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Folio. Bound in 9 uniform magnificent late 19th century full green morocco bindings with gilt centrepieces, gilt lines to edges of boards and gilt line-frames to inside of boards. All edges gilt and all volumes signed W. Pratt. A lovely set, exquisitely and uniformly bound, magnificently restored in the most gentle and respectful of manners, of the entire original run of De Bry's "Great American Voyages" (supplied by extra variant copies of volumes IV and VIII), the magnificent work that is responsible for shaping the European image of the New World, inventing it in the minds of the masses. Presenting a broad view of European conquests in America and the first contact with the American Indians, De Bry's Great American Voyages represents the first attempt to introduce in Europe - and on a large scale - a pictorial image of the New World as a whole. With it, the first iconography of the American Indian had been created, and most Europeans glimpsed for the first time the wonders of the New World in the illustrations present here. For more than a century, the European view of the New World was dominated by the present work. Theodor de Bry himself published the first six parts (in German and Latin simultaneously), and after his death, his widow and his two sons issued the three following parts. "It appears that they intended to stop there" (Sabin III, 20). However, 17 years later, Johann Theodor decided to publish another three volumes (1619-24). These are not present here. The present set is a mix of the German and Latin volumes (which appeared simultaneously), and as always in a mix of editions and issues. Due to the great scarcity as well as the complex bibliographical nature of "The Great American Voyages", no sets of this great work are said to be alike. They are always made up of different languages, editions, and issues, and there is said to be no such thing as a "complete set". Copies of sets are almost always in very poor condition. - Gentle washing, pressing, and a few restorations; some maps neatly mounted, 2 maps supplied in facsimile (being the map in both copies of vol. VIII, which is not always present and thus technically not lacking), and a few leaves supposedly supplied from other copies. Occasional slight cropping. All in all a very handsome and well preserved copy. - With the bookplate of John Jay Paul (dated 1913 and 1914) to each volume, and each volume with a tipped-in manuscript note describing issue points and/or the main restoration work (one dated 1919).

First edition. PMM 129 - THE INVENTION OF ANALYTIC GEOMETRY. First edition, a fine, large copy, of Descartes' first and most famous work. Following the Discours, now celebrated as one of the canonical texts of Western philosophy, are three 'Essais', the last of which, La Géométrie, contains the birth of analytical or co-ordinate geometry, "of epoch-making importance" (Cajori, History of Mathematics, p. 174), designated by John Stuart Mill as "the greatest single step ever made in the progress of the exact sciences". It "rendered possible the later achievements of seventeenth-century mathematical physics" (Hall, Nature and nature's laws (1970), p. 91). The first of the Essais, La Dioptrique, contains Descartes' discovery of 'Snell's law' of refraction of light (earlier than Snell); the second, Les Météores, contains Descartes' explanation of the rainbow, based on the optical theories developed in the first Essai. "It is no exaggeration to say that Descartes was the first of modern philosophers and one of the first modern scientists; in both branches of learning his influence has been vast . The revolution he caused can be most easily found in his reassertion of the principle (lost in the middle ages) that knowledge, if it is to have any value, must be intelligence and not erudition. His application of modern algebraic arithmetic to ancient geometry created the analytical geometry which is the basis of the post-Euclidean development of that science. His statement of the elementary laws of matter and movement in the physical universe, the theory of vortices, and many other speculations threw light on every branch of science from optics to biology. Not least may be remarked his discussion of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood, the first mention of it by a prominent foreign scholar. All this found its starting point in the 'Discourse on the Method for Proper Reasoning and Investigating Truth in the Sciences'. Descartes's purpose is to find the simple indestructible proposition which gives to the universe and thought their order and system. Three points are made: the truth of thought, when thought is true to itself (thus cogito, ergo, sum), the inevitable elevation of its partial state in our finite consciousness to its full state in the infinite existence of God, and the ultimate reduction of the material universe to extension and local movement" (PMM). Provenance: Lessing J. Rosenwald (small morocco monogram bookplate); given to the Library of Congress (bookplate and duplicate stamp); Richard Green (Christie's NY, 17 June 2008, The Richard Green Library, lot 87, $116,500). In October 1629 Descartes began work on The World, which included not only his Treatise on Light, first published as Le Monde in 1664, and the Treatise on Man, first published two years earlier as Renatus Descartes de Homine, but also the material on the formation of colours in the Meteors and the material on geometrical optics in the Dioptrics, both subsequently published in 1637 along with the Discourse and the Geometry. Descartes sets out the details of the treatise he was working on from mid-1629 to 1633 in part 5 of the Discourse: "I tried to explain the principles in a Treatise which certain considerations prevented me from publishing, and I know of no better way of making them known than to set out here briefly what it contained. I had as my aim to include in it everything that I thought I knew before I wrote it about the nature of material things. But just as painters, not being able to represent all the different sides of a body equally well on a flat canvas, choose one of the main ones and set it facing the light, and shade the others so as to make them stand out only when viewed from the perspective of the chosen side; so too, fearing that I could not put everything I had in mind in my discourse, I undertook to expound fully only what I knew about light. Then, as the opportunity arose, I added something about the Sun and the fixed stars, because almost all of it comes from them; the heavens, because they transmit it; the planets, comets, and the earth, because they reflect light; and especially bodies on the earth, because they are coloured, or transparent, or luminous; and finally about man, because he observes these bodies" (quoted in Gaukroger (ed.), Rene Descartes: The World and Other Writings, p. xi). But The World was never published in Descartes' lifetime. "During the years immediately following the condemnation of Galileo, Descartes held fast to his initial view that the cardinals had made a mistake, though one that was potentially dangerous for himself. His fundamental idea was that the decision involved a misunderstanding of the role of the Bible as a source of scientific knowledge. He also argued that he was not bound to accept the Roman decision as a matter of faith, and he hoped that it would be reversed in due course so that he could publish his World without fear of censure. He had to concede, however, that as long as there was no change of mind about Galileo by the church, the World would remain 'out of season' . In these circumstances, the next-best option was to consider ways in which parts of his work that were not theologically sensitive could be released to the public. Accordingly, during the years from 1633 to 1637, Descartes spent most of his time on this project. His efforts came to fruition with the publication of the Discourse on the Method for Guiding one's Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences, together with the Dioptrics, the Meteors, and the Geometry, which are samples of this Method (1637) . [It] omitted what Descartes called the 'foundations of my physics', that is, the controversial view of the universe that included heliocentrism. He offered instead some examples of the results that one could expect from his basic theory when applied to specific areas such as dioptrics. For good measure, he made sure that the book appeared anonymously. "The standard practice among scholars.

Hardcover. Etat : Fine. 1st Edition. 4 volumes. Folio (21 4/8 x 14 inches). Letterpress title-pages, two printed in red and black and with small engraved vignettes, letterpress in volume one ruled in red throughout. Fine engraved portrait of Charles II, engraved by R. White, in volume one by (laid down on heavier stock at an early date) and double-engraved plate of Laplanders by F. van den Houe with magnificent original hand-colour in full, 3 further folding plates and 166 double-page maps of the world by John Seller and Janssonius and Northern Europe, all with original hand-colour in part, the cartouches with original hand-colour in full, those in volume one occasionally HEIGHTENED IN GOLD and gum arabic, all cartouches and other fine details in volume IV HEIGHTENED IN GOLD and gum arabic, all maps in this volume ruled in red (world map by Seller trimmed and laid down on heavier stock, volume one without map 35 'Ducatus Stomariae' and 40 'Regni Norvegiae'; map 35 in volume II 'Marchia Vetus' trimmed and laid down on heavier stock; volume III with maps 'Totius Sveviae', 'Walachia' and 'Iuliacensis Ducatus' trimmed and laid down, without map 126 'Diocesis Leodeniensi' but with additional map 'Oldenburg'; volume IV lacking map 141 'Fossa Eugeniana' but with additional map 'Namurcum Comitatus'). Fine contemporary blind paneled smooth and mottled calf, the spines in 8 compartments with 7 raised bands, one lettered in gilt, the others decorated with fine gilt tools (expertly rebacked preserving the original backstrips, a bit rubbed). Provenance: with the engraved armorial bookplate of George Tollet Esq. (d. 1719), mathematician and naval administrator, on the verso of each title-page; with the engraved armorial bookplate of the Weston Library of the Earls of Bradford on each front paste-down. First edition. The two world maps are John Seller's "Novissima Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula." (Shirley 460) and Pieter van den Keere's "Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula" in the revised Janssonius, post 1620, state (Shirley 504) with a dedication to the Bishop of Oxford in the upper left. The map of the North Pole is Janssonius's "Nova et accurata Poli Arctici" and not that of Moses Pitt. The remaining maps are of Northern and Eastern Europe, all based on Dutch cartography, as Pitt's intention had been to publish a mammoth atlas to rival that of Blaeu, "giving a reprise to many of the plates which Janssonius had acquired over the years, some of them going as far back as the stocks that were used for Mercator's Atlas" (Goss) . However, as with many grand publishing designs the venture faltered after only these four volumes. The maps in volume one, in addition to the world map, and that of the Arctic, are of Russia, Poland, and Scandinavia; volumes II and III are of the German Empire; and IV contains the Seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries, or Netherlands. Moses Pitt was neither a cartographer nor a scholar, yet in 1670 he undertook a project that came to be called 'The English Atlas'. Despite the seemingly difficult, if not unrealistic, task at hand--hardly mitigated by the paucity of skilled commercial cartographers in England--Pitt's endeavor was backed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, and his partners included the Dutch map publisher Jan Jansson and the Englishman Steven Stewart. Based on the concept of the Atlas Maior by Joan Blaeu ,Pitt's atlas was to consist of twelve volumes, but only four were completed (covering places "next to the North-pole," Muscovy, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries). Pitt had envisioned the project as a reissue of a Dutch atlas in "English guise"--in which existing Dutch maps would be repackaged with accompanying text in English--whereas his partners envisioned the printing of an atlas with entirely new maps. Such conflicts, along with economic factors and the overly ambitious nature of the project envisioned, eventually led to its demise. After only four parts. Atlas.

Hardcover. Etat : Fine. FIRST EDITION. [Bound with:] De circuli magnitudine inventa. Accedunt eiusdem problematum quorundam illustrium constructiones. Leiden: Elzevir, 1654 Quarto: II. (8), 71, (1) p. Collation: *4, A-I4 FIRST EDITION of Huygens' landmark work on Saturn bound with the FIRST EDITION of Huygens' work on the quadrature of the circle, "De circuli magnitudine inventa."(1654). Very fine copies in contemporary vellum with a very pale damp-stain to leading edge of a few leaves. First work with 11 engravings in the text, several woodcut diagrams, and 1 folding engraved plate. Vellum scuffed and marked with minor soiling. The first edition of Huygens' announcement of the discovery of the rings of Saturn and the planet's enormous moon, Titan. The work was preceded by a one-sentence anagram by planted by Huygens in Petrus Borel's "De vero telescopii inventore" (1655/56) to secure priority of his discovery. The title of the book reads "The System of Saturn, or On the matter of Saturn's remarkable appearance, and its satellite, the new planet." Around 1654 Huygens and his brother Constantijn devised a new and better way of grinding and polishing lenses. In early 1655, the Huygens brothers completed a telescope with an objective focal length of 377 cm. (twelve feet), an estimated ocular focal length of 7.5 cm, and a magnification of about 50. The original objective of this telescope (0.32 cm thick, 5.7 cm diameter) is now kept in the Museum Boerhaave at Leiden. The telescopes constructed by Huygens were the best and most powerful of his time. On 25 March 1655 he directed his telescope towards the planets, first to Venus and Mars, later to Jupiter and Saturn. "With the first telescope he and his brother had built, Huygens discovered, in March 1655, a satellite of Saturn, later named Titan. He determined its period of revolution to be about 16 days, and noted that the satellite moved in the same plane as the 'arms' of Saturn. Those extraordinary appendages of the planet had presented astronomers since Galileo with a serious problem of interpretation; Huygens solved these problems with the hypothesis that Saturn is surrounded by a ring. He arrived at this solution partly through the use of better observational equipment, but also by an acute argument based on the use of the Cartesian vortex (the whirl of celestial matter around a heavenly body supporting its satellites.)" Bos, DSB VI.604 The 'Systema Saturnium' also describes the observations of the Orion nebula, discovered by Huygens in 1656. "Although Galileo had observed the peculiar shape of the planet Saturn, it was the advanced telescope construction and observation of Huygens that led to a correct analysis of its changes. In 'Systema Saturnium' the rings and satellites of Saturn were described, also the explanation of their appearance and disappearance, and a micrometer used in making the observations." (Dibner, Heralds) "'Systema Saturnium' opens with the preface to Prince Leopold. In this preface Huygens declares that Saturn, its ring, and its satellite forms a system which supports the Copernican system of a heliocentric universe. The preface is followed by an encomium to Huygens by Nicolaas Heinsius and a poem on the Saturnian system by Huygens's brother Constantijn. The main text begins with descriptions of Huygens's telescopes and some of his early observations of other planets, stars, and the Great Nebula in Orion. Then his discussion turns to the discovery of Saturn's moon and the determination of its orbital period around Saturn. "On page 34, Huygens begins the discussion of the changing and unusual nature of Saturn's appearance. He discusses earlier observations of the planet going back to Galileo, notes how these observations suffered from the use of inadequate telescopes, and goes into some detail on the hypotheses of Hevelius, Roberval, and Hodierna. After arguing against these explanations, Huygens offers his theory of a thick solid ring circling Saturn at its equator and in equilibrium under Saturn's gravitational force. He then goes into detail about how the plane of the ring is tilted 20 degrees to the plane of Saturn's orbit and that the ring maintains a constant orientation as the planet orbits the Sun. This means that the ring's angle changes with respect to us and thus explained the varying appearance of Saturn. When the ring was edgewise to the Earth it would seem to practically disappear and then slowly the angle would change and the rings would open themselves back up to us. The book ends with Huygens's observations of all the planets and his calculations of their sizes in relation to the Sun." (Ronald Brashear) The Magnitude of the Circle: "In his first publication,'Theoremata de quadratura hyperboles, ellipses, et circuli', Huygens derived a relation between the quadrature and the center of gravity of segments of circles, ellipses, and hyperbolas. He applied this result to the quadratures of the hyperbola and the circle. In the'De circuli magnitudine inventa'(1654)he approximated the center of gravity of a segment of a circle by the center of the gravity of a segment of a parabola, and thus found an approximation of the quadrature; with this he was able to refine the inequalities between the area of the circle and those of the inscribed and circumscribed polygons used in the calculations of Ï . The same approximation with segments of the parabola, in the case of the hyperbola, yields a quick and simple method to calculate logarithms, a finding he explained before the Academy in 1666-1667."(DSB).

First edition in English of the defining and best-known manual for leadership, an influence on generations of rulers, the classical expression of the moral justification that the end justifies the means, and a refutation of centuries of Christian mirror-for-prince books which emphasized the primacy of truth, religion, and morality. Composed in Italian, The Prince was first distributed in manuscript in 1513 and first published in Rome in 1532. The Prince appears to have been banned from publication in England during the Elizabethan period, though translations circulated in manuscript. It was so controversial that it had to wait for over a century, and was the last of Machiavelli's great works to be published in English. Even then, the translator Edward Dacres found it politic to frame the book with moral reservations or "animadversions", though he did not allow them to seep into his text as did later translators Nevile and Farneworth; he also resisted more than they did the temptation to improve on Machiavelli's style by rhetorical embellishments. "Hitherto political speculation had tended to be a rhetorical exercise based on the implicit assumption of Church or Empire. Machiavelli founded the science of modern politics on the study of mankind. Politics was a science to be divorced entirely from ethics, and nothing must stand in the way of its machinery. Many of the remedies he proposed for the rescue of Italy were eventually applied. His concept of the qualities demanded from a ruler and the absolute need of a national militia came to fruition in the monarchies of the seventeenth century and their national armies" (PMM). Machiavelli viewed The Prince as an objective description of political reality. Because he viewed human nature as venal, grasping, and thoroughly self-serving, he suggested that ruthless cunning is appropriate to the conduct of government. Though admired for its incisive brilliance, the book also has been widely condemned as cynical and amoral, and "Machiavellian" has come to mean deceitful, unscrupulous, and manipulative. ESTC S111853; Printing and the Mind of Man 63 (first edition); STC 17168. Duodecimo (143 x 81 mm). Rebound to style in later sheep, neatly rebacked and relined. Housed in a brown cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. Title laid down and discreetly remargined with some loss to border supplied in skilful pen facsimile, small rust hole in margin of M12, minor peripheral paper flaw to N2 and O5 (the latter glancing text), a couple of light stains to fore edge. A very good copy.

London: by T[homas]: W[alkley?]: for H[umphrey]: Blunden, 1650 First Edition. Small 8vo. [157 x 93mm]. [1-7 (inc. engraved title)], 9-110 pp., with the final blank leaf. Emblematic engraved titlepage (a heart of flint struck by a thunderbolt from Heaven), with leaf of explanation in Latin verse opposite. Sidenote on B3r very slightly shaved (heavily cropped in most copies), text lightly browned, minor damp-stain to the inner margin of the first couple of leaves and later affecting the lower margins in a few places and extending further up the page from top to bottom towards the end. Contemporary plain sheepskin, covers with a double blind-ruled border, spine ruled in gilt, slight remains of an early red morocco label reading vertically ?[SAC]RED | [POEMS]?, pastedowns unstuck (upper joint repaired, headcaps renewed; lower joint, lower corners and edges slightly rubbed). In a maroon pull-off case by Riviere. Wing V125. A. F. Allison, Four Metaphysical Poets (Vaughan 8). Hayward, English Poetry, 81. Rare. ESTC records copies at British Library, Brecon Cathedral [this copy], Bodley, Worcester College Oxford (lacks G3-6; original sheep), National Library of Wales (William Cowper?s copy); Harvard (in green morocco by the Club Bindery, ex Hoe ? Hagen ? Jones - Chew), Illinois (first two leaves in facsimile), New York Public Library [false report], Princeton (Robert H. Taylor collection), Williams College, Yale (Tinker copy, without final blank, sidenote heavily cropped). The very rare first edition of Vaughan's important collection of poems. ?Here in hymns and songs and longer lyric verse, Vaughan represents moments in a realization of himself. Part by part, one straining often to reject another, some only loosely bound in place ? yet in their place ? an individual emerges from obscure fragments of his past through pathways of a search for love, knowledge, and peace. At the end the man stands whole and comprehended.? - Thomas O. Calhoun, Henry Vaughan: The Achievement of ?Silex Scintillans,? 1981, p. 18. This copy is larger than the Terry (?the finest copy in existence?) - Houghton ? The Garden - Pirie copy (Sotheby, New York, 3/12/2015, lot 813, $80,000 + premium, original sheep, spine repaired, ?sidenotes cropped on one leaf?) reported as 150 x 90mm) but, even so, the sidenote of B3r has been slightly shaved. The Maggs marked copy of the Bradley Martin sale catalogue (Sotheby, New York, 1/5/1990, lot 3291 (contemporary sheep, upper cover detached, ex Yates ? Bright ? Pershing ? Greenhill), $45,000 + premium) notes that it was ?rather badly? wormed. No other copies are recorded as sold on ABPC or Rare Book Hub since 1950 (Huth ? Harmsworth copy; rebound, sidenote and a few catchwords cropped). A poor copy, lacking the leaf of verses opposite the title and with damage to the engraved title was twice offered at Christie?s in 2017 but was unsold. ?Vaughan?s finest poetry was published in this rare volume. Its sales, however, were not large and unsold copies were re-issued with a second part in 1655.? (John Hayward). The 1655 reissue (with a cancel title, ?The second edition?, sold by Henry Crips and Lodowick Lloyd) is as rare. It has an extra 84-page section of new poems, the engraved title is replaced with a letterpress one, there is an added 11-page preface, ?The Authors Preface to the following Hymns,? in which he bemoans the secular verse of idle wits (including his own early suppressed attempts) dated from ?Newton by Usk, near Sketh-rock, Septem. 1654.? and a verse dedication to Jesus Christ. Leaves B2-3 are cancelled and replaced with a revised version of ?Isaacs Marriage? altering two lines on B2v and three on B3r which, referring to prayer as ?very strange stuffe wherewith to court thy lasse? and ?a Virgins native blush? must have been regretted by the author, and at the end is a 4-page ?Table? to both parts. Silex Scintillans [The Sparking Flint] is the second and greatest collection of verse by Henry Vaughan (1621-95), known as ?The Swan of Usk,? (?Olor Iscanus?) or ?The Silurist? as he termed himself after the River Usk or the Silures, the ancient tribe of his native south-east Wales. It was preceded by Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished (1646) and followed by Olor Iscanus (1651; reissued in 1679). The work of the Metaphysical Poets, as they were later termed, did not concur with later 17th and 18th Century poetical tastes - ?for they cannot be said to have imitated anything; they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operation of the intellect? (Samuel Johnson, Life of Abraham Cowley) - and they were little, if at all, reprinted until the 19th Century when, led by the Romantics, they were reappraised. None, though, suffered greater obscurity than Henry Vaughan, whose three collections of poems were not reprinted, even in his lifetime, until in 1847 the hymnwriter (?Abide with me?) The Rev. Henry Francis Lyte produced an edition of Silex Scintillans prefixed by a life of Vaughan which concluded: ?That he will ever become a thoroughly popular poet is scarcely to be expected in this age. But among those who can prize poetic thought, even when clad in a dress somewhat quaint and antiquated, who love to commune with a heart overflowing with religious ardour, and who do not value this the les, because it has been lighted at the earlier and purer fires of Christianity, and has caught a portion of their youthful glow, poems like these of Henry Vaughan will not want their readers, no will such readers be unthankful to have our Author and his Works introduced to their acquaintance.? Subsequently, Alexander B. Gosart edited Vaughan?s Works (4 vols. 1871) and Silex Scintillans was occasionally reprinted (Lyte?s edition was reprinted at Boston in 1856 and London in 1858 and 1883) and some his better-known poems began to appear in anthologies. A facsimile edition of the first issue of Silex Scintillans, with a preface by The Rev. Wi.

Hardcover. Etat : Very good. First. FIRST EDITION OF KEPLER'S OPTICS, WITH EXTENSIVE CONTEMPORARY ANNOTATIONS AND DIAGRAMS BY A HIGHLY-LEARNED SCIENTIST. First edition. Frankfurt: Claude de Marne & the heirs of Johann Aubry, 1604. Quarto (8 3/16" x 6 5/8", 209mm x 170mm). [Full collation available.] With an engraved plate (plus 2pp. letterpress explanation) and two folding letterpress tables. Bound in modern quarter vellum over boards. With some closed marginal tears and chips. Heavily annotated throughout in contemporary scholarly hand(s?), with many diagrams, corrections (some applied from the errata, others contributed) and underlinings. Offsetting from the annotations, and a handful of ink spots. Wide margins, with several preserved deckles and no shaving of the marginalia. Johannes Kepler (1571-1631) stands with Copernicus and Galileo as one of the giants of the physical sciences, and as leading light of the Scientific Revolution. Best known for his laws of planetary motion -- a revision, he would insist, rather than a correction of Copernicus' theories of circular and epicyclical planetary motion -- Kepler here diverts his inquiry toward optics as a necessary precursor to more applied astronomy. Indeed, the digressive nature of the work is indicated by its split title: "supplement to Vitello," viz. the XIIIc author of Perspectiva, who promulgated the theories of Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham) into Latin; and "the optical part of astronomy," by whose initials (APO) the work is generally known. Vitello (also Witelo, b. ca. 1230) was a Polish natural scientist whose major work, Perspectiva (ca. 1275), was deeply influential on medieval and even Renaissance optics despite being circulated in manuscript (it was disemminated in print in the 1572 Opticae thesaurus). Indeed, it dominated the experimental period of optics to the extent that Kepler introduces his own work as supplying mere omissions (a more exact translation of paraleipomena) of Vitello's, though this is litotes. Although complete copies, to say nothing of the present copy with its superb margins, of Kepler's optics are fairly rare -- the engraved plate and letterpress tables are often missing -- the allure of our volume is the extensive contemporary (say, within 25 years of publication or so) annotation, underlining and more than a dozen supplemental manuscript diagrams. The identity of the annotator(s) -- there are two inks plus an occasional blue-green graphite (vel sim.), but perhaps this is a single scholar with two different pens or campaigns of reading -- is tantalizing. He must be a dedicated scholar, since he cites Eratosthenes (p. 40); Tycho (de Brahe) and (Christoph) Rothmann (p. 79); and, in the large diagram on the recto of the leaf whose verso is the engraved plate, Christoph Scheiner. Scheiner's Oculus was published in 1619 (though reprinted several times through 1652), so this provides a terminus post quem. Given how quickly the field was changing and how well-versed our annotator was, we might suggest that the annotations were carried out in the early 1620's. Of particular note is the full-page annotated diagram, which at the top cites p. 10 of Scheiner's Oculus -- though that is for the small diagram at the top, as well as some of the information about the "crÿstallinus" (i.e., the lens). The rest appears to be an original working-out of thoughts about the structuring of the eye as it relates to perception. Who was this knowledgeable, confident natural scientist? Caspar, Biliographia Kepleriana 18; VD17 39:121965W.

First edition. THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC TREATISE ON CRYSTALLOGRAPHY. First edition, extremely rare, of the first scientific treatise on crystallography. Written in the form of a letter, this small tract was presented to Kepler's friend at court, Matthäus Wackher von Wackenfels (who had informed Kepler of the discoveries Galileo had made with the telescope in 1610). "It is not only a charming letter, light-hearted and full of puns, but also a perceptive, pioneering study of the regular arrangement and the close packing that are fundamental in crystallography" (DSB). "Crossing the bridge over the Moldau in a snowstorm, [Kepler] noticed the snowflakes falling on his sleeve. Being nearsighted, he could closely observe their hexagonal form, each snowflake different from the others, yet all six-sided. His roving mind, always filled with curiosity, began to reflect on the causes behind their pattern. What resulted was a little booklet, a New Year's gift for a friend, the charming tract that is now considered one of the pioneering works in theoretical mineralogy" (Gingerich 2010, p. 10). "Kepler's attempt to understand the hexagonal structure of snowflakes in terms of the packing of globules has been hailed as a revolutionary anticipation of molecular models, and its effect on Peiresc, Gassendi, Mersenne, Descartes, the Bartholinus brothers, Rossetti, Grew, Hooke, and on the general history of crystallography is well documented" (Lefèvre et al, p. 129). Strenabegins with a typically humanist, playful jeu de mots, suggesting that he is sending "some nothing" (nihil), a pun on the equivalent German word nichts, which is pronounced the same as the Latin word nix, meaning snow.Its serious content is a discussion of snow crystals and their hexagonal structure. "Why is it,"Keplerasks, "that when we see snowstars (stellulae nivales) they are always hexagonal, and never pentagonal or heptagonal?"The specific answer lay a few centuries in the future [in the molecular structure of ice], but Kepler's fertile theological imagination saw a direction towards a solution, a 'formative faculty' at work in the universe, a concept that he would develop in both his Epitome of Copernican Astronomy and his Harmonice mundi" (Gingerich 2010, pp. 10-11). "Until very recently, the literature on snow crystals was concerned almost exclusively with description and classification of the main crystal forms and very little with the mechanisms of growth and the factors that might determine shape and form. In that he clearly posed the problem, and proposed several alternative explanations of the hexagonal symmetry of snow crystals, Kepler's contribution remained almost unique for 300 years" (Mason, p. 51). In the course of this study, Kepler is led to formulate 'Kepler's conjecture,' on the most efficient way to pack equal spheres in space. This was one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics, the 18th of the problems David Hilbert presented to the mathematical world at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900. It remained unproved until 1998. ABPC/RBH record the sale of four copies since Honeyman, of which two were in modern bindings. OCLC lists four copies in US (Columbia, Cornell, Linda Hall, Smithsonian). Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) came from a very modest family in the small German town of Weil der Stadt. He studied at the University of Tübingen under the astronomer Michael Maestlin. In 1594 he moved to Graz in Austria to take up a position as provincial mathematician. It was there that he wrote his first great work, Mysterium cosmographicum (1596), "the first unabashedly Copernican treatise since De revolutionibus" (DSB), which explained the known number of planets (six) and the diameters of their orbits in terms of nested Platonic solids. Forced out of Graz by religious controversy, Kepler moved to Prague in January 1600, a few months after Tycho Brahe had arrived in the same city to join the court of Emperor Rudolph II. "The encounter between the young German theoretician and the famous Danish observer turned the course of astronomy . within two years Tycho had died and his full set of observations, although claimed by his heirs, fell into Kepler's hands" (Gingerich 1971). The first fruit of this legacy was Kepler's discovery of his first two laws of planetary motion, published in 1609 in Astronomia Nova. Kepler also inherited Brahe's position as Court Astronomer. "After the publication of his Astronomia Nova, Kepler could at last have a period of quiet and happiness. As the Court Astronomer he was well considered and had every facility in the beautiful and flourishing imperial city of Prague, which, under the reign of Rudolph II, was playing an important role in European politics. By taste, the shy Rudolph II encouraged crafts, arts, and sciences; a general climate of mixed humanism, science and mysticism reigned. There was a well developed court life, and Kepler had several patrons and friends among the intellectuals, court officials and nobility. The most prominent and loyal of these was the imperial councilor Baron Johannes Matthäus Wackher von Wackhenfels (1550-1619), humanist and diplomat. At New Year 1611, Kepler presented his friend with the Strenaseu de nive sexangula, "A New Year's Gift of Hexagonal Snow.' Behind the banter there is a deep mathematical and geometrical cogitation in this little essay. It deals with the symmetry of the snowflakes and attempts to explain their regularity by the regular geometrical arrangement of identical minute pellets. It also shows how Kepler's mind balanced between the old Aristotelian view of Nature and the new physical description and explanation of phenomena" (Authier, p. 282). "Kepler recognized that snowflakes are composed of several individual units brought together, as he thought, by irregular drifting and that each individual always possesses six corners and not five or seven. In this he differed (correctly) from Descartes, who held roughly the inverse view, that the.

First edition. the first theoretical work on the construction of logarithms. First edition, the Macclesfield copy, of Kepler's logarithmic tables, constructed by means of his own original method. Of the greatest rarity, especially when complete with the correction leaf and the second part, which gives examples of the application of logarithms and details of their construction. It was through the use of these tables that Kepler was able to complete his monumental Tabulae Rudolphinae (1627), the superiority of which "constituted a strong endorsement of the Copernican system, and insured the tables' dominance in the field of astronomy throughout the seventeenth century" (Norman). Kepler indicated the importance of logarithms allegorically on the frontispiece to the Tabulae Rudolphinae. On the top of the temple stand six goddesses. The third from the left represents logarithms: in her hands she holds rods of the ratio of one to two, and the number around her head shows the Keplerian natural logarithm of 1/2: 0.6931472. But logarithms played another important role in Kepler's astronomical work, since without them he may never have discovered his third law of planetary motion. Kepler discovered this law early in 1618, at the same time that he first had access to tables of logarithms (see below). Moreover, his initial formulation of the third law was (to use modern terminology) in terms of a log-log plot, rather than the more familiar terms of squared periods and cubed distances: "The proportion between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely one and a half times the proportion of the mean distances" (Werke VI, 302). "In a sense, logarithms played a role in Kepler's formulation of the Third Law analogous to the role of Apollonius' conics in his discovery of the First Law, and with the role that tensor analysis and Riemannian geometry played in Einstein's development of the field equations of general relativity. In each of these cases we could ask whether the mathematical structure provided the tool with which the scientist was able to describe some particular phenomenon, or whether the mathematical structure effectively selected an aspect of the phenomena for the scientist to discern" (Brown, p. 555). Provenance: The Earls of Macclesfield, Shirburn Castle, with engraved bookplate, shelf-mark on front pastedown, and blind-stamped Macclesfield crest on blank margins of first three leaves. After painstakingly extracting from the observational data of Tycho Brahe his first two laws of planetary motion around 1605 (first published in Astronomia nova, 1609), there followed a period of more than twelve years during which Kepler searched for further patterns or regularities in the data."Then, as Kepler later recalled, on the 8th of March in the year 1618, something marvelous 'appeared in my head'. He suddenly realized that The proportion between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely one and a half times the proportion of the mean distances. why, after twelve years of struggle, [did] this way of viewing the data suddenly 'appear in his head' early in 1618? . It seems as if a purely mathematical invention, namely logarithms, whose intent was simply to ease the burden of manual arithmetical computations, may have led directly to the discovery/formulation of an important physical law, i.e., Kepler's third law of planetary motion . Kepler announced his Third Law in Harmonices Mundi, published in 1619, and also included it in his Ephemerides of 1620. The latter was actually dedicated to Napier, who had died in 1617. The cover illustration showed one of Galileo's telescopes, the figure of an elliptical orbit, and an allegorical female (Nature?) crowned with a wreath consisting of the Napierian logarithm of half the radius of a circle. It has usually been supposed that this work was dedicated to Napier in gratitude for the 'shortening of the calculations', but Kepler obviously recognized that it went deeper than this, i.e., that the Third Law is purely a logarithmic harmony" (Brown, p. 555). Kepler further illustrated the importance he attached to logarithms in the famous frontispiece to Tabulae Rudolphinae (which he designed himself): one of the muses standing on the temple is 'Logarithmica', and in her halo shines the number 69314.72 (100,000 times the natural logarithm of the number 2). "Kepler first saw Napier's tables [Mifirici logarithmorum canonis descriptio, 1614] in the spring of 1617, but he examined them only superficially at that time. Not until 1619 did Kepler have a copy of Napier's tables, but by then he was more familiar with the logarithms in a book of 1618 by Benjamin Ursinus [Trigonometria logarithmica], his former assistant at Prague and Linz, who had adapted Napier's logarithms, abbreviating the tabular data to two places. The value and significance of the new tables now became clear to Kepler" (Belyi, p. 655). "However, he was not content simply to accept the new mechanical aid as he found it. Napier, in his work, had simply presented the tables of numbers without stating how his logarithms were to be computed. So in the first instance his "wonderful canon" must have operated like a magic trick. In fact, in the beginning, mathematicians as serious as Maestlin mistrusted the new aid to calculation. Was it permissible for a rigorous mathematician to utilize numerical tables about whose construction he knew nothing? Was there not danger that employing them might lead to false conclusions, even if the calculation was proved to agree in many cases? When Kepler, during his visit to Württemberg in 1621, discussed these questions with Maestlin, the latter even ventured so far as to observe "it is not seemly for a professor of mathematics to be childishly pleased about any shortening of the calculations." Kepler differed. He wanted to prove and interpret the new aid to calculation by solid methods and subsequently calculate logarithms himself. "In the winter of 1621-1622 he carried out hi.

Hardcover. Etat : Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition of Aristotle s Masterpiece, the most popular book about women s bodies, sex, pregnancy, and childbirth in Britain and America from its first appearance in 1684 up to at least the 1870s (Treasures, Library Company of Philadelphia). Aristotle s Masterpiece neither by Aristotle nor a masterpiece is the first sex manual written in English (Norman). The work documents theories and practices of human reproduction during the early modern period. This first edition was assembled in part from excerpts of existing midwifery books, primarily Levinus Lemnius s The Secret Miracles of Nature (1658) and Jacob Rueff s The Expert Midwife (1658). The book s pseudo-Aristotle attribution both lent it an aura of credibility and hinted at the sexual nature of its contents. After the publication of a book called Aristotle s Problems in 1595, which included a few explicit discussions of sex, the name Aristotle came to euphemistically indicate sexual knowledge to an early modern audience. Unlike medical texts on similar subjects, the book was intended for a vernacular readership and was widely disseminated in Britain and America. It was eventually published in hundreds of editions in at least three versions, each appropriating and combining text from existing works. On average, an edition of the Masterpiece was published every year for 250 years. It was still for sale in London s Soho sex shops as late as the 1930s. The book s title page promising a word of Advice to both Sexes in the Act of Copulation speaks to the sexual knowledge offered within. Aristotle s Masterpiece emphasizes both male and female partners enjoyment of the act. The book s attention to pleasure was essential to its focus on procreative sex within marriage. Underpinning the Masterpiece is the theory that a woman must cast forth her Seed to commix with the Man (which imploys a willingness in her to be a Copartner in the Act) in order to conceive. With female and male partners playing an equally active role in casting forth their seed, both partners arousal and enjoyment was crucial to reproduction. Thus, women s sexual appetite was accepted as a natural part of life, and the onset of menstruation credited with [inciting] their Minds and Imaginations to Venery. This first edition concludes with a word of advice to both sexes in the time of copulation, imparting to its readers a final lesson on the importance of foreplay: [A husband] must entertain [his wife] with all kind of dalliance, wanton behaviour, and allurements to Venery but if he perceive her to be slow and more cold, he must cherish, embrace, and tickle her that she may take fire and be in flames to venery, for so at length the womb will strive and wax fervent with a desire of casting forth its own seed. This is an especially appealing example of a landmark book in the history of women s health, reproduction, and sex. The first edition of 1684 is known in three variant settings, all printed by J. How, priority unknown. ESTC records only the incomplete British Library copy (lacking the plates comprising the final gathering I) of our setting, which has line 11 of title ending both , line 18 of title ends Ge- , and the first line of the imprint ending sold, signature B5 is under the nt Bl of effluent Blood and on p.190 the fifth line from bottom begins with a capital Q. Provenance: William Sweet [? scuffed] His book 1740 February the 21, ownership inscription on the verso of frontispiece. Wing A3697fA. ESTC R504793. 12mo. Contemporary sheep, some wear. Woodcut frontispiece and 6 woodcuts of monstrous births (including repeat of frontispiece). Final gathering well thumbed and dog-eared with short tears at fore-edge with minor losses. A very appealing, honest copy.

PREFIGURING THE LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATIONAL ATTRACTION. First edition, very rare, and an exceptionally fine copy, of Borelli's important work on celestial mechanics, prefiguring the Newtonian theory of universal attraction. Borelli revived "Kepler's theories on the planetary orbits . However, unlike Kepler, he believes natural motion to be in a straight line rather than a circle, hence requiring a form of gravitational force to maintain the planets in orbit. Borelli suggests that the elliptical orbit results from a balance between an attractive force of gravity between the sun and the planet and an opposing centrifugal force" (Parkinson, Breakthroughs). "During the summer of 1665 Borelli established an astronomical observatory in the fortress of San Miniato, a pleasant site on a hill a short distance from Florence. Here he used an excellent Campani telescope and some instruments of his own design to try to determine with extreme accuracy the motions of Jupiter's satellites. From this work came his Theoricae mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis is deductae (1666), in which, among other things, he explained how the elliptical orbits of planetary bodies could be understood in terms of three types of action. In the first place, a planetary body has a tendency toward a central body and would move toward that central body if no other factors intervened. Then, a central body, such as the sun, sends out rays and as that body rotates the rays also rotate. The cumulative effect of the impacts of these seemingly corporeal rays is to impart to the planet a motion around the central body. This motion in revolution thus produces a centrifugal tendency which balances the original centripetal one and thereby establishes the planet in a given mean orbit. Small self-correcting fluctuations account qualitatively for the observed ellipses. There are some obvious difficulties in accommodating these proposals to the satellites of the major planets, and it is clear that Borelli had much more in mind than just explaining the motions of the moons of Jupiter. The Copernican implications of his scheme, however, could be masked by seeming to focus attention on Jupiter" (DSB). "In the work of Borelli we find a fulfillment - imperfect, but nonetheless decisive - of that identification of celestial physics with terrestrial physics which was the dream of modern science, and which Kepler and Descartes thought they had achieved, but only Newton realized. It appears in the work of Borelli by an admission that celestial forces (circular planetary motions) produce centrifugal forces . Borelli decided to reverse the modus procedendi, and to attack the problem theoretically, seeing that the observations did not provide the desired conclusion; that is to say, he developed first of all a priori, a theory of periodic motion for the planets, as well as for their satellites or moons, starting from certain data or physical requirements, and then made the appropriate deductions. These deductions were then compared with the empirical data from observations. By considering the observations after, instead of before, working out his theory, his task was greatly facilitated, for he knew what to look for; and knowing it, could easily find it" (Koyré, The astronomical revolution. Copernicus - Kepler - Borelli, p. 468). ABPC/RBH list only one copy since Macclesfield (a copy in a modern binding with a partially erased stamp on the title), and only one other copy since the Bute sale in 1961. "Borelli's Theoricae Mediceorum planetarum sought to provide a purely theoretical analysis of the motions of the Medicean planets as part of the European debate arising in the wake of the recently observed shadows of the satellites of Jupiter on the body of the planet-a required topic for a Medici mathematician. The dispute on the Medicean planets allowed forays into the solar system while avoiding dealing directly with Copernicanism, a dangerous topic in Italy in those years. Despite this precaution, Borelli established an analogy with planets that left little doubt as to his cosmological beliefs. Theoricae was published by the Medicean press and circulated among a select group of intellectuals and patrons. Borelli's work is of interest in several respects, such as his integration of celestial and terrestrial physico-mathematics; his attempt in a Keplerian tradition to conceptualize curvilinear motion as resulting from an imbalance between an outward and an inward tendency; his effort to provide a quantitative analysis of those two components; and his experiments in the tradition of the Cimento. Borelli's method of investigation was heavily dependent on analogies among different phenomena and fields, on the assumption that nature's method of operation is both uniform and simple. He often extended his analogies from physico-mathematics to medicine and anatomy, and even his work on the Medicean planets starts with analogies between the solar system and the animal body. At times one finds so many analogies in Borelli's work that one wonders which one he adhered to, since those presented early on were later modified or cast aside. "It is not difficult to detect the strong Keplerian flavor of Borelli's account, not just in his attempt to bring together physics and astronomy but also in his claim that the satellites' trajectories are elliptical and that the sun pushes the planets with a lever, as it were. Borelli conceived orbital motion as if it were taking place on a rotating lever moved by the rotating sun. The inward tendency was due to an appetite of the satellites, or planets, to move toward the central body, whereas the outward tendency was due to their circular motion generated by the light emitted by the central body. Throughout his account Borelli provided examples and experiments with pendulums, magnets, and rotating bowls, thus treating celestial and terrestrial phenomena in a similar fashion. For example, Borelli described a device meant to.

Hardcover. First edition. EVANS 30 - THE MOST FAMOUS EARLY EXPERIMENTS ON AIR PRESSURE. First edition of one of the great classics of science. "A book of prime importance in electrical discovery, air-pressure and the vacuum pump" (Dibner). Guericke proved the existence of a vacuum through his famous experiment, illustrated by one of the double-page plates. "At Ratisbon in 1654 Guericke had performed one of the most dramatic experiments in the history of science, when, before the Imperial Diet, he showed how two teams of eight horses each could not separate a bronze pair of hemispheres from which he had exhausted the air" (ibid.). To create the vacuum, Guericke invented the air-pump, and in a series of experiments that followed he demonstrated the weight and elasticity of air. The air-pump became of fundamental importance for the study of the physical properties of gases. Guericke also demonstrated electrical attraction and repulsion, the discharging power of points, and constructed the first electrical generator. "Guericke constructed a spherical rotor of sulphur mounted on a crank; its rotation and contact upon it generated the first visible and audible electric sparks" (ibid.). As the Wheeler Gift catalogue remarks, "This remarkable work on experimental philosophy ranks next to Gilbert's in the number and importance of the electrical discoveries described. Electric conduction and repulsion, the discharging power of points, the dissipation of charge by flames, the light due to electrification, the crepitating noises of small sparks are all recognized". Guericke's experiments were motivated by his profound Copernican cosmological views on the nature and composition of space, which are fully set forth in the present work. Provenance: inscription by the bibliophile by the Bolle Willum Luxdorph (1716-1788), documenting his purchase of the book, 14 April 1787, at the auction sale of mathematician Joachim Michael Geuss (1745-1786). Later owned by the famous German collector Otto Schäfer (1912-2000), whose collection of books formed one of the most important private libraries of the twentieth century. "Guericke had been preoccupied ever since his student days at Leiden with the question of the definition of space. A convinced Copernican, he was particularly concerned with three fundamental questions: (1) What is the nature of space? Can empty space exist, or is space always filled and empty space only a spatium imaginarium, a logical abstraction? (2) How can individual heavenly bodies affect each other across space, and how are they moved? (3) Is space, and therefore the heavenly bodies enclosed in it, bounded or unbounded? "Descartes's conception of space and matter as equivalent and his denial of a vacuum led Guericke to propose an experiment designed to resolve the old conflict between plenists and vacuists. Guericke posited that if the air were pumped out of a strong container and no other new material allowed to take its place the vessel would implode if Descartes's assertions were true. Soon after he returned from Osnabruck in 1647 Guericke made a suction pump using a cylinder and piston to which he added two flap valves; he then used this apparatus to pump water out of a well-caulked beer cask. Air entered the cask, however, as was evidenced by whistling noises. When Guericke repeated the experiment with the beer cask sealed within a second larger one that he had also filled with water, the water that he pumped out was replaced by water seeping in from the larger vessel. "In an attempt to solve the sealing problem Guericke ordered the construction of a hollow copper sphere with an outlet at the bottom. He pumped the air directly out of this apparatus which thereupon imploded. This result would seem to indicate that Descartes was right; but Guericke still thought otherwise on the basis of his earlier experiments. He had a new apparatus made, and with this his experiment succeeded. Guericke thus invented the air pump, or, rather, discovered the pumping capacity of air. He had thought that the air within the vessel would sink, as had the water in his previous devices, and that it would be evacuated from the bottom; later experiments, however, in which the outlet was placed at arbitrary points on the copper sphere proved that the air left in the container during the process of evacuation was distributed evenly throughout the interior space. "This discovery of the elasticity of the air represents perhaps the most important result of Guericke's experiments. From it he was led to investigate the decrease of the density of the air with height and to theorize concerning empty space beyond the atmosphere of heavenly bodies; to study variations of air pressure corresponding to changes in the weather (taking mean air pressure to correspond to a water column twenty Magdeburg ells high, he succeeded in 1660 in making barometric weather forecasts); to propose systematic weather reporting through a network of observation stations; to come to know the ponderability of air within air; and finally, to draw further conclusions about a variety of phenomena connected with vacuums, most of which he demonstrated experimentally, especially the work capacity of air, by which he refuted the theory of horror vacui. "The most famous of Guericke's public experiments is the one of the Magdeburg hemispheres, in which he placed together two copper hemispheres, milled so that the edges fit together snugly. He then evacuated the air from the resulting sphere and showed that a most heavy weight could not pull them apart. Contrary to legend, the demonstration was performed with a team of horses for the first time in Magdeburg in 1657 (not Regensburg in 1654) and repeated at court in Berlin in 1663. Guericke also made other, less dramatic, public demonstrations of the effective- ness of air pressure on several occasions in Regensburg; these Regensburg experiments were reported by Gaspar Schott in Mechanica hydraulico-pneumarica (1657) and Technica c.

FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE. With 38 folding plates; arms of the Royal Society on title. Half-calf over contemporary boards, marbled paste-downs and endpapers; a very good copy from the library of W. Cracroft with his signature dated 1804 and small stamp on title. FIRST GLIMPSE OF MICROSCOPICAL OBJECTS HOOKE, Robert Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses, with observations and inquiries thereupon. London: Jo. Martyn, 1667. Folio. With 38 folding plates; Half-calf over contemporary boards, marbled paste-downs and endpapers. First edition, second issue, the same as the first except that the licence-leaf and the title page were both reset, and plate 5 was re-engraved in reverse. This was the first book printed in English on the microscope and the first large work to illustrate microscopical objects. It is of great value for the history of chemistry, physics, biology and astronomy. It contains the invention of the compound microscope and of the wheel barometer, an explanation of the twinkling of the stars, important investigations on the refraction of light, a theory of heat and the real nature of combustion. $ 60,000.00.

Hardcover. Etat : Near Fine. 1st Edition. Quarto. (40), 614, (34), 112, (8) pp. Bound with the original free end-papers in well-executed 20th century quarter calf and marbled boards, with four raised bands, gilt title-label and gilt ornaments to spine. Textblock edges a bit browned. Copper engraved portrait of Spinoza(after leaf 20). Overall Near Fine. ** The portrait is somewhat browned and has a tiny repair to the lower outer corner of the blank margin, and a small tape repair on the verso of the upper right corner neither affecting the plate. A dynamic image of the iconic philosopher and a tremendous scarcity. ** Provenance: Ownership inscription on title page of Samuel Parr(1747-1825), an influential English literary figure who was widely involved in intellectual and political life. ** According to a handwritten note to front paste down, the book was bound by A.N.L. Munby(1913-1974). He worked in the rare book trade at Quaritch and Sotheby's before becoming Librarian at King's College, Cambridge in 1947. ***** Opera Posthuma(1677) features the first printing of Ethics - Spinoza s critique of the traditional philosophical conceptions of God, humanity and the universe, and of the religions and the theological and moral beliefs grounded thereupon the first systematic exposition of Pantheism. The book received venomous reviews: A book which surpasses all others in godlessness and which endeavors to do away with all religion and set godlessness on the throne. ** The portrait displays the dates of Spinoza's birth and death(born:11/24/1632, Amsterdam - died: 2/21/1677, The Hague). Spinoza appears in a circular frame above a pedestal that bears his name and a Latin poem: *** He to whom nature, God and the cosmic order of things were known, Here he, Spinoza, may be contemplated. Only his visage is displayed, but to portray his mind Even the artistry of Zeuxidis would not suffice. Seek that out in his written words, where he treats of things sublime. Who wishes to know him, read his works. ** Possibly authored by Lodewijk Meijer(1629-1681) or Johannes Bouwmeester(1630-1680), both intimate friends of Spinoza. ** Known as the Opera portrait, Spinoza scholars consider it(along with the Herzog August Library s painting of him) as the only accurate portrait of the famed philosopher comporting with the few contemporary descriptions of his appearance which emphasize his modest stature, dark eyes and dark curly hair. ** Jan Rieuwertsz the Younger(1651/2-1723), the son of the printer of Spinoza's works, informed two young German scholars who were sent from Halle to the Netherlands in 1704 to learn more about Spinoza s life, Gottlieb Stolle and Dr. Hallmann, about the history of this portrait and the poem. Rieuwertsz said that the portrait had been made 3 to 4 years after Spinoza's death. He didn t know the author of the Latin poem - or he didn t want to say, but he knew that Spinoza's friends quarreled about its contents. ** The portrait s rarity is primarily due to Spinoza's banned status - sellers and owners of his work faced punishment. Including it(on which the name of the author is mentioned) in the anonymously published Opera would certainly put one in further jeopardy. Consequently, the portrait is seldom found in the existing copies of Spinoza's magnum opus either in the Latin or Dutch versions. Jan Rieuwertsz the Younger had been arrested himself in May 1695 for selling Spinoza's works, and in the same month the notorious bookseller Timotheus ten Hoorn was arrested for the same reason and fined. Also, its creation via etching was a more complicated and costly technique - limiting the number of copies produced. ** This is a significant, compelling rarity of Spinoza material.***Please email us for better pricing.

Sixth edition of vol. I, fourth edition of vol. II, third edition of vol. III. 3 vols, small folio (312 by 218mm approx.) Woodcut devices to title-pages, 10 double-page maps and plans, 8 full-page woodcut plates, with further illustrations in the text. Contemporary Italian (Venetian?) morocco, boards & spines ruled & stamped in gilt; paper repairs to title-page of vol. I, and outer margin of following two leaves, occasional dampstaining to vol. I, minor worming to first and last leaves and pastedowns of vols. II and III. A handsome set in a contemporary Italian binding. 'One of the earliest and most important collections of Voyages and Travels of the sixteenth century ' (Church). Undoubtedly a foundation work for any collection of Voyages and Travels. The 'most perfect work of that nature in any language whatsoever' (John Locke). Ramusio (1485-1557) served as Secretary to the Venetian Senate, and on retiring to Padua compiled this collection of narratives, including some manuscripts which had never been seen before, towards the end of his life. A planned fourth volume was never published as the manuscript was sadly destroyed shortly after his death by a fire at his publishers. As Harisse points out Ramusio was the first author to edit his work with care, avoiding errors and anachronisms perpetuated in previous copies of the travel narratives he included in his work. Each volume was reprinted several times, with later issues, as here, having new material missing from the first editions. The narratives include those of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Cortez, Coronado, Cartier, Cadamosto, and many others. In the first volume, Ramusio aimed to correct the errors in Ptolemy's maps, and devoted his attention to Africa and the East, especially the annals of early Portuguese exploration, including Da Gama, Alvarez, and Barros, as well as an account of Pigafetta. In addition, this edition of vol. I includes the five letters on Japan, written in 1549 and 1550 that represent 'the first time that Japan makes a significant appearance in travel literature' (Lach). The first volume also includes a new Italian version of Varthema's Itinerario which, when it was first published in 1510, contained the first printed material on Southeast Asia. The second volume concentrates on voyages to the North and West, including to Russia, only recently released from Mongol domination. The contributors include Paulus Jovius (1483-1552), a correspondent of Barros and a former ambassador to Russia, regarded as an authority on Muscovite matters in general. The second volume also contains Ramusio's version of Marco Polo, which, whilst probably translated from the Portuguese edition of Valentin Fernandes (Lisbon, 1502), remains one of the basic extant versions of Marco Polo's book. The third volume is entirely devoted to America, including the accounts of Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Cortes, Cabeça de Vaca, Guzman, Ulloa, Coronado, Fray Marcos di Niza, Xerez, Verrazano, and Cartier, whose account of New France (the Gulf of Saint Lawrence) is published here for the first time. Alongside some important maps the text includes illustrations of botanical subjects, including maize and cacti, as well as woodcuts of native Americans and their abodes. The maps in the third volume are particularly fine, including one of the Western Hemisphere by Ramusio and Oviedo. It depicts the known world from Japan in the West to the West coast of Africa in the East, and includes the coast of California roughly as far North as San Francisco. In addition, there are fine maps of Mexico City and Brazil, as well as Gastaldi's map of New France which is the earliest printed map of the region. Based on the reports of Verrazzano and Cartier, this map shows the coast of modern-day New England and Canada from New York Bay (marked as Angoulesme) up to the coast of Labrador. Despite the fact that the fourth volume was unable to be published, Ramusio's work opened up a new era in the literary history of voyages and navigation (Harrisse) and is widely acknowledged as the definitive geography of the sixteenth century. Church I, 99; European Americana II, 613/108 & 606/87-88; Sabin, 67735, 67739 & 67742; cf. Borba II, 698-699.

Hardcover. First edition. DIBNER 55: AIR PUMPS AND ELECTRIC GENERATORS. First edition, and a fine copy, of one of the great classics of science. "A book of prime importance in electrical discovery, air-pressure and the vacuum pump" (Dibner). Guericke proved the existence of a vacuum through his famous experiment, illustrated by one of the double-page plates. "At Ratisbon in 1654 Guericke had performed one of the most dramatic experiments in the history of science, when, before the Imperial Diet, he showed how two teams of eight horses each could not separate a bronze pair of hemispheres from which he had exhausted the air" (ibid.). To create the vacuum, Guericke invented the air-pump, and in a series of experiments that followed he demonstrated the weight and elasticity of air. The air-pump became of fundamental importance for the study of the physical properties of gases. Guericke also demonstrated electrical attraction and repulsion, the discharging power of points, and constructed the first electrical generator. "Guericke constructed a spherical rotor of sulphur mounted on a crank; its rotation and contact upon it generated the first visible and audible electric sparks" (ibid.). As the Wheeler Gift catalogue remarks, "This remarkable work on experimental philosophy ranks next to Gilbert's in the number and importance of the electrical discoveries described. Electric conduction and repulsion, the discharging power of points, the dissipation of charge by flames, the light due to electrification, the crepitating noises of small sparks are all recognized". Guericke's experiments were motivated by his profound Copernican cosmological views on the nature and composition of space, which are fully set forth in the present work. Provenance: letterpress title with previous owner's initials P. T. W. (i.e., Peder Topp Wandel, or Wandal) dated 1754; and with old stamp from Odense Katedralskole in Denmark. "Guericke had been preoccupied ever since his student days at Leiden with the question of the definition of space. A convinced Copernican, he was particularly concerned with three fundamental questions: (1) What is the nature of space? Can empty space exist, or is space always filled and empty space only a spatium imaginarium, a logical abstraction? (2) How can individual heavenly bodies affect each other across space, and how are they moved? (3) Is space, and therefore the heavenly bodies enclosed in it, bounded or unbounded? "Descartes's conception of space and matter as equivalent and his denial of a vacuum led Guericke to propose an experiment designed to resolve the old conflict between plenists and vacuists. Guericke posited that if the air were pumped out of a strong container and no other new material allowed to take its place the vessel would implode if Descartes's assertions were true. Soon after he returned from Osnabruck in 1647 Guericke made a suction pump using a cylinder and piston to which he added two flap valves; he then used this apparatus to pump water out of a well-caulked beer cask. Air entered the cask, however, as was evidenced by whistling noises. When Guericke repeated the experiment with the beer cask sealed within a second larger one that he had also filled with water, the water that he pumped out was replaced by water seeping in from the larger vessel. "In an attempt to solve the sealing problem Guericke ordered the construction of a hollow copper sphere with an outlet at the bottom. He pumped the air directly out of this apparatus which thereupon imploded. This result would seem to indicate that Descartes was right; but Guericke still thought otherwise on the basis of his earlier experiments. He had a new apparatus made, and with this his experiment succeeded. Guericke thus invented the air pump, or, rather, discovered the pumping capacity of air. He had thought that the air within the vessel would sink, as had the water in his previous devices, and that it would be evacuated from the bottom; later experiments, however, in which the outlet was placed at arbitrary points on the copper sphere proved that the air left in the container during the process of evacuation was distributed evenly throughout the interior space. "This discovery of the elasticity of the air represents perhaps the most important result of Guericke's experiments. From it he was led to investigate the decrease of the density of the air with height and to theorize concerning empty space beyond the atmosphere of heavenly bodies; to study variations of air pressure corresponding to changes in the weather (taking mean air pressure to correspond to a water column twenty Magdeburg ells high, he succeeded in 1660 in making barometric weather forecasts); to propose systematic weather reporting through a network of observation stations; to come to know the ponderability of air within air; and finally, to draw further conclusions about a variety of phenomena connected with vacuums, most of which he demonstrated experimentally, especially the work capacity of air, by which he refuted the theory of horror vacui. "The most famous of Guericke's public experiments is the one of the Magdeburg hemispheres, in which he placed together two copper hemispheres, milled so that the edges fit together snugly. He then evacuated the air from the resulting sphere and showed that a most heavy weight could not pull them apart. Contrary to legend, the demonstration was performed with a team of horses for the first time in Magdeburg in 1657 (not Regensburg in 1654) and repeated at court in Berlin in 1663. Guericke also made other, less dramatic, public demonstrations of the effective- ness of air pressure on several occasions in Regensburg; these Regensburg experiments were reported by Gaspar Schott in Mechanica hydraulico-pneumarica (1657) and Technica curiosa (1664), and were supplemented with additional information that Guericke communicated by letter. "Schott's books as well as other foreign publications of Guericke's experiments (for example, works o.

Soft cover. Etat : Good. 1st Edition. GROUND-BREAKING THEORY OF COMETS FIRST EDITION thus. Small 4to. 3 parts in 1, continuous pagination, separate titles, pp. [4], 138 + 5 folding plates, lacking final blank. Roman letter, little Italic or Greek. 2 folding woodcut astrological diagrams, 3 folding woodcut tables, 5 small text woodcut diagrams, decorated initials and ornaments. Slight browning (poor paper), occasional minor marginal foxing, first gathering slightly trimmed at lower margin with marginal repair, ancient at blank foot of last leaf. A good copy in contemporary vellum, lower compartment of spine repaired. First collected edition - a comprehensive version of Johannes Kepler s theory of comets. It gathers three astronomical works, revised, translated or enlarged from the original, based on his research for the comets of 1607 (i.e., later Halley s, very bright and with a double tail) and 1618 (which he was the first to see through a telescope). The German astronomer Kepler (1571-1630) was assistant of Tycho Brahe at Prague and the mathematician to three Holy Roman Emperors. He famously adapted the Copernican theory by suggesting planets had orbits that were elliptical, nor circular, with the Sun, and he explained the speed by which planets move around the ellipsis. In De cometis , Kepler sought, following Brahe, to overcome the Aristotelian theory by which comets were not considered heavenly bodies but phenomena caused by changes in the weather (Cantamessa). Kepler and Galileo were united in continuing the work of Copernicus, Galileo by astronomical observation and Kepler by development of Copernican ideas. In 1610 their connection was close as Kepler helped Galileo in his struggle for Sidereus Nuncius . Eight years later they famously differed on the origin of comets the case of the three comets discussed here. Galileo defended their earthly origin, Kepler maintained their origin as cosmic and of course was right. In fact, he thought comets as spherical transparent objects refracting the sun s rays (Heidarzadeh, p.65). The collection begins with Astronomicus , on theorems of the movement and trajectory of comets, and a discussion on their aspect (including tails) and height. The folding diagram detailing the trajectory of the Halley comet shows how he sought to map its route through the heavens, making its trajectory a straight line. Part II, Physicus , focuses on the physiology of comets, i.e., their nature and formation, and the composition of their tails. Part III, Astrologicus , discusses the interpretation or meaning of the 1607 comet, originally published in German, with an added section on the comet of 1618. By applying the rules of judicial astrology, which he criticised without rejecting completely, Kepler examined the influence of comets from the present and the past, connecting, for instance, the 1607 comet to the fatal illness of Empress Anne. A most important work. Graesse IV, 12; Gardner 615; Thorndike VII, p.23; Cantamessa 4056. Not in Houzeau-Lancaster. T. Heidarzadeh, A History of Physical Theories of Comets (2008); M. Beech, The Wayward Comet (2016).

First edition. UNIQUE PRE-PUBLICATION PRESENTATION COPY. First edition, a unique pre-publication presentation copy by Cabeo to his teacher Jacobo Corrado, of the first extensive study of magnetism since William Gilbert's De Magnete (1600). Corrado's name is handwritten on the title page, which is in an unfinished state, the coat-of-arms at the head having been left un-engraved; in addition, there is an eleven-line manuscript dedication on the second leaf, which is blank but usually contains the Privilege of the Emperor Charles V. In the dedication Cabeo thanks his teacher and praises him for his vast knowledge. "His first book, the Philosophia magnetica, discussed not only Gilbert's but also Cabeo's own experimental investigations of terrestrial magnetism as well as magnetized iron and 'lodestone' (the mineral magnetite). The central focus of his work, like Gilbert's before him, was therefore the study of the magnetic behaviors of compass needles. Where Gilbert, however, argued that the Earth itself is a giant magnet, whose poles reproduce the poles of an ordinary magnet and with which it interacts, Cabeo maintained instead that magnetic properties are inherent to certain sorts of matter; they did not subsist in their relationships to the great magnet, the Earth. Indeed, Cabeo denied that the Earth itself is a great magnet, even though it contains matter lending it magnetic effects. He also, again following Gilbert, discussed magnetic attraction between rubbed objects (typically, pieces of amber resin) and light objects such as bits of straw or paper; the attractive virtues of such electrified bodies appeared to be sufficiently similar to those of magnets that it seemed appropriate to investigate them together. In accounting for the production of electrical attraction by certain kinds of matter when they are rubbed, Cabeo-always, as a natural philosopher, on the lookout for causal explanations of phenomena, not simply their descriptions-suggested that the rubbing stimulates the emission of tiny particles, as an effluvium, from the rubbed body's pores, which, in its interaction with the surrounding air, tends to move light objects toward it as a result of the rarified air's subsequent behavior. In the Philosophia magnetica, Cabeo considered the methodological and epistemological issues relating to his experimental investigations. He stressed that his work sought the causes behind natural effects (this being the usual goal of Aristotelian-style natural philosophy) but that he would proceed by borrowing the approach of the mathematicians because it was so clear and demonstrative. He also stressed the extent to which his discussions were based upon experimental work, his experiments having been repeated numerous times, with multiple witnesses on hand to guarantee the truth of his reports. The necessity of saying such things stemmed from the unusual nature of the phenomena Cabeo described; neither magnetic nor electrical effects were generally familiar from everyday experience, and arguments based on unusual and contrived experimental behaviors therefore needed special justification to be accepted" (DSB). No presentation copy on ABPC/RBH. Cabeo (1586-1650) entered the Jesuit order as a novice in 1602. "Cabeo's academic training occurred primarily at Parma, following the usual Jesuit curriculum of the period, and included the study of logic, natural philosophy (centered on the works of Aristotle), metaphysics, and theology; he clearly also studied some mathematics. Following the completion of his studies around 1616, Cabeo taught theology, philosophy, and metaphysics at Parma until 1621; he subsequently spent several years living at the Jesuit college back in Ferrara, his birthplace, and taught some theology there in the late 1620s. At the end of his life he returned to teaching, now at the Jesuit college in Genoa. In the meanwhile, he served the ducal courts in Mantua and in Modena, made use of his mathematical expertise in work on civil engineering projects, and was an itinerant preacher. He remained throughout his life engaged in issues of mathematics and natural philosophy, debating issues of mechanics, free fall, and motion with such contemporaries and familiars as Giovanni Battista Baliani, Benedetto Castelli, and Giovanni Battista Riccioli, as well as publishing his two major treatises. His interests covered a wide range of contemporary natural philosophy, however, beyond those questions of motion associated with his older contemporary Galileo" (ibid.). Although he was not in general a supporter of Galileo's theories, he observed the experiments of Baliani on falling objects and agreed with Galileo that different objects fall the same distance in the same time regardless of their composition (Galilei, Opere, XVIII, 99 ff.). "Cabeo was a Jesuit, and like many Jesuits, he was interested in magnetism, because magnetism seemed to demonstrate the existence of occult properties, the hidden propensities of things to cause effects in other objects without an obvious means of action. Since a lodestone, or natural magnet, could magnetize a piece of iron, and then cause the iron object to move toward the lodestone, and itself to move toward the iron, this seemed to be a wonderful manifestation of occult properties. And the Jesuits were fascinated by occult effects . Cabeo seems to have admired Gilbert's work, but he disagreed with Gilbert on a number of points, especially when Gilbert was critical of the Aristotelian approach to natural philosophy that had been adopted by most of the Jesuits. And he definitely did not agree, as Gilbert had concluded, that the earth's magnetism caused it to rotate on its axis" (/niccolo-cabeo/). "In his discussion of terrestrial magnetism, Cabeo conceded that the whole Earth participated in magnetic virtue, but he objected strenuously to Gilbert's assertion that the Earth was a big magnet. Gilbert had contended that at its core, the Earth was composed of a homogeneous and pure ma.

Full Description: DONNE, John. Poems, By J.D. With Elegies on the Authors Death. London: M.F. [Miles Fletcher] for John Marriot, 1633. [BOUND WITH]: Juvenilia, or Certaine Paradoxes and Problemes. London: E.P. [Elizabeth Purslowe] for Henry Seyle, 1633. First edition of the collected poems of the greatest of the metaphysical poets, bound with a first edition of his "perfectly impudent" Juvenilia. Small quarto (7 1/8 x 5 1/8 inches; 180 x 130 mm). [10], 406, [2, blank]; 62 pp. Both volumes bound without A1 blanks, but Poems retains the final blank. Poems with the first state of leaf Nni, (pg 273) with no running title and 35 lines of text. Several lines in the Satyres on pages 330, 331 and 341, originally containing lines offensive to the king and church, are left blank. In Juvenilia, the license granted by Herbert printed twice (leaf F1v and H4v). Woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut and typographic head- and tailpieces, and woodcut initials. Contemporary calf, rebacked, with original spine laid down. Spine stamped in gilt. Red morocco spine label, lettered in gilt. Some chipping and scuffing to boards. Some pale dampstaining to title and preliminaries in Poems. Poems with some very small marginal discoloration to the edges of leaves from signature Ccc to the end of the work, not affecting text. Overall a very good copy of this most desirable literary landmark. This first edition of the Poems was based on manuscripts derived from the author's papers and provided the best 17th-century text of Donne's verses. Although his poetry was circulated in small bundles of manuscript copies among the cultured circles of Elizabethan and Jacobean society, Donne deliberately kept most of it out of print, fearing to tarnish his reputation in the religious establishment. Thus, almost none of his poetry appeared in print during his lifetime. "The first editors of Donne's poetry divided his work into about a dozen groupings. The Songs and Sonnets which open the volume are generally amorous in theme; the Divine Poems, which close it, are described in their title. Early scholars took for granted that all the bawdy, cynical and lecherous poems were written by young Jack Donne, while all the somber, penitent, devotional poems were written by the godly divine. The more we learn about the matter, the less this easy division seems to stand up. The poetry of Donne represents a sharp break with that written by his predecessors and most of his contemporaries. Whether he writes of love or devotion, Donne's particular blend of wit and seriousness, of intense feeling, darting thought, and vast erudition, creates a fascination quite beyond the reach of easier styles and less strenuous minds" (Adams). "With Donne begins a new era in the history of the English love lyric. The spirit of his best love poetry passed into the most interesting of his elegies and his religious verses, the influence of which was. perhaps even greater, than that of his songs" (Rosenbach 30:127). The Juvenilia consist of "bits of logical horseplay, loaded with legal aphorisms perversely applied, and perfectly impudent in their cheerful, brassy assurance"' (Adams). "Owing to their rather free nature they could not be published during Donne's lifetime" (Keynes, 93). Keynes 78, 43. STC 7045, 7043. Grolier 100 25. Pforzheimer 296. Hayward 54. HBS 68863. $55,000.

Couverture rigide. Etat : Très bon. Paris, sur le quay de la Megisserie au fort l'Evesque, s.d. [1657-1663]. 3 suites reliées en 1 volume in-4 de 42 planches numérotées (y compris le titre général), 47 planches et 30 planches. Restauration sans gravité dans le feuillet de titre. Relié en plein vélin rigide de l'époque, dos lisse avec le titre manuscrit, tranches mouchetées. Reliure de l'époque. 254 x 202 mm. --- Précieux et rare recueil de Lagniet imprimé à Paris entre 1657 et 1663. Catalogue Destailleur, n° 325 ; Brunet, III, 767 ; Rahir, Bibliothèque de l'amateur, 590. Rares sont les recueils de Lagniet connus des bibliographes. Brunet cite ainsi 4 exemplaires dont aucun n'est complet. La composition des quelques exemplaires connus est différente. La collation du présent exemplaire, composé de trois suites numérotées, s'établit ainsi : -Livre premier : Proverbes moraux : 42 planches ; -Livre second : Proverbes joyeux et plaisans : 47 planches ; -Livre troisième : La vie des Gueux : 30 planches ; soit un total de 119 estampes gravées sur cuivre en premier tirage. L'ensemble constitue un document d'une richesse de détails inouïe et inégalée sur la vie besogneuse et récréative des gens du peuple au c?ur du XVIIe siècle : tourneur, musiciens ambulants, mendiants, vitrier, charretier, bonnetier, pêche en rivière, festins, danse, forgeron, ? Dans son étude sur les M?urs et la caricature en France, John Grand-Carteret s'enthousiasme pour les Proverbes de Lagniet : « Non seulement, écrit-il, on voit défiler devant soi une importante période de l'histoire, prise dans des détails plus intimes que par les estampes toujours un peu pompeuses d'Abraham Bosse, mais encore on peut suivre au moyen de ces drôleries et facéties le développement de l'étude de m?urs. » Avec Lagniet, on plonge dans l'univers quotidien, les vicissitudes de la vie et l'omniprésence des fléaux qui ravageaient l'Europe, la peste, la guerre et la famine. Mendiants, artisans, marchands, /// Paris, sur le quay de la Megisserie au fort l'Evesque, n.d. [1657-1663].3 suites bound in 1 volume 4to [254 x 202 mm] of 42 numbered plates (including the general title), 47 plates and 30 plates. Small restoration on the title. Bound in contemporary stiff full vellum, flat spine with handwritten title, mottled edges. Contemporary binding. --- Precious and rare collection by Lagniet printed in Paris between 1657 and 1663. Catalogue Destailleur, n° 325; Brunet, III, 767; Rahir, Bibliothèque de l'amateur, 590. The collections by Lagniet known by bibliographers are rare. Brunet mentions 4 copies of which none is complete. The composition of the few known copies differs. The collation of the present copy, composed of three numbered suites, is as follows: - First book : Proverbes moraux: 42 plates; - Second book: Proverbes joyeux et plaisans: 47 plates; - Third book: La vie des Gueux: 30 plates; that is to say a total of 119 copper engravings in first state. This set forms a document of an incredible and unequalled detailed nature about the plodding and entertaining life of the lower classes in the heart of the 17th century: turner, strolling musicians, beggars, glazier, carter, hosier, river fishing, feasts, dances, blacksmiths? In his study about manners entitled M?urs et la caricature en France, John Grand-Carteret is enthusiastic about Lagniet's Proverbes: « Not only we see passing before our eyes an important period of history, taken in more intimate details compared to Abraham Bosse's engravings always a bit pompous, but we can also follow the development of the study of manners thanks to those funniness and jokes. » With Lagniet, we dive into the daily universe, the ups and downs of life and the omnipresence of scourges that were devastating Europe, the plague, the war and famine. Beggars, craftsmen, shopkeepers, middle-class people and noblemen crowd in these Proverbes. Each plate is littered with proverbs, sayings, popular terms and sometimes coars.

First edition. THE FOUNDATION WORK OF MODERN OPTICS. First edition, an excellent copy, of the foundation work of modern optics. "Working within the perspectivist tradition of Alhazen, Roger Bacon, Witelo, John Pecham, and others, Kepler accepts that sight is possible due to rays emitted from visible objects, with these rays emitted in all directions from each point on the object's surface. He overcomes a major shortcoming of the earlier theories by establishing a logically acceptable one-to-one correspondence between the points on the observed portion of the object and the points on the image produced on the surface of the eye's retina; instead of rejecting all rays hitting the eye non-perpendicularly, as Alhazen had done, Kepler argues that all the rays incident on the eye from any specific point on the object will arrive at a single point on the retina after refraction in the eye's humours. In consequence, the retina receives an unfocussed, although inverted, image of the object. Kepler also presents experimental results, examining, for instance, the range of applicability of Ptolemy's direct proportionality between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction; and he formulates the principle that the intensity of illumination is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the illuminating source" (Parkinson, Breakthroughs, p. 62). "Kepler's interest in optics arose as a direct result of his observations of the partial solar eclipse of 10 July 1600. Following instructions from Tycho Brahe, he constructed a pinhole camera; his measurements, made in the Graz marketplace, closely duplicated Brahe's and seemed to show that the moon's apparent diameter was considerably less than the sun's. Kepler soon realized that the phenomenon resulted from the finite aperture of the instrument; his analysis, assisted by actual threads, led to a clearly defined concept of the light ray, the foundation of modern geometrical optics . Kepler intended at first to publish his optical analyses merely as Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, but by 1602 this 'Appendix to Witelo' had taken second place to the broader program of Astronomiae pars optica. The book was published in 1604 with both titles . The six astronomical chapters include not only a discussion of parallax, astronomical refraction, and his eclipse instruments but also the annual variation in the apparent size of the sun . The immediate impact of Kepler's optical work was not great, but ultimately it changed the course of optics" (DSB). The work also contained an important advance in the theory of conic sections, introducing the 'point at infinity' and the 'principle of continuity' which unified the different types of conics (ellipse, parabola, hyperbola). "In the summer of 1600, Kepler assembled a large wooden instrument (described at the beginning of Chapter 11 of the present work), and set it up in the Market Square in Graz to observe the solar eclipse of June 30/July1. His experience with this instrument drew his attention to certain optical matters that had been troubling astronomers. From a few notes written down at the time of the eclipse, his optical project grew to encompass metaphysical and theological speculations about the nature of light (Chapter 1), a thoroughgoing attempt to account for refraction, involving a novel treatment of conic sections (Chapter 4), a study of the anatomy and physiology of the eye (Chapter 5), a historical study of solar eclipses (Chapter 8), and many other matters relating to the light of the heavenly bodies and how it behaves. The result is one of the most important optical works ever written, which, even when it is wrong, is wrong in an interesting and fruitful way. "The problem that Kepler had initially encountered, that initiated his optical studies, involved the way light flows through pinholes. Astronomers had been puzzled about why the Moon seemed smaller in a solar eclipse than it did at other times. Kepler figured out why. In a characteristic series of numbered sentences jotted down on a piece of paper at the time, he set out point by point the way a finite luminous object and a small but finite opening interact to form a slightly enlarged image. (An expanded version of these notes constitutes Chapter 3 of the present work.) "At first, Kepler had it in mind to publish this important discovery in a separate small work, which he had actually written during the following month. But his exile from Styria, move to Prague, and involvement with the work of Tycho Brahe intervened. Much of his time in the next year was taken up with the orbits of Mars and the Earth. "With the death of Brahe in October, 1601, everything changed. As his successor in the post of Imperial Mathematician, Kepler was expected to produce works that would reflect well on his patron, Rudolph II. In particular, he was to complete the work unfinished by Brahe and to produce the astronomical tables that would bear the name of Rudolph. Kepler filled sheet after sheet with computations and ruminations about the orbit of Mars, which, he believed, held the key to the deeper astronomy. But in the spring of 1602, his investigations took a surprising turn: he discovered that the orbit could not be perfectly circular, but had to be squeezed in slightly at the sides. The unexpected complications that this introduced, together with difficulties with the Brahe family regarding use of the Tychonic observations, led him to realize that the Mars book would not be finished as soon as he hoped, and that he had better find something else to fill in. His thoughts returned to the book on pin-holes. "However, the project turned out not to be as simple as it had seemed at first. As Kepler outlined in his dedication to the Emperor, he thought he should also discuss the other main optical problem in astronomy, the refraction of light in the atmosphere. That, in turn, required an understanding of refraction itself, which demanded a study of the nature of light. And.

Elephant folio (630 x 495 mm); engraved title-page, engraved ?Table des Cartes .? with letterpress paste-over listing 122 subjects (three preliminary leaves, nineteen tables, ninety-nine maps and a one-sheet letterpress text), the volume actually containing seventy-six double-page and twenty-three single page engraved maps, all in original outline colour; eighteen engraved geographical tables and sixty-seven key sheets (eleven maps with both), one sheet of letterpress text, twenty-eight plates of town-plans with 192 images. First and last blanks creased and soiled; the Asia with a lengthy tear restored, Savoy with frayed margins, Moselle with loss to upper and lower borders. Contents otherwise excellent. Contemporary calf, the covers elaborately tooled in gilt, professionally repaired and rebacked with nine raised bands, gilt decoration and a red morocco label to the new spine; a few marks and dents to the covers, extremities very slightly worn. A.e.g. Paris [but Amsterdam] : Alexis-Hubert Jaillot and Pieter Mortier, 1692 In 1689, the partnership between Jaillot and the Sansons ended; the Sanson sons seem to have been predisposed to assume their partners were cheating them, and the separation was acrimonious. With the end of that partnership, it seems that Jaillot entered into a new partnership with Pieter Mortier (1661-1711) in Amsterdam, to publish a Dutch edition of the Atlas Nouveau, with the title-page and all the maps bearing Jaillot?s Parisian address, and mostly dated 1692. Mortier was of French origin, his grandparents were French refugees who settled in Leiden; his father then settled in Amsterdam in the 1660s. It seems that Mortier served an apprenticeship in Paris between 1681 and 1685, when he reappears in Amsterdam, a member of the booksellers guide, trading at the sign of the City of Paris. Throughout his career he specialised in French books, and seems to have had close relations with the Parisian book-trade. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for the nature of the relationship with Jaillot or, indeed, if there was one. The only records demonstrate that Mortier, in partnership with Marc Huguetan, financed the engraving, printing and publishing of the atlas; but the presence of hitherto unpublished Sanson maps in the Dutch edition points strongly to Jaillot?s involvement. As with the French edition, the contents were fluid, with additional maps added as they were completed. Thus this atlas includes maps of England, Scotland and Ireland, dated 1693. More significantly, this copy has twenty-eight plates of town illustrations, generally plans, but also birds-eye views and prospects, which are not found in all examples. This copy matches Pastoureau?s description, but has an additional sheet of views of French Mediterranean towns, including Marseilles, Toulon, St. Tropez and two of Nice. This Dutch version was an altogether better production, in terms of engraving, paper and colouring, a result of the superior sophistication of the Dutch map trade. References: Koeman, Mor 1 (with varying composition); Pastoureau, Jaillot 1 D; Shirley, T-JAI.1c (with varying composition).

Hardcover. Etat : Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition, rare, of the announcement in full of the discovery of the rings of Saturn and of its moon Titan (the work was preceded by an anagram by Huygens in Pierre Borel's De vero telescopii inventore (1665), planted to secure priority). "With an improved telescope (built by himself and his brother Constantijn) and a theory based on the Cartesian concept of vortices, Huygens was able to solve the problem of the "arms" of Saturn, whose existence and variable aspect had puzzled astronomers since their discovery by Galileo. Huygens hypothesized that the varying "arms" were actually the phases of a single thin flat ring, surrounding but not touching the planet, and inclined at an angle of 28 degreses to the ecliptic" (Norman). "The main text begins with descriptions of Huygens's telescopes and some of his early observations of other planets, stars, and the Great Nebula in Orion. Then his discussion turns to the discovery of Saturn's moon and the determination of its orbital period around Saturn. Huygens derives a value of 15 days, 23 hours, and 13 minutes (not far off from the modern value of 15 days, 22 hours, and 41 minutes). Finally, on page 34, Huygens begins the discussion of the changing and unusual nature of Saturn's appearance. He discusses earlier observations of the planet going back to Galileo, notes how these observations suffered from the use of inadequate telescopes, and goes into some detail on the hypotheses of Hevelius, Roberval, and Hodierna. After arguing against these explanations, Huygens offers his theory of a thick solid ring circling Saturn at its equator and in equilibrium under Saturn's gravitational force. He then goes into detail about how the plane of the ring is tilted 20 degrees to the plane of Saturn's orbit and that the ring maintains a constant orientation as the planet orbits the Sun. This means that the ring's angle changes with respect to us and thus explained the varying appearance of Saturn. When the ring was edgewise to the Earth it would seem to practically disappear and then slowly the angle would change and the rings would open themselves back up to us. The book ends with Huygens's observations of all the planets and his calculations of their sizes in relation to the Sun" (Brashear, Smithsonian), these observations "all contributing to a strong defense of the Copernican system" (Norman). The Systema Saturnium is here bound with the second edition of Pierre Gassendi's Institutio astronomica iuxta Hypotheses tam veterum quam Copernici & Tychonis: dictata Parisiis a Petro Gassendo . . . accedunt ejusdem varij tractatus astronomici (1656), the second edition of this collection of texts and the third edition of the Institutio astronomica overall. Dibner, Heralds 9; Norman 1136. Provenance: Gustavus Wynne Cook (1867-1940), American banker, businessman, and amateur astronomer (bookplate). Two works bound in one vol., 4to. [Huygens:] pp. [xii], 84, with 11 engraved illustrations, 8 woodcut diagrams and initials, and one folding engraved plate (complete)(illustration on page 60 slightly shaved). [Gassendi:] [viii], 328, [8] (the Gassendi is perhaps an early issue: it is lacking two leaves of dedication as in the digitized copy BSB-ID 875455, and the verso of the last index leaf, which normally carries the portrait of Gassendi, is here blank; all after p. 183 bound first). Contemporary calf (neatly rebacked retaining original endpapers, corners restored).

175,[1]pp., lacking blank leaf [P4] which divides the two narratives but was mistakenly included as pp.119-120 in the continuous pagination; including large engraved vignette on title, with twenty-five engraved plates (five folding double-page) and two large folding maps. Oblong quarto. Contemporary Dutch vellum. Old stains and soiling to boards, manuscript "33" in ink on spine, edges rubbed, boards slightly bowed. Modern bookplate on front pastedown. Minor toning and foxing, tiny reinforcement at mounting stub on verso of each large folding map, some offsetting. Overall very good. In a blue cloth box, gilt leather label. Scarce first Latin edition of one of the bestsellers of illustrated 17th-century travel literature, which reports Le Maire's critical DISCOVERY OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO, an alternate route to the Pacific, and also recounts the Pacific pillaging of the veteran East Indies sailor-turned-pirate, Joris van Spilbergen. In addition, the work includes valuable early information on ports along the Pacific coast of the Americas, and is also of interest for the 17th-century Dutch presence in Brazil. Rich in ethnographic detail, the numerous illustrations in the SPECULUM ORIENTALIS. include images of oversized penguins, llamas, and an Andean condor with a nine-foot wing span. Naval battles, beleaguered Spanish settlements, and newly discovered islands are also depicted in detail, making this a valuable compendium of adventure on the high seas during the Age of Discovery. In 1614 the VOC commissioned Spilbergen to sail to the Moluccas with nearly 700 men. Despite the ostensible commercial nature of his expedition, Spilbergen's six vessels were heavily armed, anticipating encounters with silver-laden Spanish vessels. Spilbergen spent two years calling at various Spanish and Portuguese ports along both coasts of South America, failing to capture any great amounts of silver or silk from Manila, but burning several settlements and emerging triumphant from a naval skirmish just south of Lima. By contrast, Le Maire's less mercenary expedition resulted in important discoveries; his exploration of Tierra del Fuego and the Tuamotou Archipelago called into doubt the existence of a massive southern continent, providing a catalyst for Tasman's discovery of New Zealand and Australia. The two expeditions crossed paths in the Dutch East Indies in 1616. Spilbergen's fleet of six ships was fitted out and armed to combat the Spanish colonies, attacking Spanish settlements and shipping along their route. They sailed to Brazil, then through the Straits of Magellan and north along the coast of America as far as California. After sailing east to the Philippines they went on to Batavia in search of a Spanish fleet reportedly planning to attack Dutch settlements in the Moluccas, but they never found a fleet. On his arrival at Batavia, Spilbergen encountered Le Maire and Schouten, whose voyage for the newly-formed Compagnie Australe had embarked in 1615, a year after Spilbergen's. Le Maire and Schouten traveled via the newly-discovered Le Maire Strait, but on their arrival at Batavia, they were arrested for breaching the monopoly granted to the Dutch East India Company of the Strait of Magellan. Spilbergen took Le Maire, Schouten, and their crews on board and escorted them back to the Netherlands virtually as prisoners. Le Maire grew ill and died en route. ^This work is remarkable as an early document on Dutch navigation to the Brazilian coasts. Its great value lies in Spilbergen's detailed account of their stay in the Ilha Grande, from October 1614 to January 1615, and in São Vicente in 1615. Plate 2, depicting the disordered landing of Dutch vessels in São Vicente clearly documents the way of life of the indigenous peoples under Portuguese occupancy. Colonial religious structures appear alongside typical Native American hammocks, and traditional Brazilian costumes and methods of animal husbandry are evident. This illustration with its explanatory text is particularly important, as 17th-century ethnographic documents about the future São Paulo are very rare. One of the large folding maps remains important for illustrating Le Maire and Schouten's route across the Pacific. Other maps show the Straits of Magellan and Manila, the Moluccas, and various ports on the Pacific coast of America. The SPECULUM ORIENTALIS. was originally published in Dutch the same year as this Latin edition, with identical plates. Translations in other languages followed rapidly: German in 1620 (Frankfurt) and French in 1621 (Amsterdam). The work was not translated into English until the 1906 Hakluyt Society edition (with the title, THE EAST AND WEST INDIAN MIRROR). LANDWEHR VOC 361 (mistaking the first edition of the Dutch: it is 1619, as his excellent collation obviously attests, not 1617). BORBA DE MORAES II:276. HOWGEGO S159. W. Klooster, THE DUTCH IN THE AMERICAS 1600- 1800, cat. 24, p.12. BLAIR-ROBERTSON XV, pp.328-30; illustrated XVIII, p.224. LeCLERC 1994. SABIN 2288. RODRIGUEZ 2288. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 619/133. J. de Villiers, THE EAST AND WEST INDIAN MIRROR (Hakluyt Society, 1906). JCB II:143. Lach, ASIA IN THE MAKING OF EUROPE III, pp.445-48. Schilder, AUSTRALIA UNVEILED, Ch. V, pp.32-37. TIELE 66.

First edition. CASSINI'S EXTREMELY RARE FIRST PUBLISHED WORK - PROVING THAT COMETS ARE CELESTIAL PHENOMENA. First edition, exceptionally rare, of the remarkable first publication of the great observational astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini, in which he demonstrated for the first time by observing their parallax that comets are celestial phenomena and not, as Aristotle had claimed, ignited exhalations from the earth (the comet is now designated C/1652 Y1). We have been unable to trace any other copy of this work in commerce, and only a handful of institutional copies. In 1652, just before Christmas, a comet was observed approaching the Earth, and it remained visible through the first week of January 1653. Cassini was then a guest in the astronomical observatory of his patron, the Marquis Cornelio Malvasia, inside the Villa di Panzano, near Castelfranco Emilia. Here, together with Malvasia and, occasionally, the Duke of Modena, Cassini spent many cold winter nights taking, with the observatory's telescope, accurate measurements of the comet's position, and elaborating a theory on its origin: "the observations I made [of the comet] authorized me to conclude that it had no sensible parallax and that it was above [the orbit] of Saturn." Each of Cassini's observations is accompanied by an engraved illustration in the text showing the position of the comet with respect to certain reference stars. The last two pages are dedicated to the description of the instrument at Panzano, illustrated on a beautiful engraving, used to determine the position of the comet with respect to these reference stars. The operation of the large instrument required two observers and several assistants. "From a series of observations on the comet of 1652, made with the Marquis of Malvasia, who had been instrumental in bringing him to Bologna, he concluded that comets were not of a meteoric nature as had been imagined, but that they were guided in their paths by the same laws as the planetary bodies; and he explains the motion of the comet by a circle described around the earth and beyond the orbit of the moon. These observations were published in his first production, which appeared in 1653, under the title of De cometa anni 1652 et 1653" (Brewster, The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia (1830), p. 603). The comet of 1652 was also observed by Hevelius in Gdansk between December 20 and January 8; Hevelius devotes the whole of the first book of his Cometographia (1668) to this comet: "he had an ingenious but inaccurate way of judging parallax and greatly underestimated the comet's distance . He supposed comets to be condensed planetary exhalations" (DSB). The comet's true parabolic orbit was calculated by Edmond Halley in his Synopsis (1705), using 54 observations (including those of Cassini). OCLC lists five copies worldwide (Brown, Adler Planetarium, Oklahoma, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Institut de France); KVK adds the Archiginnasio Municipal Library, Bologna, and University of Florence, and there is also a copy in the Astronomical Observatory in Brussels; not on COPAC (not in the British Library). "The first of a family of astronomers who settled in France and were prominent in directing the activities of the French school of astronomy until the Revolution, Cassini (1625-1712) . studied at Vallebone and then at the Jesuit college in Genoa and at the abbey of San Fructuoso. He showed great intellectual curiosity and was especially interested in poetry, mathematics, and astronomy. He was attracted at first by astrological speculations, but reading Pico della Mirandola's pamphlet Disputationes Joannis Pici Mirandolae adversus astrologiam divinatricem persuaded him of the frivolity of that pseudoscience. Yet, paradoxically, the beginning of his scientific career benefited from the reputation he acquired for his knowledge of astrology. The Marquis Cornelio Malvasia, a rich amateur astronomer and senator of Bologna who calculated ephemerides for astrological purposes, invited him to come to work in his observatory at Panzano, near Bologna . Thanks to the marquis's aid, he made use, from 1648, of several instruments that allowed him to begin his first researches. He was also able to complete his education under the tutelage of two excellent scientists, the Bolognese Jesuits Giovan Battista Riccioli-who was then finishing his great treatise, the Almagestum novum (1651)- and Francesco Maria Grimaldi, who later became famous for his discovery of the phenomenon of diffraction, published in his posthumous work De lumine (1665). Although one cannot exactly determine their influence on the young Cassini, it appears that they convinced him of the importance of precise and systematic observation and of the necessity of a parallel improvement in instruments and methods. They probably likewise contributed, less happily, to making him wary of the new theories-especially of Copernicus' system-and to reinforcing in him the conservative tendencies that he displayed throughout his life.With his first works Cassini won the esteem of his fellow citizens to such an extent that in 1650 the senate of Bologna, on the recommendation of its patron, designated him to occupy the principal chair of astronomy at the university, which had been vacant since Bonaventura Cavalieri's death in 1647 . In 1652-1653 the passage of a comet attracted his attention" (DSB) "In 1652, just before Christmas, a comet was noticed approaching the earth. From the city of Bologna, it was visible at the zenith, and it was observed also by the archbishop of the city. As reported by Cassini in his memoirs, this circumstance required again his presence at the castle of Panzano, by request of Malvasia: 'the Marquis Malvasia absolutely wanted that I come with him and my student Beringelli Geri to his home in Panzano'. "Cassini thus relocated to the Panzano castle, far from the city, which actually hosted a very well-equipped observatory that would enable him to make better observations. One can appreci.

Hardcover. Etat : Fine. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITIONS. Folio. 2 books in 1. [xlii] 758 [xii]; [x] 316 [viii]. A [¶] 2[¶] *² B-2V 3A-3X 3Y [first blank, F4+1]. A-V 2A-2H . [first blank]. Roman and Italic letter, first word of titles xylographic, floriated woodcut initials and grotesque head and tail-pieces, typographical and metalcut ornaments, first t.p. with cut of hyena (used for sea wolf on p. 749), pencil note in Pirie s hand on fly; This copy and the one in the BM are the only one known with the sea-wolf title-page, most have the Gorgon. A copy with a sea-wolf on the title was lot 481 in the Foyle sale , second t.p. with the Boa, there is an extra leaf after F4 with heading: The Picture of the vulger Bugill Folio 57. in total 155 distinct woodcut illustrations of animals, 15 full-page, eighteenth century engraved bookplate on pastedown, another modern with monogram DP above, Robert S Pirie s below. Light age yellowing, very minor marginal light waterstain to outer margins in places. Fine copies, crisp and clean with woodcuts in very good impressions, in handsome contemporary polished calf, covers double blind, and single gilt ruled to a panel design, large fleuron with acorn to outer corners, fine strap-work arabesque gilt at centres, spine with raised bands, rebacked, some repair to corners. First editions in English of Gesner s work on quadrupeds, illustrating both real and legendary beasts, with an additional work on snakes, including chapters on bees, wasps and flies. Animals are categorized alphabetically, resulting in a few interesting sequences: the Gorgon is beside the Hare, and the Manticore with face of a man, hundreds of sharp teeth, and the body of a lion, is next to a typical Ibex, or Mountain Goat. Although it depicts several mythical beasts in striking (if fantastic) woodcut detail, they are given little space text wise, and the majority of the book depicts European and exotic mammals, and domesticated animals. The largest section describes twenty breeds of dog, as well as an extensive treatment of horses, with an attention to veterinary care and showmanship. Of Cats, Gesner is wary: this is a dangerous beast so with a wary and discreet eye we must avoid their harms . And of the Rhinoceros, ornamented by an imitation of Dürer, he is simply in awe, asking the reader to consider that such a large work on many everyday creatures must also contain the storie of this Rhinoceros, as the outward shape and picture of him appeareth rare and admirable to his eies, differing in every part from all other beasts, from the top of his nose to the tip of his taile The work concludes with useful indices of Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, German and Greek names for each of the beasts featured. The second part is the first English translation of the last of Gesner s works on animals, on Snakes and Insects. Unlike his history of Quadrupeds, it begins with an essay on the Divine, Morall and Naturall elements of serpents acknowledging the problematic place of snakes in the history of creation, and moving onto a technical discussion of their anatomy. The work is also distinct from its predecessor in its more consistent (and useful) inclusion of medical authorities and recipes for antidotes. The classification system however is less precise, as if this later work of Gesner s was more of a catch-all for nature s miscellany. After Asps, there is discussion of Bees, Flies, Caterpillars, and reptiles such as crocodiles, toads, lizards, turtles, and even dragons and sea serpents. Perhaps more than the streamlined History of Foure-Footed Beastes, the untidiness and slight confusion of this work shows Gesner s innovations for what they were: straddling the divide between the received knowledge of natural history and the push for newer forms of classification through observation that would define zoology. An unusually good, clean copy of a much read work, more often found defective or incomplete. Edward Topsell (d. 1638?), matriculated from Christ s College.

8 parts in one vol. Titles within wide woodcut borders and numerous woodcut illustrations throughout. Contemporary speckled calf, rebacked preserving original label on spine, 8vo. Second edition of this important manual of riding, breeding, hunting, farriery and veterinary matters (following the first of 1607), by one of the earliest western owners of and dealers in Arabian horses. Markham praises the virtues of Turkish and Barb horses, which are said to be "beyond all horses whatsoever for delicacie of shape and proportion, insomuch that the most curious painter cannot with all his Art amend their naturall lineaments. They are to be knowne before all horses by the finenesse of their proportions, especially their heades and necks, which Nature hath so well shap'd, and plac'd, that they commonly save Art his greatest labour: they are swift beyond other forraigne horses, and to that use in England we only imploy them [.]". With notes on saddles and bits (several illustrated), as well as numerous cures for horse ailments. - "Divided into eight books with separate titles. The 2nd and 3rd books bear the date of 1616" (Huth). The title page itself bears no imprint, but rather has the word "Cavalarice" sandwiched between the dates "16" and "17". - Occasional slight browning or marginal waterstaining; several small wormholes to margins near end. Title with dated 1745 inscription, 17th century ink annotation to title verso (traced by a later hand), 20th century ink annotation and tipped-in auction catalogue description to front free endpaper. From the library of Francis McIlhenny Stifler with his bookplate to front pastedown. Scarce; only three copies of this edition sold at auction in the last 30 years. - BM-STC 17335. Poynter 19.2. OCLC 18813278. Cf. Huth 15. Podeschi/Mellon 18. Graesse IV, 403. Mennessier de la Lance II, 156. Not in Wellcome.

4° (225x169 mm). Collation: [π]2, A-K4. [4], 78, [2] pages. Complete with fol. [π]1 blank. Roman and italic type. Title-page printed in red and black, with engraved vignette. Seven-line decorated initial on fol. A1r, head- and tailpieces. Large folding plate, with engraved diagram and explanatory letter-press. Contemporary limp vellum, spine with inked title; blue edges. A very good copy, some minor foxing, a few spots.First edition of this "great work [.] which outlines the principles of modern geology" (DSB), by the Danish anatomist Niels Stensen, better known as Nicolaus Steno, then physician at the Florentine court. The De solido is dedicated to Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. In this work, a cornerstone of geology based on data collected in the Arno Valley, Steno sought to describe the anatomy of the earth and to explain the entire system of nature stratum super stratum. His contributions to plate tectonic theory and to stratigraphy is based on his theory that layers or strata of the earth, which are not horizontal, must have been tilted or folded by a force, such as an earthquake, after they formed. His principle of superposition also applied to other geologic events on the surface, such as lava flows and ash layers from volcanic eruptions. Although brief in form – the work was only intended as an introduction to a larger work that Steno would never write – the impact of De solido was far greater than its modest size would suggest, establishing important principles of geology and elaborating upon new tools for writing its history. In his treatise, the Danish geologist "described the composition of the earth's crust in Tuscany and a famous diagram in his book shows six successive types of stratification: the first attempt ever made to represent geological sections. This was a sequence which he believed would be found all over the world. He explained the true origin of fossils found in the earth as being remains of once living things and he discriminated between the volcanic, chemical and mechanical modes of the origin of the rocks. He was the first clearly to recognize that the strata of the earth's crust contain the records of a chronological sequence of events from which the history of the earth can be reconstructed. He attempted to find the principles of stratigraphy [.] He deduced that these changes in the original position of the strata are the real causes of the unevenness of the earth's surface. This was in direct contradiction to the accepted belief that mountains had existed ever since the beginning of things or had simply grown" (PMM).STC 17th Century, 877; Bruni-Evans 5151; Dibner 90; Horblit-Grolier 96; Norman 2013; PMM 151; D.R. Oldroyd, Thinking about Earth, London 1996, pp. 60-76; Philobiblon, One Thousand Years of Bibliophily, no. 214. Book.

A manuscript book containing detailed and extensive notes on a wide range of scientific subjects. 200x155mm. 494 leaves. 34 engraved plates. Text in Latin. The chapter headings are beautifully calligraphed and there are some attractive little drawings in the margins. Bound in contemporary full calf, upper and lower covers with a single fillet border in blind framing a blind triple fillet which then frames a lavishly tooled border with interwoven semicircles and floral motifs in blind. At the centre of each cover is a gilt supralibros with two men, one holding an armillary sphere and the other a pair of compasses. Above them are stars and between them a cartouche inside which is a triple-towered castle surmounted by a crown (this motif is repeated in the compartments of the spine save for the second which has a black morocco label lettered in gilt "Physica"). Beneath this is a shield with a hand holding a book and reaching down through the clouds. This is the coat of arms of the Old University of Leuven. The figures with the armillary sphere and compass are clearly a reference to Mercator, the maker of globes, spheres and other scientific instruments as well as being the finest map maker of his time. On the upper cover is stamped in gilt "Franciscus Stickers" and on the lower, "Bredanus Anno 1670". One of the preliminary blank leaves has the ownership inscription "Franciscus Stickers". Stickers was from a family in Breda in the Netherlands. Born in 1649, he would have been a student in 1670 (at Leuven, hence the university's coat of arms). In 1674, Stickers is recorded as being a lawyer in Breda and marrying Josina Maria van Beeck. He died in 1700, clearly a figure of some substance as the frontispiece engraving of this book has the inscription (dated 1813) "Ex Libris Nob. Dni Franciscii Stickers adeptus est J.A.Cornelissen". Some rubbing to extremities, joints a little cracked. Recent minor repairs to spine. Leather ties. A little damp-staining and some toning to edges but overall in very good condition throughout. This significant manuscript book running to almost 1000 pages, provides a valuable and fascinating insight into the teaching of science in the oldest university in the Netherlands in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Stickers' notes begin with the title "De Physica et Obiecto eius" and proceed to a detailed investigation into the nature and types of causality. "Libri de Anima" (Books concerning the soul) contains notes on "Life and Death" and "the circulation of the blood". There are various sections dealing with the senses (smell is accompanied by a hand-drawn bunch of flowers), expanded to included notes on related matters such as sleep, tiredness and freedom. Later on in the book, a discussion of the senses takes a more explicitly scientific path with a section on the eye (with a diagram and the initial "O" of "Oculo" framing a hand-drawn eye) and notes on colour and light. Some subjects are dealt with more than once suggesting a developing programme of study appropriate to university education. Significantly, there are two sections headed "Tractatus de Sphera", the second illustrated with an armillary sphere, engraved by Michael Haye. The notes in these chapters develop into detailed study of planetary motion, astronomy, the stars, lunar science, eclipses of the sun and moon and the zodiac. The astronomical systems of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe are covered and there is a section on comets with a later note (also in Stickers' hand) recording how "vidi" (I saw) the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch's or Newton's Comet) and accompanied by a drawing of the phenomenon. There are notes on forms of mutation and change dealing with corruption, putrefaction and mixture. Taken all together, these notes, legibly although minutely written, offer a rare chance to study early modern scientific education through the eyes of a clearly talented student at a university with a link to the one of the great scientists of the previous century. An additional attraction are the decorative calligraphy, the handful of marginal drawings, and the illustrations including engravings of the senses by David Teniers the Younger, scientific diagrams (particularly relating to the sections on astronomy). Some of these engravings may have been produced for insertion into books of lecture notes such as this and a number are rather amusing: opposite the notes titled "De Fortuna" is an image of a hand reaching out the sky and casting dice on a table, and with the notes "De Nutritione" is a print of a flock of sheep nibbling on leaves. It is nice to find the occasional light touch in a work of such serious and extensive learning.

4to. (8), 152 pp. With engraved portrait frontispiece of Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans and numerous pretty woodcut initials and tailpieces. Contemporary richly gilt calf, gilt dentelle central cover decoration showing the Sacred Heart of Jesus, gilt spine on five raised bands (upper spine-end and corners repaired). Marbled pastedowns. Second, enlarged edition of this rare work on precious stones and pearls found in the East and West Indies, written by a Parisian "marchand orphèvre" in Paris and first published in 1661. Both editions are dedicated to "La Grande Mademoiselle" Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier and niece of Louis XIII, with her finely engraved portrait, which is here more delicately executed (by Nicolas de Larmessin, in 1664). The large chapter devoted to pearls and pearl fishing cites the Gulf and several specific places there as among the main locations of pearl fishing: "on pesche les perles en divers endroits du monde. Dans le Golfe Persique, principalement aux environs de l'Isle d'Ormus & Bassora: aupres de Baroyn [i.e., Bahrain], Catiffa, Iuffa, Camaron, & autres lieux de ce Golfe [.]" (p. 68). This chapter is here "augmented with an appendix which recounts the history of the Spanish conquest in the New World and additionally gives remarks on pearl fisheries, natural history, and production [.] New chapters comprise Ch. 17, on the pricing of diamonds according to size and quality, and Ch. 18 on pricing of pearls. In tems of substance, this edition [the second one, here offered] is considerably superior to the first; both are rare" (Sinkankas p. 97f.). It is these new, additional chapters in particular for which this second edition is sought after: "Du prix des Diamans" and "Du prix des Perles", as well as one entitled "Raisons contre les chercheurs de la Pierre Philosophale & souffleurs d'Alquemie. Et ne sera pas mal à propos de parler de Nicolas Flamel sur ce sujet". - Lower spine-end and corners somewhat bumped, otherwise fine. A good copy in an appealingly decorated contemporary French binding. - Sinkankas 593. Duveen 71. Sabin 4957. Brunet VI, 4780. Graesse I, 348.