provenance marks.
1655Elzevier issue
FM 0002 · Available through The Reserve · indivisible set
Three early Babar albums
The first three Babar stories in early French issues, preserved as a coherent family group and offered only as an indivisible set. A first-state Histoire de Babar from 1931 opens this vivid sequence of journey and coronation.
1931–1933Three large albums
FM 0003 · Available through The Reserve · condition documented
Substantial Ethiopian Christian manuscript
A substantial Ethiopian Christian manuscript written by hand on parchment, with black and red ink and a traditional leather-covered wooden-board binding.
18th–19th centuryParchment
FM 0005 · Available through The Reserve
L’Estat de l’Église
A substantial Protestant compilation printed at Bergen op Zoom, with a dedication to Maurice of Nassau and a local ownership inscription dated 1759.
1604–1605Bergen op Zoom