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Hardcover. Etat : Fine. Bound in attractive, contemporary Parisian calf with some discreet repairs. The boards are blind-ruled and adorned with gold-tooled ornaments. This is one of very few to have appeared on the market in a contemporary binding. The text is in excellent condition, with just minor blemishes (small early erasure of an ownership inscription on the title just slightly touching the "D." in the date. Light damp-staining to first six leaves.) Collation as in Horblit; this copy without the errata leaf -printed separately and later- that is found in a minority of copies (about 20 percent). Preserved in a morocco-backed box. Provenance: At the foot of the title-page, an early signature has been thoroughly lined through. 17th- or 18th-century inscription on title of the Jesuit College of Paris. Bookplate of Gustavus Wynne Cook (1867-1940, amateur astronomer, collector, and benefactor of the Franklin Institute). Franklin Institute bookplate. Soldat Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, November 1977, lot 85. Purchased by Pierre Berès at Sotheby's London, 21 October 1980 and sold to a prominent Spanish private collector. "The earliest of the three books of science that most clarified the relationship of man and his universe (along with Newton's Principia and Darwin's Origin of Species)."-Dibner, Heralds of Science, 3. This work is the foundation of the heliocentric theory of the planetary system and the most important scientific text of the 16th century. Copernicus began to work on astronomy on his own. Sometime between 1510 and 1514 he wrote an essay that has come to be known as the Commentariolus that introduced his new cosmological idea, the heliocentric system, and he sent copies to various astronomers. He continued making astronomical observations whenever he could, hampered by the poor position for observations in Frombork and his many pressing responsibilities as canon. Nevertheless, he kept working on his manuscript of On the Revolutions. In 1539 a young mathematician named Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574) from the University of Wittenberg came to study with Copernicus. Rheticus brought Copernicus books in mathematics, in part to show Copernicus the quality of printing that was available in the German-speaking cities. He published an introduction to Copernicus's ideas, the Narratio prima (First Report). Most importantly, he convinced Copernicus to publish On the Revolutions. Rheticus oversaw most of the printing of the book, and on 24 May 1543 Copernicus held a copy of the finished work on his deathbed. It is impossible to date when Copernicus first began to espouse the heliocentric theory. Had he done so during his lecture in Rome, such a radical theory would have occasioned comment, but there was none, so it is likely that he adopted this theory after 1500. His first heliocentric writing was his Commentariolus. It was a small manuscript that was circulated but never printed. We do not know when he wrote this, but a professor in Cracow cataloged his books in 1514 and made reference to a "manuscript of six leaves expounding the theory of an author who asserts that the earth moves while the sun stands still" (Rosen, 1971, 343). Thus, Copernicus probably adopted the heliocentric theory sometime between 1508 and 1514. Rosen (1971, 345) suggested that Copernicus's "interest in determining planetary positions in 1512-1514 may reasonably be linked with his decisions to leave his uncle's episcopal palace in 1510 and to build his own outdoor observatory in 1513." In other words, it was the result of a period of intense concentration on cosmology that was facilitated by his leaving his uncle and the attendant focus on church politics and medicine. In the Commentariolus Copernicus listed assumptions that he believed solved the problems of ancient astronomy. He stated that the earth is only the center of gravity and center of the moon's orbit; that all the spheres encircle the sun, which is close to the center of the universe; that the universe is much larger than previously assumed, and the earth's distance to the sun is a small fraction of the size of the universe; that the apparent motion of the heavens and the sun is created by the motion of the earth; and that the apparent retrograde motion of the planets is created by the earth's motion. Although the Copernican model maintained epicycles moving along the deferent, which explained retrograde motion in the Ptolemaic model, Copernicus correctly explained that the retrograde motion of the planets was only apparent not real, and its appearance was due to the fact that the observers were not at rest in the center. The work dealt very briefly with the order of the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the only planets that could be observed with the naked eye), the triple motion of the earth (the daily rotation, the annual revolution of its center, and the annual revolution of its inclination) that causes the sun to seem to be in motion, the motions of the equinoxes, the revolution of the moon around the earth, and the revolution of the five planets around the sun. The Commentariolus was only intended as an introduction to Copernicus's ideas, and he wrote "the mathematical demonstrations intended for my larger work should be omitted for brevity's sake.". In a sense it was an announcement of the greater work that Copernicus had begun. The Commentariolus was never published during Copernicus's lifetime, but he sent manuscript copies to various astronomers and philosophers. He received some discouragement because the heliocentric system seemed to disagree with the Bible, but mostly he was encouraged. Although Copernicus's involvement with official attempts to reform the calendar was limited to a no longer extant letter, that endeavor made a new, serious astronomical theory welcome. Fear of the reaction of ecclesiastical authorities was probably the least of the reasons why he delayed publishing his book. The most important reasons for the delay.

Hardcover. Etat : Near fine. First. THE FIRST MODERN ATLAS -- "THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL PTOLEMY EDITIONS" -- THE BOURNE-ROSENBACH-STREETER-WARDINGTON COPY. First edition. Strasbourg: Johann Schott, 1513. Folio ( 17 1/2" x 12 1/2", 444mm x 317mm). With 47 woodcut maps by Martin Waldseemüller, 45 double-page, 2 single (the final map printed in three colors). Bound in contemporary paneled dark calf (rebacked) over wooden boards with red silk ties. On the boards, two broad borders of emblems blind. In the central panel, fleurons with two sets of initials: "T. C." and "T. A." On the spine, seven raised bands with blind fleurons in the panels. Presented in a felt-lined clam-shell box by Brockman. Rebacked. Conserved by James and Stuart Brockman (full report available on request). Ties perished. Lacking the final blank. Small dampstain to the lower fore-corner, with some additions and repairs. Ownership signature on the title-page: "Su[m] Jo(hannis) Bourne". With scattered early ink marginalia to the text and to the plates. Bookplate of Thomas Winthrop Streeter (his sale, Parke-Bernet 25 Octover 1966, lot 6) to the front-paste down, between a lot description of the volume and the armorial bookplate of York Minster. Gilt bookplate of Lord Wardington (his sale, Sotheby's London 10 October 2006, lot 399) to the rear paste-down. Claudius Ptolemaeus was a second-century philosopher living in Roman Alexandria in Egypt. In the Greek tradition, philosophy -- the love of wisdom -- bridged what we now divide into the humanities and the sciences; he was a mathematician, natural scientist and geographer-astronomer. No manuscripts of the Geographike Hyphegesis (Geographical Guidance) survive from before the XIIIc, but some examples survive with maps that bear some relation to those Ptolemy himself drew. Various translations circulated, but Ringmann's is generally regarded as superior to his predecessors'. In the XVc, the Geographia was the core of ancient knowledge of the world. It was crucial to explorers; Columbus expected to find the East Indies because of Ptolemy's calculations and assertions about longitude. With funding from René II, Duke of Lorraine (whence the polychromy of the map of Lorraine), Walter Lud, canon in St-Dié-des-Vosges, gathered a group of humanists to knit together the new knowledge coming from Christopher Columbus and other early explorers with a new translation (Ringmann) and new maps (Waldseemüller). Together they revolutionized cartography, and were likely responsible with the coinage of America and a description of the New World. The provenance of the present copy befits the importance of the work. Sir John Bourne (ca. 1518-1575) was, until the accession of Queen Mary (1553), a rather minor parliamentary figure. Probably due to his support of Mary's claim in the succession crisis, he was knighted, given a manor and elevated to a principal secretaryship on the Privy Council. Having grown quite rich -- he was a founder of the Russia (or Muscovy) Company, perhaps the source of his geographic curiosity -- Bourne was a significant book-collector, and more than a dozen of his volumes (in Greek, Latin and Hebrew) are to be found in institutional libraries. Eight of Bourne's books remain in the collection of York Minster, most having been acquired by Toby Matthew, Archbishop of York. Doubtless our volume entered the library of the cathedral in the same way. Long afterwards, the book was bought privately by that greatest of all booksellers, A.S.W. Rosenbach, who sold it to Thomas W. Streeter, whose sale of Americana was epochal. Charles W. Traylen -- himself a force among booksellers for some eight decades -- bought the volume at that sale on behalf of Christopher Henry Beaumont Pease, Lord Wardington, in whose collection it remained until his death. His landmark sale of important atlases and geographies in 2006 included some 20 copies of Ptolemy's Geography. Fairfax Murray German 348 and 348A; Harrisse 74; Phillips 359; Sabin 66478; Shirley 34; Streeter I:6.

An exceptional copy of this rare early Venetian printing of Ibn Sina's medical encyclopaedia in Latin, issued with De viribus cordis as often. This copy is in a beautifully preserved Italian period binding. No complete copies are traced at auction in over 80 years. The first edition of Avicenna's Canon, in the standard Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona, appeared in Padua in December 1472. The original Arabic text was first printed in Rome in 1593. De viribus cordis, a treatise on psychiatry, was translated into Latin by Arnaldo de Villa Nova and featured as an addendum to early editions of the Canon from 1476. Drawing from the writings of Hippocrates, Galen, and Aristotle, as well as from the author's own experience as physician to the Emir of Bockhara, Canon "stands for the epitome of all precedent development, the final codification of all Graeco-Arabic medicine" (Neuburger, p. 368). Published in 17 editions before 1500 and consistently reprinted afterwards, this work dominated as the most authoritative medical text in universities for five centuries. It is divided into five books dealing respectively with the scope of medicine and anatomy, medical substances, special pathology, general pathology, and compound drugs. The book "contains many original observations. Avicenna recognized the distribution of diseases by water and soil. in the section Materia Medica he records seven hundred and sixty drugs and, for the first time, the preparation and properties of alcohol. Avicenna's work transmitted to the West the ideas of the Greek writers and also introduced ideas of his own which in some respects superseded them" (PMM). The binding can be securely identified as Italian from the style of the blind-stamped motifs and from the position of the brass catches on the rear board (as opposed to the front board), as well as their peculiar trilobate shape and engraved decoration. Similarly shaped and decorated catches or brass fittings can be seen on bindings of this period illustrated by de Marinis (cfr. vol. II, no. 2507; vol. I, no. 369) and in the online database of the Civic Library Angelo Mai (binding Sala 1 D 8 7). The blind rolls of rosettes and palmettes, and the small cruciform tools, were all very popular designs at the time and are not indicative of a specific geographical area. The binder has used, as a rear endpaper, a bifolium from an unidentified printed edition of Stellarum fata anni 1477, an astronomical and astrological prognostic for the year 1477 written in Bologna by the Polish scholar Nicolaus Wodka (c.1442-1494). This is a remarkable survival, as this text is otherwise only known in a single manuscript example preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich (Ms. Monac. 647, fol. 51ss). Wodka was teaching astronomy in Bologna in the late 1470s, before moving to Urbino, and subsequently to Krakow, where he became one of Copernicus's teachers. Throughout his career, he wrote a few astrological texts. Prognostics were popular and those by prominent astronomers often printed in multiple centres simultaneously. This edition of Stellarum fata could have been printed in Bologna, Venice, or Rome. BSB-Ink A-959; GW 3120; Heirs of Hippocrates 67 (1498 ed.); ISTC ia01422000; Garrison-Morton online 43 (1473 ed.); Printing and the Mind of Man 11 (1st ed.). Tammaro de Marinis, La Legatura Artistica in Italia nei Secoli XV e XVI, 1960; Max Neuburger, History of Medicine, Vol. I, 1910. Median quarto (226 x 168 mm), in two parts. Contemporary Italian sheep over bevelled boards, rebacked with original spine laid down, spine with blind-ruled raised bands, blind lines and ornaments in compartments, covers panelled in blind, first border with scroll of rosettes, second border with all-over pattern of small crosses, central panel with three juxtaposed rolls of palmettes and rosettes, bifolium from an unidentified printed edition of Nicolaus Wodka's Stellarum fata (1476) used as rear endpaper, brass catches engraved with "AVE" and floral designs, traces of ties. Text in gothic type, double column, part headings printed in red, that for book V omitted. Early page marker made from a vellum manuscript (Hebrew text, red initials) loosely inserted. Corners worn, a few small worm holes to boards extending partially to text (affecting some letters, but entirely legible), intermittent faint damp stains to margins, otherwise generally bright and clean. A beautifully preserved, well-margined, and crisp copy.

First edition. PMM 25 - the oldest textbook in the history of science. First edition of the "oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today" (PMM), This book "has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible" (DSB). Euclid's Elements is the only work of classical antiquity to have remained continuously in print, and to be used continuously as a textbook from the pre-Christian era to the 20th century. It is the foundation work not only for geometry but also for number theory. Euclid's Elements of Geometry is a compilation of early Greek mathematical knowledge, synthesized and systematically presented by Euclid in ca. 300 BC. Books I-IV are devoted to plane geometry, Book V deals with the theory of proportions, and Book VI with the similarity of plane figures. Books VII-IX are on number theory, Book X on commensurability and incommensurability, Books XI-XII explore three dimensional geometric objects, and Book XIII deals with the construction of the five regular solids. The text is the standard late-medieval recension of Campanus of Novara, based principally on the 12th-century translation from the Arabic by Adelard of Bath. In fact, Adelard left three Latin versions of Euclid. Campanus's text is a free reworking of earlier Latin translations, mainly Adelard's second version (an abbreviated paraphrase), with additional proofs that make it "the most adequate Arabic-Latin Euclid of all . With an eye to making the Elements as self-contained as possible, he devoted considerable care to the elucidation and discussion of what he felt to be obscure and debatable points" (DSB). This text was printed more than a dozen times in the late-15th and 16th century. The "decisive influence of Euclid's geometrical conception of mathematics is reflected in two of the supreme works in the history of thought, Newton's Principia and Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft" (DSB). Ratdolt's edition is one of the most beautifully printed of early scientific books, and is the first dated book with diagrams (Stillwell). His method of printing diagrams in the margins to illustrate a mathematical text became a model for much subsequent scientific publishing. The method used to is still a matter of scholarly debate: although traditionally described as woodcuts, it is probable that printer's "rules" were used, i.e., thin strips of metal, type high, which were bent and cut and adjusted and set into a substance that would hold them (and pieces of type) in place. Born ca. 300 BC in Alexandria, Egypt, "Euclid compiled his Elements from a number of works of earlier men. Among these are Hippocrates of Chios (flourished c. 440 BC), not to be confused with the physician Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460-375 BC). The latest compiler before Euclid was Theudius, whose textbook was used in the Academy and was probably the one used by Aristotle (384-322 BC). The older elements were at once superseded by Euclid's and then forgotten. For his subject matter Euclid doubtless drew upon all his predecessors, but it is clear that the whole design of his work was his own . "Euclid understood that building a logical and rigorous geometry depends on the foundation-a foundation that Euclid began in Book I with 23 definitions (such as "a point is that which has no part" and "a line is a length without breadth"), five unproved assumptions that Euclid called postulates (now known as axioms), and five further unproved assumptions that he called common notions. Book I then proves elementary theorems about triangles and parallelograms and ends with the Pythagorean theorem . "The subject of Book II has been called geometric algebra because it states algebraic identities as theorems about equivalent geometric figures. Book II contains a construction of "the section," the division of a line into two parts such that the ratio of the larger to the smaller segment is equal to the ratio of the original line to the larger segment. (This division was renamed the golden section in the Renaissance after artists and architects rediscovered its pleasing proportions.) Book II also generalizes the Pythagorean theorem to arbitrary triangles, a result that is equivalent to the law of cosines. Book III deals with properties of circles and Book IV with the construction of regular polygons, in particular the pentagon. "Book V shifts from plane geometry to expound a general theory of ratios and proportions that is attributed by Proclus (along with Book XII) to Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 395/390-342/337 BC). While Book V can be read independently of the rest of the Elements, its solution to the problem of incommensurables (irrational numbers) is essential to later books. In addition, it formed the foundation for a geometric theory of numbers until an analytic theory developed in the late 19th century. Book VI applies this theory of ratios to plane geometry, mainly triangles and parallelograms, culminating in the "application of areas," a procedure for solving quadratic problems by geometric means. "Books VII-IX contain elements of number theory, where number (arithmos) means positive integers greater than 1. Beginning with 22 new definitions-such as unity, even, odd, and prime-these books develop various properties of the positive integers. For instance, Book VII describes a method, antanaresis (now known as the Euclidean algorithm), for finding the greatest common divisor of two or more numbers; Book VIII examines numbers in continued proportions, now known as geometric sequences (such as ax, ax2, ax3, ax4, .); and Book IX proves that there are an infinite number of primes. "According to Proclus, Books X and XIII incorporate the work of the Pythagorean Thaetetus (c. 417-369 BC). Book X, which comprises roughly one-fourth of the Elements, seems disproportionate to the importance of its classification of incommensurable lines and areas (although study of this book would inspire Johannes Kepler [1571-1630] in his search for a cosmological model).

Small 4to (140 x 195 mm). 91 leaves, 149 written pages in two hands, the main body of the text complete, up to 29 lines per page, ruled space 85 x 155 mm. Incipit: "In nomine domini amen. Noch dem also gesprochen ist daß alle kunst kunftigk ist von got und ist by im on ende.". Rubrics touched in red, calligraphic initials in red and some with flourishing, 25 watercolour illustrations of scientific apparatus, 10 mathematical and architectural diagrams in pen. 15th century German calf over wooden boards, tooled in blind with vertical rows of hunting scenes within a triple-filet frame, remains of two fore-edge clasps. Stored in custom-made half morocco clamshell case. A Renaissance alchemist's handbook, quoting Al-Razi by name and deeply rooted in the Islamic tradition of alchemical art. An intriguing manuscript which bears witness to early practical chemistry in 15th century Germany and to the immense influence of Arabic alchemy, illustrated with talented watercolour diagrams of the associated apparatus. - Indeed, the word 'alchemy' itself is derived from the Arabic word 'al-kimia', and it was Al-Razi who claimed that "the study of philosophy could not be considered complete, and a learned man could not be called a philosopher, until he has succeeded in producing the alchemical transmutation". Alchemy and chemistry often overlapped in the early Islamic world, but "for many years Western scholars ignored Al-Razi's praise for alchemy, seeing alchemy instead as a pseudoscience, false in its purposes and fundamentally wrong in its methods, closer to magic and superstition than to the 'enlightened' sciences. Only in recent years have pioneering studies conducted by historians of science, philologists, and historians of the book demonstrated the importance of alchemical practices and discoveries in creating the foundations of modern chemistry" (Ferrario). The quest to transmute base metals into gold and to obtain the Philosophers' Stone was a practical as well as theoretical pursuit, as attested by the existence of this manuscript. The main body of the text opens on fol. 5 with an introduction to the art of alchemy, whose practice requires reference to the ancient authorities. Recipes for the various pigments, solutions, acids and alkalis are listed in groups, before descriptions are given of the planets relevant to the alchemist's art, starting with Saturn, and their effect on the elements, again with reference to the ancient authorities including Al-Razi, Origen, Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, and Hermes Trismegistus. There follow notes on the ease of obtaining various elements, before lists of alchemical compounds - including 'sal petri' and 'aqua lunaris' - are grouped according to their nature. Practical instructions, organised by chapter, begin on fol. 17v with the manufacture of vermillion and 'spangrün'; the first of the illustrations depicts two vessels for the burning of cinnabar. Further recipes involve the burning of various substances - illustrated with drawings of furnaces, cucurbits and other vessels, and distillation apparatus - before moving on to the manufacture of acids, bases and oils, mentioning the use of quicksilver, then, finally, turning to the manufacture of gold. The end of the text on fol. 69 is marked with the words 'Alchimia & Scientia' in red ink with calligraphic flourishes, above a floral device. - Collation: written by another scribe and bound before the alchemist's handbook (ff. 5-69) are astrological calculations, including those charting the trajectories of the Sun and the Moon (ff. 1-4, obviously incomplete). At the end, 9 leaves with geometrical calculations, illustrated with pen diagrams (ff. 70v-78, apparently incomplete, 2 leaves loose). The last 12 leaves are blanks (ff. 79-91). - Condition: The binding is sound and intact, but shows significant losses to the upper cover; spine entirely lost. Two leaves loose at the end of the manuscript, outer margins waterstained and tattered, surface soiling most notable to f. 1. Occasionally loose and split at gatherings; presence of bookworm damage on some pages; very occasional wax stains. - Provenance: 1) The script, watermark and binding indicate that the manuscript was made in Germany in the final two decades of the 15th century. The watermark visible on certain pages - a heart beneath a crown, above 'Ib' - is closest to a motif widely used in Germany around 1480-1500 (cf. Piccard 32464-32481), and the binding is contemporary. The pastedowns, taken from a Litany of Saints, are also roughly contemporary. 2) This compendium of cryptic knowledge seems to have lain undisturbed for many years after its compilation: the contemporary stamped leather binding is preserved and no booklabels or ownership inscriptions mark the manuscript changing hands. 3) Zisska & Schauer, 4 May 2010, lot 6. 4) Braunschweig Collection, Paris. - The first pigment recipe books in German would not be published until the 1530s (cf. Schießl, Die deutschsprachige Literatur zu Werkstoffen und Techniken der Malerei, 1989). While the manual at hand never appeared in print, a much later manuscript of the same text, apparently copied by no less an authority than the botanist Hieronymus Bock (1498-1554), survives in Heidelberg's University Library under the title of "Ordenlicher proces der waren alten heimlichen kunst der alchymey in drey bucher gestelt" ("Alchemistisches Kunstbuch", Cod. Pal. germ. 294, dated to the middle or third quarter of the 16th century). Unlike the vividly coloured and deftly shaded illustrations in the present volume from the 15th century, the unsophisticated pen drawings in the later Palatina manuscript were clearly executed by the scribe himself rather than by a trained artist. Also, our manual contains additional illustrations at the end, showing some of the most necessary equipment on a double-page spread, as well as five additional pages of recipes for "lutum sapientiae", "postulatz golt" etc., some parts written in a secr.

No Binding. Etat : Very Good. 1st Edition. THE EARLIEST OBTAINABLE DEPICTION OF THE NEW WORLD. [Rome: Bernardinus Venetus de Vitalibus, 1508.] First edition, Shirley state 5/McGuirk 3-C. Two sheets joined (sheet: 17 7/16" x 22 3/4", 443mm x 578mm; framed: 35 9/16" x 30"). Engraved conical-projection map. Float-matted with a window verso, demonstrating water-marks (crossed arrows). Trimmed at the edges, with about an inch added and loss supplied in facsimile. Some losses at the join, filled in facsimile. A little toning in patches. As exploration pushed European knowledge of the world east and south, cartographers built on the framework of Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), a second-century philosopher living in Roman Alexandria in Egypt. In the Greek tradition (Ptolemy wrote in Greek, which was the administrative language of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean), philosophy -- the love of wisdom -- bridged what we now divide into the humanities and the sciences; he was a mathematician, natural scientist and geographer-astronomer. No manuscripts of the Geographika Hyphegesis (Geographical Guidance) survive from before the XIIIc, but some XIIIc examples survive with maps that bear some relation to those Ptolemy himself drew. Thus, with the exception of some excavated carved maps, Ptolemy is the source for ancient cartography as well as its culmination. The discovery of the New World in the late XVc -- Columbus assumed he had found the East Indies because of Ptolemy's calculations and assertions about longitude -- provoked a crisis in the understanding of the disposition of the globe; the Ptolemeian skeleton was showing signs of fracture. It is against this background that Johannes Ruysch (Johan(n) Ruijsch, ca. 1460-1533) made his coniform (cone or fan-shaped) projection. Ruysch was a profoundly cosmopolitan figure; he was Flemish or German or Netherlandish by birth, lived in Cologne, Rome, England and finally Portugal. From England, it is claimed, he himself sailed west as far as the American coast; thus he is the first mapmaker to have traveled to America. Due, perhaps, to his first-hand knowledge of the contradictions entailed by a New World adjoining Ptolemy's, Ruysch was visionary in his solutions. (The title translates to "a more universal illustration of the known world made out of new observations;" the comparative makes clear Ruysch's competitiveness.) Newfoundland adjoins Tibet. Japan (Zipangu) is identified with Spagnola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic), although Ruysch is fairly agnostic in his reasoning. In other ways, however, his map is cutting-edge in its modelling of Asia --here the triangular form of India appears for the first time -- and the Caribbean, largely drawing on Portuguese sources. The map's date is sometimes given as 1507, and indeed it does appear in some examples of the 1507 Rome edition of Ptolemy (colophon 8 September 1507); the vast majority, however, appear in 1508 editions, which have the addition of a commentary of Marcus of Benevento (Marcus Beneventanus) based on the findings depicted in this map. The tacit suggestion of most bibliographies is that the map was not completed until very late 1507 or early 1508, and its inclusion in 1507 editions is the work of owners rather than the publisher. Although the 1506 map of Contarini/Rosselli and the 1507 Waldseemüller are earlier (excluding manuscript maps), each survives in a single example. The Ruysch map is thus the earliest obtainable depiction of the New World. McGuirk's 1989 census counted 64 examples, of which 14 were in private collections (plus one on the market in 1986). The present example was purchased from a private collector in 2008. McGuirk, Donald L. "Ruysch World Map: Census and Commentary." Imago Mundi 41 (1989) 133-141. Peerlings, R.H.J., F. Laurentius and J. van den Bovenkamp. "The Watermarks in the Rome Editions of Ptolemy's Cosmography and More." Quaerendo 47 (2017) 307-327. Burden 3 (p. xxiii); Harrisse 56; Sabin 66476 (Ptolemy); Shirley.

First edition. DIBNER 170: FIRST VERNACULAR EDITION - A SUPERB COPY. First edition in the vernacular, and a superb large copy untouched in its first binding, of one of the finest illustrated books of the Italian Renaissance. "This handbook on classical architecture is the only Roman work inspired by Greek architecture that has come down to us. It is therefore important as a prime source of many lost Greek writings on the subject and as a guide to archaeological research in Italy and Greece. By exemplifying the principles of classical architecture it became the fundamental architectural textbook for centuries. Vitruvius, who lived during the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus, and probably composed his book prior to 27 BC, was basically a theoretical rather than a practising architect and his only known work is the Basilica at Fano. The 10 books of 'On architecture' deal with principles of building in general, building materials, designs of theatres, temples, and other public buildings, town and country houses, baths, interior decoration and wall paintings, clocks and dials, astronomy, mechanical and military engineering. There are many ingenious devices for dealing with the echo in theatres and ideas on acoustic principles generally; on methods of sanitation - Vitruvius is believed to have been responsible for the new plumbing system introduced when Augustus rebuilt Rome; on correct proportions, proper location of building, town planning, and much on ballistic and hydraulic problems. The classical tradition of building, with its regular proportion and symmetry and the three orders - Doric, Ionic and Corinthian - derives from this book. In recent times Vitruvius's considerable importance in the history of science has also been recognised as he made some valuable contributions to astronomy, geometry, and engineering. Although his influence on practical architecture during the Middle Ages was obviously small, at least 55 manuscripts of the De Architectura are known . It was with the Renaissance that his influence began. Alberti, Bramante, Ghiberti, Michelangelo, Vignola, Palladio and many others were directly inspired by Vitruvius. The first printed edition appeared in Rome (ca. 1483-90), the first illustrated one in Venice, 1511, and French, German, Italian and Spanish translations soon followed, The Como edition of 1521 is the first in Italian - by Cesare Cesariano (1483-1543), a pupil of Bramante. It has splendid new illustrations, some of which are now attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and is the most beautiful of all the early editions" (PMM). The text by Vitruvius, in the translation by B. Mauro da Bergamo and B. Jovio da Camasco, occupies the center of the page in large letters; Caesarino's commentaries, which stop at chapter VI, are printed around it, in a smaller type. The 117 woodcuts, which form the iconography, mark, according to Roland Recht, an essential moment in Western architecture. Printed alternately on a black and white background, these woodcuts are considered as models of their kind; they were executed according to the designs of Caesarino, Massimo Bono Mauro da Bergamo and Benedetto Giovio (1471-1545). The publication of this work was initiated by Cesariano with the financial support of two sponsors, Augustino Gallo and Aloysio Pirovano, and was to have been carried out in Milan, but the arrival of the French in this city resulted in the work being printed in Como; Gottardo da Ponte was brought specially to Como to carry out the printing, which may have been a print-run of 1300 copies. As recorded in the concluding editors' address to the reader, Cesariano abruptly abandoned the project after quarreling with Gallo and Pirovano in May 1521; his commentary ends at Chapter 6 of Book IX, and the remainder was completed by Giovio and Mauro. The present copy is in the first state, with the error 'tuta lopera' uncorrected in the heading on f. Z8r. Provenance: Christoph Andreas IV. Imhoff (1734-1807), numismatist (ex-libris); Alfred Ritter von Pfeiffer (Cat. I, Leipzig, 4-6 May 1914, No 696, "magnificent copy of Vitruvius, whose well-preserved specimens are the greatest scarcity"), with his 19th century armorial bookplate and what could be his shelfmark accompanied by a crowned label [AP]; Pierre Berès (1913-2008) (Cat. IV, Cabinet books, 2006, No. 7), described as "the king of French booksellers" in his New York Times obituary and as "a legendary figure in the world of art, collecting and publishing" by French culture minister Christine Albanel; Alde, March 6, 2014, lot 6 (â 158,600). "The known facts of Vitruvius' career are that he worked in some unspecified capacity for Julius Caesar; that he was subsequently entrusted with the maintenance of siege engines and artillery by Caesar's grandnephew and adopted heir, Octavianus, later the Emperor Augustus; and that on retirement from this post he came under the patronage of Augustus' sister, Octavia (I, praef., 2). It is often suggested, on the evidence of Frontinus (De aquis urbis Romae, 25), that book VIII of De architectura may have been the fruit of personal experience as a hydraulic engineer during Agrippa's construction of the Aqua Julia in 33 B.C.; but Frontinus is in fact quoting Agrippa and Vitruvius as possible alternative sources for his information, and the relevant passages in Vitruvius contain some surprising technical errors. Vitruvius' only excursion into civil architecture was the building of a basilica at Fanum Fortunae, the modern Fano, on the Adriatic Coast (V, 1, 6-10). This commission, coupled with what appears to be a personal knowledge of many of the Roman cities in the Po valley (for instance, I, 4, 11; II, 9, 16; V, 1, 4), suggests that, like many of those prominent in the culture of Augustan Rome, Vitruvius may have been of north Italian origin. It should be noted that in the first century of the Christian era, a freedman of the same family, Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo, is named as architect of the Arch of the Gavii at V.

Folio (242 x 340 mm). Latin manuscript on paper. 160 leaves (complete including four blank leaves at the beginning and six at the end). Written in brown ink in a neat humanistic hand, double columns, 37 lines to each page, numerous two and three line initials supplied in red or blue. With one large illuminated initial and coat of arms of the Scalamonte family flanked by floral decoration on first leaf, painted in shades of blue, green and lilac and heightened in burnished gold. With altogether 231 full-page tables in red and brown, some marginal or inter-columnar annotations, and one extended annotation on final leaf. Fifteenth century blind stamped goat skin over wooden boards, remains of clasps. The so-called "Toledan Tables" are astronomical tables used to predict the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to the fixed stars. They were completed around the year 1080 at Toledo by a group of Arab astronomers, led by the mathematician and astronomer Al-Zarqali (known to the Western World as Arzachel), and were first updated in the 1270s, afterwards to be referred to as the "Alfonsine Tables of Toledo". Named after their sponsor King Alfonso X, it "is not surprising that" these tables "originated in Castile because Christians in the 13th century had easiest access there to the Arabic scientific material that had reached its highest scientific level in Muslim Spain or al-Andalus in the 11th century" (Goldstein 2003, 1). The Toledan Tables were undoubtedly the most widely used astronomical tables in medieval Latin astronomy, but it was Giovanni Bianchini whose rigorous mathematical approach made them available in a form that could finally be used by early modern astronomy. - Bianchini was in fact "the first mathematician in the West to use purely decimal tables" and decimal fractions (Feingold, 20) by applying with precision the tenth-century discoveries of the Arab mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqilidisi, which had been further developed in the Islamic world through the writings of Al-Kashi and others (cf. Rashed, 88 and 128ff.). Despite the fact that they had been widely discussed and applied in the Arab world throughout a period of five centuries, decimal fractions had never been used in the West until Bianchini availed himself of them for his trigonometric tables in the "Tabulae de motis planetarum". It is this very work in which he set out to achieve a correction of the Alfonsine Tables by those of Ptolemy. "Thorndike observes that historically, many have erred by neglecting, because of their difficulty, the Alfonsine Tables for longitude and the Ptolemaic for finding the latitude of the planets. Accordingly, in his Tables Bianchini has combined the conclusions, roots and movements of the planets by longitude of the Alfonsine Tables with the Ptolemaic for latitude" (Tomash, 141). - The importance of the present work, today regarded as representative of the scientific revolutions in practical mathematics and astronomy on the eve of the Age of Discovery, is underlined by the fact that it was not merely dedicated but also physically presented by the author to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in person on the occasion of Frederick's visit to Ferrara. In return for his "Tabulae", a "book of practical astronomy, containing numbers representing predicted times and positions to be used by the emperor's [ ] astrologers in managing the future" (Westman, 10ff.), Bianchini was granted a title of nobility by the sovereign. - For Regiomontanus, who studied under Bianchini together with Peurbach, the author of the "Tabulae" counted as the greatest astronomer of all time, and to this day Bianchini's work is considered "the largest set of astronomical tables produced in the West before modern times" (Chabbas 2009, VIII). Even Copernicus, a century later, still depended on the "Tabulae" for planetary latitude (cf. Goldstein 2003, 573), which led to Al-Zarquali's Tables - transmitted in Bianchini's adaption - ultimately playing a part in one of the greatest revolutions in the history of science: the 16th century shift from geocentrism to the heliocentric model. - In the year 1495, some 20 years after our manuscript was written, Bianchini's Tables were printed for the first time, followed by editions in 1526 and 1563. Apart from these printed versions, quite a few manuscript copies of his work are known in western libraries - often comprising only the 231 full-page Tables but omitting the 68-page introductory matter explaining how they were calculated and meant to be used, which is present in our manuscript. Among the known manuscripts in public collections is one copied by Regiomontanus, and another written entirely in Copernicus's hand (underlining the significance of the Tables for the scientific revolution indicated above), but surprisingly not one has survived outside Europe. Indeed, the only U.S. copy recorded by Faye (cf. below) was the present manuscript, then in the collection of Robert Honeyman. There was not then, nor is there now, any copy of this manuscript in an American institution. Together with one other specimen in the Erwin Tomash Library, our manuscript is the only preserved manuscript witness for this "crucial text in the history of science" (Goldstein 2003, publisher's blurb) in private hands. Apart from these two examples, no manuscript version of Bianchini's "Tabulae" has ever shown up in the trade or at auctions (according to a census based on all accessible sources). - Condition: watermarks identifiable as Briquet 3387 (ecclesiastical hat, attested in Florence 1465) and 2667 (Basilisk, attested to Ferrara and Mantua 1447/1450). Early manuscript astronomical table for the year 1490 mounted onto lower pastedown. Minor waterstaining in initial leaves and a little worming at back, but generally clean and in a fine state of preservation. Italian binding sympathetically rebacked, edges of covers worn to wooden boards. A precious manuscript, complete and well preserved in its.

Octavo. Collation complete: I. Euricius Cordus - Botanologicon: Title with the woodcut device of Cologne-printer Johann Gymnicus, including his Motto, the first line of a Verse from the Aeneid by Virgil 'Discite Iustitiam Moniti', 183, [21] pp., 2 blank leaves. The titlepage of the Botanologicon bears the manuscript ownership-entry of Nuremberg's Astronomer, Philosopher and Mathematician Hieronymus Schreiber [also called Jerôme Schreiber], student-friend of Euricius Cordus' son Valerius Cordus in Wittenberg and later trustee of Valerius Cordus' scholarly estate after Valerius Cordus' premature death in Rome. Dated in the same hand on the titlepage also the entry 'Anno 1539', when Valerius Cordus matriculated at Wittenberg and Schreiber already had studied there since May 1532. With several contemporary manuscript annotations throughout both titles (the Botanologicon and Examen) / II. A. M. Brasavola - Examen omnium simplicium medicamentorum: Title, [1], ['Reverendissimo to Ioannes Argenterius', 4 pp.], ['Ad Illustris & Sereniss. ('Epistola Nuncupatoria') to the Duces of Ferrara' 17 pp.], [Epigramma, 1 p.], [Examen & Aristotelis Problemata 542 pages, [Dedication to Franciscus Frellaeus, 2 pp.], [Index copiosissimus in Examen Omnium, 13 pp.], [1]. With several manuscript annotations. Original, contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards with some stronger signs of running to the corners, with partially bevelled edges and both of the original metal clasps intact. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Title in ink to upper spine and also to top of fore-edge. Very few pressed plants loosely inserted. Interior in excellent condition with some minor staining to very few pages only. The Hieronymus Schreiber provenance is a stunning discovery. A more detailed in-depth-publication regarding this item is necessary and already in preparation, with a plethora of comparative sources; taken into account historical and recent publications. Hieronymus Schreiber is a cipher, yet still so much is already known about him that amazes. He is not only most famous for being the recipient of one of the first editions of Nicolaus Copernicus' - De Revolutionibus, fresh from the printing press by Johannes Petreius. But furthermore, a manuscript annotation in Schreiber's copy of Copernicus masterpiece was later discovered by Kepler to clarify the Preface of Copernicus' work had been hijacked by Andreas Osiander. Manuscript annotations throughout the Botanologicon reference the genus Cuscuta in Brasavola's Examen. This is an important discovery because it supports Hieronymus Schreiber's ownership / Schreiber suffered knowingly from chronic liver-problems and famously, prior to the fateful trip to Italy with Valerius Cordus, he went to Aachen to cure and seek relief from this very issue. Cuscuta was not only in TCM, but also generally, known during the Renaissance as remedy for liver-issues. Schreiber's time in Aachen is recorded in correspondence between Philip Melanchthon and Hieronymus Schreiber [see Corpus Reformatorum] and correspondence between Philip Melanchthon and Joachim Camerarius even proves Hieronymus Schreiber living with Melanchthon in Wittenberg, where a regular study-group would certainly have included Valerius Cordus [letter mentioned in Corpus Reformatorum - Volume V]. About the importance of especially this Sammelband of Euricius Cordus' Botanologicon and Antonio Musa Brasavola's Examen omnium simplicium medicamentorum': Some of the Annotations in the Examen reference the Botanologicon; especially on page 502 of the Examen in which Brasavola denies previous knowledge of the Botanologicon when writing his work. Edward Lee Greene (and Frank N. Egerton, ed.) already found page 502 of Brasavola's Examen important enough to illustrate the undeniable connection of 'Botanologicon' and 'Examen' by including a full translation from latin of the long passage of Brasavola's denial (see Volume II, p.696/697 of 'Landmarks of Botanical History'). Even though many modern scholarly criticism identifies and recognizes the Botanologicon of Euricius Cordus as the 'first attempt at the scientific systematization of plants' (D.S.B. III, pp. 412-13), and Lynn Thorndike devotes an entire chapter on Brasavola and his pharmaceutical writings, the most significant and informed hypothesis on the reciprocal influence between Euricius Cordus' Botanologicon and Brasavola's Examen is the lengthy essay of Edward Lee Greene's chapter on Pharmacology in his 'Landmarks of Botanical History' (Volume II, p.690-701). What makes Lee's essay so different, is his theory of the genesis of both works, his speculation on the possible plagiarization by Brasavola and the immediate absolution he grants Brasavola due to Brasavola being in danger of dying a heretic if he would have openly admitted and endorsed the work of Euricius Cordus, an open supporter of the Reformation. It is highly likely that Schreiber has received the work from his new friend Valerius Cordus. It is important to understand that medicinal plants (Simples / Medicamenta Simplicia) were the main interest in Valerius Cordus' studies (see p.292 of Ersch and Gruber's 1829 published 'Encyclopedia of Science and Art'). This would explain the two volumes being bound together since Brasavola's Examen is the first monumental publication on simples, and Valerius Cordus probably knew that his father Euricius Cordus and Antonio Musa Brasavola shared the same teacher in Ferrara, italian humanist and physician Niccolò Leoniceno. While (after we consulted a specialist in paleography), it is more likely that an undecipherable note on the titlepage of the 'Botanologicon' (below Schreiber's name) reads as an abbreviation of "at Wittenberg": 'a Wbrg anno 1539', it might as well read as 'a Valery' [from Valerius]. The manuscript notes identify annotations from someone connecting the dots between both works. But while it must not be doubted that this is Hieronymus.

Hardcover. Etat : Very good. First. First Venetian edition. Venice: Iacobus Pentius de Leucho, 20 March 1511 (colophon). Folio in 6s (16 5/16" x 11", 414mm x 281mm). [Full collation available.] With 28 woodcut double-page maps printed in red and black (all recto-verso with the exception of the final world map, which is the inner forme of its own leaf). Bound in (perhaps later?) vellum over boards (the boards recovered in later vellum). On the spine, author and title (PTHOLEM/ TABULÆ/ GEOGRA) gilt to sheep. All edges of the text-block red. Boards recovered in later vellum, coming up at the corners and along the lower edge of the back board. Damp-stain to the lower gutter and to the upper edge, mostly mild but moderate in places. Some shaving to the maps: at the fore-edge of the first world map, the "quinta Europae tabula" and the "tertia Africae;" the lower scale of "prima Europae" and "sexta Europae;" to the upper figural surrounds of "secunda Africae," "prima Asiae," secunda Asiae," "nona Asiae" and "decima Asiae;" and to the upper, lower and fore-edges of the final world map. A little worming to the gutter of the world map, with some splits along the upper fold. Ink marginalia to B1r-B2r, B8v, C3v, C4r, I1r, I8v (a circular diagram without marking to a blank page) and to the maps of France ("tertia Europae tabula") and Italy ("sexta Europae tabula;" pasted correction slips swapping "Obononia" (Bologna) and "mutina" (Modena)). Bookseller's ticket of "Librairie Fl. Tulkens Bruxelles" to the front paste-down. Claudius Ptolemaeus (usually anglicized to Ptolemy) was a second-century philosopher living in Roman Alexandria in Egypt. In the Greek tradition (Ptolemy wrote in Greek, which was the administrative language of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean), philosophy -- the love of wisdom -- bridged what we now divide into the humanities and the sciences; he was a mathematician, natural scientist and geographer-astronomer. No manuscripts of the Geographical Guidance survive from before the XIIIc, but some XIIIc examples survive with maps that bear some relation to those Ptolemy himself drew. Thus, with the exception of some excavated carved maps, Ptolemy is the source for ancient cartography as well as its culmination. In the XVc, the Geographia was the core of ancient knowledge of the world, extending from the Canary Islands in the West to China in the East (though not quite to the Pacific), Scandinavia in the North and beyond the Horn of Africa to the South. It was crucial to explorers; Columbus expected to find the East Indies because of Ptolemy's calculations and assertions about longitude. As the world expanded beyond its ancient bounds, discoveries were integrated into the Ptolemaic maps, distinct with their trapezoidal frames. The work is anomalous in a city that was otherwise the cradle of Renaissance printing; Shirley calls it an "isolated example of Venetian cartographic enterprise" (sub 31). That said, La Serenissima has left her mark on the volume; it is the first atlas to print maps in red-and-black, the first to contain a cordiform projection and the first to depict Japan. It is the second edition of Ptolemy to contain a cartographic depiction of the New World. An early reader(s?) has left marks of reading through the volume. There are many glosses of ancient place names, especially of the British Isles, France and Italy. There is a long marginalium at the foot of C4r correcting the placement of various Celtic tribes (and reflected in the corresponding maps of France and Italy) by cross-reference with the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae of Robert Estienne first published 1531. The hand is perhaps XVIIc, judging by the letter-forms; it is perhaps reductive to suggest he lived in Southeast France or Northwest Italy, but there is nothing to supersede that suggestion. Adams P 2218; Alden-Landis 511/8; Nordenskiöld 2.204; Phillips, Atlases 358; Shirley 31 & 32, Stevens, Ptolemy 43.

15TH CENTURY ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NATURAL HISTORY AND MEDICINE . Second (first Strasbourg) Latin edition, very rare, of the most extensive 15th-century work on natural history and medicine, first published by Meydenbach in Mainz in 1491, and compiled by the German doctor and herbalist Johannes de Cuba or Johannes von Kaub (fl. 1484-1503). It was the prototype for all subsequent editions. Due to its date of printing,it is the last major medical work to cover medicines from the Old World only. The Hortus sanitatis, meaning 'Garden of Health', provides information on the medicinal use of plants and animals both real and mythical. It is partly based on theGart de gesundheit, published in 1485, which is sometimes attributed to Johann von Cube, and was originally printed by Peter Schöffer at Mainz in 1485. However, it should be regarded as a separate work, as it covers nearly 100 more medicinal plants than theGart der gesundheitand also includes extensive sections on animals, birds, fish and minerals. The Hortus Sanitatis is divided into 6 parts: De Herbis, with 530 chapters on herbs; De Animalibus, with 164 chapters on land animals (Chapter 1: De homo); De Avibus, with 122 chapters on birds and other airworthy animals; De Piscibus, with 106 chapters on aquatic animals; De Lapidibus, with 144 chapters on semi-precious stones, ores and minerals; and the sixth constituting an essay on uroscopy, the medieval art of performing diagnoses through examination of a patient's urine. It is printed in Gothic characters in two columns of 55 lines and includes abundant illustrations copied from the 1491 edition, consisting of over 1000 woodcuts the width of a column, several of which are repeated, depicting hundreds of plants, mammals, birds, insects, fish, monsters and other fabulous creatures. In its many editions and translations, the Hortus Sanitatis was the most popular and influential herbal of its time, and served as an encyclopaedia of the plant, animal, and mineral kingdoms and the medical applications of their products. ABPC/RBH list only two complete copies. "It was not until the Early Renaissance that Man discovered Nature in all its richness and plunged into investigating it. This gave rise to new truly empirical and experimental methods of studies, being in sharp contrast with the traditional scholastic approach and a mystic understanding of the world. In his thirst for knowledge Man treated Nature not as a passive object of contemplations but as an unusually rich source which, once understood and investigated, would reveal all of its wealth. Mysteries of Nature and their discovery got to the forefront of scientific research, which was also engaged in rearranging and revising the earlier evidence based on classical and mediaeval sources. This period is particularly fascinating as the time of settling accounts with the earlier experience and discovering new territories and tools of scientific development such as invention of printing . "Folk medical knowledge was a general source of information passed on from generation to generation. Its dissemination was made easier as herbals appeared at that time. Those were the first medical and botanical printed books of encyclopaedic nature. They could hardly be called scientific in the present-day sense of the word since the concepts of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance were rather aimed at rearranging and popularizing what had already been known. Nevertheless, such books were signs of the times and an important step on the way to science . "Herbarium by Apuleius Placotonicus (or pseudo-Placotonicus) is the earliest printed herbal, published in Rome most likely in 1481. In the foreword the author mentions the Monte-Cassino manuscript over a thousand years old as a source-book for his Herbarium. This treatise combines medicinal formulae with description of herbs. Soon afterwards three printed books came out in Mainz that were to have a strong influence on the future of pharmacy. Those were the Latin Herbarius (1484), the German Herbarius (1485) and Ortus (Hortus) Sanitatis (1491). The first two of them must have been based on earlier manuscripts though the evidence of such borrowings can be found only when these herbals are compared with the texts by Apuleius or with the ancient Greek and Roman originals" (Kuznicka, pp. 255-257). "The first of these is the Latin Herbarius of 1484, which gives pictures and descriptions of 150 plants found in Germany, both native and cultivated . Schöffer's German Herbarius [i.e., the Gart de gesundheit], one of the first scientific books printed in a vernacular language, appeared in 1485. It is larger than its Latin brother, with nearly 400 plants illustrated, and its text is not related to that of the earlier Herbarius, being compiled, according to the introduction, by an anonymous amateur botanist, with the advice of Johann von Cube" (Raphael, p. 249). "The third of the fundamental botanical works, produced at Mainz towards the close of the fifteenth century, was the Hortus, or as it is more commonly called Ortus Sanitatis, printed by Jacob Meydenbach in 1491. It is in part a modified Latin translation of the German Herbarius, but it is not merely this, for it contains treatises on animals, birds, fishes and stones, which are almost unrepresented in the Herbarius. Nearly one-third of the figures of herbs are new. The rest are copied on a reduced scale from the German Herbarius . "The Ortus Sanitatis is very rich in pictures. The first edition opens with a full-page woodcut, modified from that at the beginning of the German Herbarius, and representing a group of figures, who appear to be engaged in discussing some medical or botanical problem. Before the treatise on Animals, there is another large engraving of three figures with a number of beasts at their feet, and before that on Birds, there is a lively picture with an architectural background, showing a scene which swarms with innumerable birds of all kinds, whose pec.

Small folio (185 x 290 mm). Persian manuscript on polished paper. 221 ff. (lacking 7 ff.). 12 lines of black nasta'liq, written in two columns, set in blue, green, red, and gilt borders. With 5 full-page miniatures, marginal floral and Safavid style bestiary decorations on the first pages and middle miniature pages, a central blue rosette (shamse) in the middle written with gilt. Bound in full brown morocco with a fore-edge flap, covers and flap decorated with a central mandorla and spandrels in gilt, the interior of both covers and flap decorated with filigree in blue, red, and gilt. Very early, stunningly illuminated manuscript of Jami's Diwan, one of the earliest documented works of the renowned calligrapher Muhammad ibn Mulla Mir (Al-Husaini Al-Ustadi). - This splendid manuscript, written in an elegant nasta'liq script, includes five ornate miniatures by two different artists: four may have been added by later hands, but the earliest illustration, along with its beautiful marginal decorations, appears to be in the hand of the scribe Ibn Mulla Mir himself. The colophon states the finishing date in numerals and script as Rajab 998 (May/June 1590) and bears the distinctive signature of the calligrapher. - As one of the most celebrated scholars and poets of 15th century Persian literature, Jami is a canonical name that influenced mystics and poets of the Islamic world for centuries. He grew up in Jam, a small village in Herat, and started to use his pen-name Jami as a tribute to his hometown. In his youth, his studies at Nizamiyyah University included philosophy, mathematics, the natural sciences, literature, and the Arabic language. Well-educated and well-travelled, Jami taught in Samarkand, held an important position at the Timurid court, and befriended and mentored the Turkish poet Alishir Nevai, considered the greatest representative of Chagatai literature. Celebrated during his lifetime in the Islamic world; Jami received many invitations from various sultans who desired to have him at their courts, but he rejected them. Thirty-six of his works, ranging from Islamic studies to poetry, have survived to the present day. This manuscript is his well-celebrated Diwan, mostly composed of ghazals, qasides, and quatrains. - This beautifully crafted manuscript is thought to be one of the earliest works of the calligrapher, Muhammad ibn Mulla Mir. Although his works listed in Mehdi Bayani's catalogue range from 1010 to 1038 AH (1602-28 CE), his earliest known manuscript, a copy of Jami's "Salaman and Absal", dates back to 989 (1581) and is held in the collections of National Library of Russia (PNS 145). Another well-known manuscript copied by this scribe is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MS 13.228.16). He is known usually to sign his manuscripts as "Mohammad ibn Mulla Mir Al-Husayni Al-Ustadi", indicating his lineage and probably the fact that his father was also a scribe, but Bayani also records an example in which he signed his name as he did in the present manuscript. - Small paper tears, dampstaining, occasional colour fading in the margins, paper rubbed on some pages, occasional stains, ink smudges and browning. A single marginal paper repair, not affecting the text. 2 poems written in the margins of two pages by a different hand. 7 leaves appear to be missing. Binding rubbed, spine and flap professionally repaired. - UK private collection. - Mahdi Bayani, "Ahwal va-Attar-e Khoshnevisan", vol. 3 (Tehran, 1343/1984), pp. 840f. Olga Vasileva & Olga Yastrebova, "'Abd al-Rahman Jami, Poet, Scholar and Mystic" (St Petersburg, National Library of Russia, 2017), p. 87.

Single volume, second volume only of the text, decorated manuscript in Arabic, complete in alternating quires of 8 and 12 leaves with a bifolium at the end to complete the text, 162 leaves (plus one contemporary and 3 later endleaves), 218 by 118 mm; single column of 11-12 lines in sepia naskh hand of the author al-Sharif al-Radi himself, title on recto of first leaf, colophon at end of text in same hand, on distinctively Persian dark-cream paper, most leaves with mould markings (of 7-8 laid reed lines per centimetre, and with no chain lines apparent), final free endpaper with numerous ownership inscriptions (pre-fourteenth century), occasional marginal commentary (also pre-fourteenth century), some early damp-staining and mottling to leaves to entirety of volume affecting upper and outer corners, a few repairs to preliminary leaves including a closed tear to first leaf, strip of modern paper pasted along length of pastedown (probably from modern description once pasted there and subsequently removed), later endpapers and doublures inserted; fourteenth-century leather boards, stamped in blind and ruled with geometric patterns, skilfully rebacked, resewn and edges repaired, very presentable and attractive condition. islam24 07 Al-Sharif al-Radi (970-1015 AD) was a celebrated poet and scholar from Baghdad, whose was a direct descendent of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in law of Prophet Muhammad. His father Abu Ahmad Hussayn was the Naqib of Iraq (a government position with responsibilities for the descendants of Prophet Muhammad) and chief Hajjaj for the region (overseeing pilgrimage to Ka'aba). He is buried in the Holy Shrine of Imam al-Husayn in Karbala. Al-Radi was a literary figure with extensive Islamic fiqh and tafsir expertise, who established the renowned Dar al'ilm (school of knowledge) in Baghdad during his lifetime. This school became a leading educational centre during his lifetime, and nurtured an entire generation of influential scholars, most notably al-Shaikh al-Tusi (995-1067 AD). As an author, Al-Radi is best known for his collection of commentaries on Imam Ali, entitled Nahj al-Balagha (peak of eloquence), which is commonly considered a masterpiece of Shi'ite literature and has remained popular with Shi'ite Muslims for a millennium. The present manuscript contains a lesser known and much rarer work entitled Takhlis al-Bayan fi Majazat al-Qur'an (roughly translating to 'summary of statements in the Qur'an'). It is a literary text focusing on the figurative and metaphorical meanings of phrases in the Qur'an, and is the first independent work of its kind to examine Qur'anic text through a literary perspective. The details given in the colophon of this codex are solidly supported by both a C14 test (by CIRAM -Science for Art Cultural Heritage of Martillac, France and New York, their report reference 0415-OA-98R-4 carried out in 2015, with them extracting the sample of paper from the book themselves: strip of paper from blank lower edge of fol. 10), as well as a report on the antiquity of the paper stock by Helen Loveday. The C14 analysis establishes a date of 986-1048 AD with a probability of 79.1%, and the paper stock is characteristically Persian and of the twelfth century or before (the extreme rarity of comparative eleventh-century manuscripts from this region forcing the dating parameters to be set as 'twelfth-century or before').

Small folio (302 x 198mm), 191 leaves (initial blank leaf discarded), with seven diagrams and a world map within the text; capital spaces blank; a fine, large copy in handsome Regency russia leather, sides richly tooled in gilt and blind with anthemion and scroll motifs, spine lettered in gilt and stamped in blind and gilt in compartments, all edges gilt, with lavender endpapers, by S. Ridge, of Grantham, with his ticket; Syston Park bookplates (see below). A superb copy of this great and rare book, from the library at Syston Park, with the first appearance in print of the famous Macrobian world map, the most influential of all pre-Renaissance views of the world, including an antipodean, southern continent. Printed in Brescia, in the first decade of printing there, this strikingly handsome production is the first edition of Macrobius's Commentary on the Dream of Scipio to print the scientific diagrams and the world map. Since these had not been included in the only earlier printing of the text (Venice 1472, an edition which was therefore less than complete, as the map and diagrams are specifically referred to by Macrobius to illustrate ideas discussed in the text), this is the preferred early edition. This very fine and beautifully bound copy was from the library of the noted book collector Sir John Hayford Thorold of Syston Park, probably originally purchased by his father the equally famous bibliophile Sir John (1734-1815). The younger Thorold commissioned Lewis Vulliamy to build his new library at Syston between 1822 and 1824. The contents of the famous library were dispersed firstly in 1884 (by Sotheby's) and then in 1923, and the house was demolished in 1925. Macrobius, writing in the early fifth century, was one of the select band of encyclopaedists who preserved and transmitted classical philosophy and science to the medieval world and whose works were 'to hold a central position in the intellectual development of the West for nearly a millennium. To the medievalist, Macrobius's Commentary is an intensely interesting document because it was. one of the basic source books of the scholastic movement and of medieval science' (W. H. Stahl, Macrobius: commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 1952). 'To the mere persistence, through a few compendia, of the knowledge that the earth is a globe, Europe owed the discovery of the New World. The astronomical and geographical science in Macrobius alone was sufficient to furnish a basis for Columbus when the passion for exploration had been reawakened, as it was in the fifteenth century' (Thomas Whittaker, Macrobius, 1923, p. 83). Macrobius's famous map figures a massive antipodal southern continent. One of the very earliest of all maps of the world, this woodcut shows a globe split into two -- Europe and the balancing Antipodes - and surrounded by ocean at the edges. This remarkable image, which survived by manuscript transmission from the fifth century into the age of printing, had a strong and lingering effect on post-Renaissance and pre-discovery geography. It is also the first printed map to show the currents of the oceans. Its large southern continent carries the legend 'Pervsta / Temperata, antipodum / nobis incognita'. For a thousand years the Macrobian world map formed the basis of world geography, until Renaissance exploration replaced it with discovered fact, and all pre-discovery mapping was to some extent based on it, as were all ideas of a southern hemisphere, a southern continent, or an antipodes. There is an immense literature on the Macrobian world view: Carlos Sanz (El primer mapa del mundo., Real Sociedad Geográfica, B 455, Madrid, 1966) has studied the significance of the maps with regard to Quirós and subsequent voyages of discovery into the southern hemisphere, while Beaglehole in his great edition of the journals of Cook has neatly written of 'the circular maps of another cycle, that of Macrobius. [who] goes rather further than Cicero or St. Isidore; for whereas Cicero thought the southern zone habitable, and St. Isidore noted that there 'the Antipodes are fabulously said to dwell', Macrobius considered that the heat of the torrid zone would forever keep men from providing any proof. There however is the neatly balanced round of the Macrobian map: in the middle the broad Bath of Ocean, bounded on either side by the wavy coastline of an insular continent, northern and southern, snugly fitted into the waters of its half-circle. Each is divided into three bands: the first, rather narrow, facing on the Alveus Oceani and labelled Perusta - 'burnt up'. 'Beyond these are the broader temperate bands: on the north, Aphrica, Europa, India, with the four cardinal cities of Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Babylon; on the south, Temperata Antipodum Nobis Incognita. Beyond these again are the final bands labelled Frigida; containing on the north Britain, Thule, and the Rhiphei montes, on the south naturally nothing beyond the simply frigid. So seductive, in the field of science, was harmony, symmetry, balance, the fitness of things; so difficult has it been for the geographer, as for other men, to wait on facts. So little, one is tempted cynically to add, has it mattered in the long run.' (J.C. Beaglehole, The Journals of Captain James Cook, Vol. I, The Voyage of the Endeavour, pp. xxv-vi ). . Provenance: Syston Park (armorial bookplate to front pastedown); Sir John Hayford Thorold, 10th Baronet, (1773-1831), engraved monogram. Closed marginal tear to gutter of ai, closed marginal tear to lower margin aii, aiv-aviii with neat marginal annotations in an early hand in Greek and Latin.

Couverture rigide. Etat : Très bon. Edition originale. Fridolin, Stephan. Der Schatzbehalter oder schrein der waren reichtümer des heils unnd ewyger seligkeit genant. Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 8 novembre 1491.  In-folio de 353 ff., signés a-z6 (a6 blc), ab-ad6, ae8, A-Z6, Aa-Gg6, Hh10 (Hh10 blc). Veau brun sur ais de bois, plats décorés d'un décor estampé à froid de motifs végétaux et animaliers dans des encadrements de filets, aux angles et au centre, cinq bouillons de cuivre, sur le premier plat, titre de l'ouvrage [SCHATZBEHALT D'EWIGE SELIGKEIT], dos à nerfs orné d'un motif de roses à froid répété, tranches naturelles, traces de fermoirs ouvragés. Reliure de l'époque. 330 x 231 mm. Première et unique édition de ce célèbre incunable mystique allemand relatant la vie du Christ. Le texte fut écrit par les S urs de l'Ordre de Saint-Clare à Nuremberg et édité par les S urs de la Charité à Pirckheim. Hain, 14 507 ; Copinger, I. p. 431 ; Panzer D. ann 313 ; Brunet, V 193 ; Proctor, 2070 ; Polland II, p. 434 ; Muther, 423 ; Dogson I, p. 240-245 ; Passavant, I, 67 ; Fairfax-Murray, II, 392 ; BMC II, 434 ; Stillwell S. 280. L un des plus beaux et des plus célèbres incunables illustrés. With Schedel liber chronicarum (1493) one of the « two first important books with original illustrations published at Nuremberg » (Dogson I. pp. 241.2). L iconographie, absolument superbe, se compose de 96 grandes figures gravées sur bois, à pleine page (252 x 176 mm), spécialement dessinées pour le texte. Cette superbe suite de tableaux différents consacrés à la vie du Christ permet à Wolgemuth de traduire en des scènes puissantes les épisodes majeurs de la Bible et du Nouveau Testament. Une infinité de détails savoureux concernent l architecture intérieure, l armement, les vaisseaux, les moyens de transport et les usages de l époque, les banquets et les costumes du xvè siècle, notamment la mode vestimentaire des femmes. Provenances : ex-libris du baron Ferdinand Hoffmann (1540-1607), gravé par Lucas Kilian (1579-1637) d'après M. Göndolach. Ferdinand Hoffmann, seigneur de Grünbüchel et Strechau, avait réuni une collection de livres composée de plus de dix mille imprimés et manuscrits ; il avait acquis en bloc la bibliothèque de Hieronymus Holzschuher, célèbre médecin de Nuremberg et ami de Dürer, qui avait lui-même hérité de la bibliothèque de son beau-père, Hieronymus Münzer, médecin, cartographe et collectionneur de livres de sciences ; Prinz Ferdinand von Dietrichstein (?) (1628-1698), à qui les héritiers d'Hoffmann donnèrent la bibliothèque de leur aïeul et qui, en 1669, la fit déplacer au château de Nikolsburg en Moravie (deux ventes furent organisées en novembre 1933, et juin 1934 mais aucun des catalogues ne mentionne l'exemplaire) ; Paul Harth (ex-libris) (vendu 44 673 le 1er mars 1987 il y a 34 ans, par Sotheby s) ; Pierre Bergé ; Marc Litzler. Goff S-306 ; GW 10329 ; BMC II 434 (pour un ex. en reliure de l'époque ; dim. : 333 x 233 mm) ; Arnim, Katalog der Bibliothek Otto Schäffer, 1,302 (« L'édition passe pour avoir été tirée à environ 150 exemplaires ») ; Muther, 423 (« The first book produced by the Koburg press with illustrations that were certainly prepared under the supervision of Wolgemuth is the 1491 Schatzbehalter oder Schrein der wahren Reichtümer des Heils und ewiger Seeligkeit ») ; Needham, Twelve Centuries of Bookbindings, 400-1600, n° 30, note 9 et n° 92 ; Schäfer, Europaïsche Einbandkunst Aussechs Jahrhunderten, n° 15 ; Seaver, Maps, Myths, and Men. The Story of Vinland Map, Stanford UP, 2004, pp. 339-352 (« A Moravian Castle Library »).

First edition of Alhazen's fundamental work on optics and vision, which influenced Galileo and Kepler and paved the way for the modern science of physical optics. Folio, bound in full contemporary Basel vellum with central arabesques blind-stamped to the front and rear panels, titles stamped in black and five raised bands to the spine, woodcut printer's device to the title page, woodcut initials, diagrams and full page illustration to the verso of the title page. Translated from Arabic into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. In very good condition. From the library of American physician Chester Tilton Stone with his bookplate to the pastedown. A superior example of this significant work, rare and desirable in contemporary vellum. "Building on Ptolemy and Euclid, Arab astronomer and physicist Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (Latinized Alhazen) made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception, his most influential work being his KitÄ b al-ManÄ áº"ir (Book of Optics), written during 1011â "1021, which only survived in the present Latin edition. Ibn al-Haytham was the first to explain that vision occurs when light reflects from an object and then passes to one's eyes and the first to deduce that vision occurs in the brain, rather than in the eyes. Friedrich Risner, a protege of Pierre Ramus, prepared the first edition of Alhazen's work from two Latin manuscripts discovered by Ramus. Al-Jayyani's treatise on twilight is frequently found in manuscripts with Alhazen's Optics. Witelo's Perspectiva was previously published twice before its inclusion in this work (Nuremberg 1535, 1551). This combined edition was the standard reference work on optics through the 17th century, influencing scientists including Galileo, Brahe, and Kepler (Adams, A-754; Norman, 1027; Dibner, 138).

Hardcover. Etat : Good. 1st Edition. First edition of Alhazen's fundamental work on optics and vision the most important work of its kind in Arabic literature (Poggendorf), which influenced Galileo and Kepler and paved the way for the modern science of physical optics. A superior example of this significant work, rare and desirable in contemporary vellum. Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (965 c. 1040), known as Alhazen in the Latin tradition, has been hailed as the greatest Muslim physicist and one of the greatest students of optics of all times , building on Ptolemy and Euclid, Arab astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haytham made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception, his most influential work being his Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), written during 1011-1021, which only survived in the present Latin edition. Translated from Arabic into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. Ibn al-Haytham was the first to explain that vision occurs when light reflects from an object and then passes to one's eyes and the first to deduce that vision occurs in the brain, rather than in the eyes. Friedrich Risner, a protege of Pierre Ramus, prepared the first edition of Alhazen's work from two Latin manuscripts discovered by Ramus. This edition also includes Al-Jayyani's treatise on twilight which is frequently found in manuscripts with Alhazen's Optics. Witelo's Perspectiva was previously published twice before its inclusion in this work (Nuremberg 1535, 1551). This combined edition served as the standard reference work on optics well into the 17th century, influencing scientists such as Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes (Norman). Bound in contemporary limp vellum with the title handwritten on the spine. Slight marginal dampstaining throughout. Provenance: From the Thomas Vroom Collection.

First edition. IMPORTANT ASTRONOMICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL RENAISSANCE TREATISE WITH SEVERAL REFERENCES TO AMERICA. First edition, very rare, of one of the most important geographical and astronomical texts of the Renaissance, and perhaps the most significant and influential of the 16th century instrument books for navigators and travellers. "During the first half of the sixteenth century Germany was the principal center of both mathematical and descriptive geography . [The] German school of geographers had its greatest exponents in Peter Apian (1501-52) and Sebastian Münster (1489-1552). Apian was an astronomer and mathematician; in his Cosmographicus Liber . subsequently edited by the great Flemish mathematician Gemma Phrysius [Frisius] under the simpler title Cosmographia, he based the whole science on mathematics and measurements, following Ptolemy in making a distinction between geography (the study of the earth as a whole) and chorography (the study of specific areas). His work may best be described as a theoretical textbook; for a hundred years it was a standard source" (Penrose, pp. 308-9). "Starting with the distinction between cosmography, geography, and chorography, and using an ingenious and simple diagram, the book defines terrestrial grids; describes the use of maps and simple surveying; defines weather and climate; and provides thumbnail sketches of the continents . The success of this and his previous works led to Apian's appointment as professor of mathematics at the University of Ingolstadt, where he remained until his death. He was knighted by Charles V" (DSB). The maps on page 2 and 63, and the following passage in the text (p. 69), 'America quae nunc Quarta pars terrae dicitur ab Americo Vespucio eiusde(m) inve(n)tore nomen sortita est. Et non immerito: Quoniam mari undig clauditur Insula appellatur.', make this edition of the 'Cosmography' much sought after. Here Apianus attributes the discovery of America to Vespucci, which is called an island because it is surrounded by water on all sides. "The content was largely appropriated directly from Ptolemy, but it is the book's volvelles that represent its main selling point and principal innovation. Whereas earlier books of similar content were largely constructed around sets of tabular information, Apianus' volvelles turned the pages of Cosmographicus Liber into functional computers, enabling skilled users to make calculations involving navigation, distances and time" (Barentine, p. 152). Apianus used volvelles so effectively in his work that they are sometimes known as Apianwheels. The paper volvelles also served a commercial purpose - they provided his readers with a model of the real instruments Apianus could produce and which were available for purchase. Provenance: several contemporary annotations from at least two different hands. "Petrus Apianus, also known as Peter Apian, Peter Bennewitz, and Peter Bienewitz, was one of the foremost mathematical publishers, instrument makers and cartographers of the sixteenth century. Born on 16 April 1495 in Leisnig, Saxony, he was one of four sons of Martin Bienewitz, a shoemaker of comfortable middle-class extraction. He was educated first at the Latin school in Rochlitz, and then from 1516 to 1519 at the University of Leipzig where he studied astronomy, mathematics, and cosmography. While at Leipzig, he Latinized his surname to 'Apianus', deriving from apis ('bee') and equivalent to Biene in German. Apianus relocated to Vienna in 1519 to complete his degree at the University of Vienna, taking a B.A. two years later during an outbreak of plague. Fleeing the city, he landed first in Regensburg before settling in Landshut. He married Katharina Mosner, the daughter of a local councilman, in 1526 and by her had fourteen children. Among his sons was Philip Apianus, born 1531, who would later follow his father into the study of mathematics. "Apianus was fascinated first and foremost by cosmography, a broad science of the Renaissance which set out to explain everything in the universe within a mathematical framework. He excelled in its study and later became one of its most famous practitioners; by modern standards, he can be thought of as one of the best applied mathematicians of his day. His interest in cartography was stimulated during one of the most momentous periods in European history: the Age of Exploration, witnessing the trailblazing voyages of the likes of da Gama, Columbus, and Magellan. His first published work was a world map, Typus orbis universalis (1520), itself based on a contemporary map drawn by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. The following year, Apianus published Isagoge, a geographical commentary on the 1520 map. "The work that firmly established Apianus' academic credentials was Cosmographicus Liber, published by the printer and priest Johann Weyssenburger at Landshut in 1524. Frequently known as the Cosmographia in later editions, it was a lavishly-illustrated treatise on astronomy, navigation, geography, cartography and weather; it contained digressions on various map projections, the shape of the Earth, and descriptions of the use of mathematical instruments . The Cosmographia attracted the attention of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), who praised the work at the Imperial Diet of 1530 and issued printing monopolies to Apianus' press in 1532 and 1534. In 1535, Charles granted Apianus the right to display a coat of arms. "Cosmographicus Liber . was an immediate success enjoying at least 45 editions in four languages by at least 18 different publishers and remained in print for over a half-century after Apianus' death. Gemma Frisius (born Jemme Reinerszoon, 1508-1555) carried out a careful correction and annotation of the 1524 version; the result was published in 1529 as a second edition, entitled Cosmographia von Petrus Apianus. Two years later, a less expensive, abridged version of Apianus' original called Cosmographiae introductio was published at Ingol.

Hardcover. Etat : Near fine. First. First complete edition in Italian, first octavo edition. Venice: Giovanbattista Pedrezano (for Nicolo Bascarini), 1548. Small octavo (6 1/2" x 4 3/8", 165mm x 110mm). [Full collation available.] With 60 double-page engraved maps integral with the text. Claudius Ptolemaeus (usually anglicized to Ptolemy) was a second-century philosopher living in Roman Alexandria in Egypt. In the Greek tradition (Ptolemy wrote in Greek, which was the administrative language of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean), philosophy -- the love of wisdom -- bridged what we now divide into the humanities and the sciences; he was a mathematician, natural scientist and geographer-astronomer. No manuscripts of the Geographical Guidance survive from before the XIIIc, but some XIIIc examples survive with maps that bear some relation to those Ptolemy himself drew. Thus, with the exception of some excavated carved maps, Ptolemy is the source for ancient cartography as well as its culmination. It was crucial to explorers; Columbus expected to find the East Indies because of Ptolemy's calculations and assertions about longitude. As the world expanded beyond its ancient bounds, discoveries were integrated into the Ptolemaic maps, distinct with their trapezoidal frames. The 1548 (colophon dated October 1547) edition of Ptolemy stands apart from earlier issues in various ways. It is the first "pocket" issue of the work, making it at least plausible for it to accompany an explorer. The commentary of Sebastian Münster -- a truly pan-European humanist effort -- and the text of Ptolemy were both translated by Pietro Andrea Mattioli (Matthioli), better known as the botanist and translator of Dioscorides. Gastaldi's 60 maps -- he was also responsible for updating and adding modern place names, a massive task reflected in the 127-page index -- are unusually decorative as well as up-to-date, especially given their diminutive size. There is a robust group non-European maps, with particular focus on the Silk Road and India (maps 46-53) and 5 maps of the Americas (54-48) -- including the first regional maps of North America. (Indeed, Nordenskiöld dubs this "the very first atlas of the new world.") The two world maps (one a sea chart) show the turning-point in the understanding of the world. Both continue to conceptualize America as connected to Asia, though the world map proper is beginning to conceive of a break between northwestern America and northeastern Asia. The marks of ownership suggest the volume went through several collections, but all are either obliterated or so generic as to defy assessments of ownership. Purchased at the sale of Francis Anthony Benevento II at Sotheby's London (6 May 2010, lot 1). Frank Benevento (1947-2023) was a lawyer and later an investment banker with Lehman Brothers who began his collection of great maps and atlases here at Arader Galleries. Our purchasing dominated his sale. Adams P 2234; Alden & Landis 548/31; Burden, North America 16 & 17; Edit16 CNCE 47524; Harrisse, BAV 285; JCB(3) I:153; Mortimer, Italian 404; Nordenskiöld 2:214; Phillips, Atlases 369; Sabin 66502; Shirley, Mapping of the World 87 & 88; Streeter sale 1.

4to (175 x 244 mm). Arabic manuscript on paper. 2 volumes. 117 pp. 68 pp. 27 lines to the page, written in dark brown ink on buff paper, catchwords in red, some diagrams, dated at the end of each book. Modern brown morocco bindings with fore-edge flap. Rare and early manuscript of Ibn Kammuna's principal work, this copy written less than fifty years after the commentary, which made its author famous, was completed in 1268. - Ibn Kammuna, who lived in Baghdad in the 13th century, is considered one of the most important Jewish philosophers after his Andalusian colleague Moses ibn Maimon (Maimonides, d. 1204) and is known to have corresponded with the illustrious polymath Nasir al-Din Tusi (d. 1274). Ibn Kammuna experienced the overthrow of Abbasid power by Mongol troops in 1258. Following this event, many faiths cohabited in Baghdad until the new power converted to Islam. It is at the heart of this multi-confessional society that Ibn Kammûna wrote most of his work. - The "Sharh al-Talwiyyat" constitutes one of the major contributions to the work of Sohrawardi (d. 1191), who had died in Aleppo less than eighty years before the commentary was written. Several texts suggest that Ibn Kammuna would have stayed in Aleppo, around 1250, to collect direct sources from Sohrawardi's students. Thus, Ibn Kammuna played a key role in the dissemination of the thought of Sohrawardi and the illuminative philosophy ("Ishrâq" in Arabic) that he initiated (cf. Henri Corbin, 1945). - Since Corbin's work, the "Sharh al-Talwiyyat" has been the subject of numerous studies seeking to establish a reference edition. Three relevant editions exist: those of S. Mûsawî (2003), H. Ziai and A. Alwishah (2002, dealing only with parts I and II), and of N. Habibi (2009). The three parts of this work are devoted respectively to logic, the natural sciences, and theology. According to the census established by John Lameer, there are only about fifty copies of "Sharh al-Talwihat" by Ibn Kammuna, taking into account the complete and incomplete copies. Our manuscript, dating from 716 H (1316 CE), is said to be the tenth oldest known copy of Ibn Kammuna's Commentary on the work of Suhrawardi. This set of two volumes comprises parts 2 and 3, while the volume on logic is not present. - Ibn Kammuna wrote extensively on theology, philosophy and psychology. His work is based on the knowledge of ancient Greek philosophers, on the study of the writings of Avicenna and Sohrawardi, as well as on the works of Judah Halevi and Maimonides. He is notably the author of "Tanqih al-abhath lil-milal al-thalath" (Critical Study on the Three Monotheistic Religions), and of "al-Jadid fi'l-hikma" (The New Wisdom), a discussion of the philosophy and science of the 13th century. His most significant contribution to the history of philosophy remains his present detailed commentary on Sohrawardi's "Al-Talwihat". - Reza Pourjavadi & Sabine Schmidtke, A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad. 'Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kammuna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings. Leiden and Boston, 2006 (= Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, vol. 65). Joep Lameer, "Ibn Kammuna's Commentary on Suhrawardi's Talwihat. Three Editions", Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 3 (2012), pp. 154-184.

THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED BOOK ON FOSSILS. First edition and a fine copy in contemporary binding, very rare when complete, of this collection of eight treatises, the most important being De rerum fossilium [On fossil Objects], Gesner's last work, the earliest scientific attempt to classify the mineral kingdom, and the first illustrated book on fossils. "It presents a picture of the mineral kingdom as seen through the eyes of the greatest naturalist of his time" (Adams). Gesner's work contains numerous woodcuts after his own drawings, many of which are still preserved in Basel University Library. Gesner's book also famously contains the first printed illustration of a lead pencil (f. 104v). The other seven other works, by six authors, in this composite volume were all edited by Gesner. They include the first appearance of a catalogue of a mineral collection, that of Johannes Kentmann, "stated to have been the first man in Europe to make a collection of minerals." His catalogue contains entries for sixteen hundred specimens, making it a "conspectus of most of the minerals known at that time, with the localities from which they were derived as well as an exact equivalent in German of the various names by which they were known in Latin" (Adams, pp. 195-196). "On 28 July 1565 Conrad Gesner (1516-65), the greatest naturalist of his century, completed the book On fossil Objects. It is an appropriate date to choose as a starting point for [the] history of palaeontology. Gesner's book marked a crucial moment in the emergence of the science, for it incorporated three innovations of outstanding importance for the future . Gesner's concern for precise identification provides the context for the most important innovation . It was the first in which illustrations were used systematically to supplement a text on fossils. The importance of this can hardly be exaggerated . without illustrations no writer could be certain that he was applying a name in the same sense as his predecessors . The basis for [Gesner's] descriptive work was the formation of a collection of specimens. Published illustrations were, in effect, merely a convenient substitute for a museum . Agricola and other early writers may well have formed collections of their own, but Gesner's book is the first work on fossils that clearly refers to such a collection. Gesner expressed his gratitude to his friend the physician Johannes Kentmann of Torgau (1518-74) for sending him specimens to supplement his own, and he repaid the debt by placing the catalogue of Kentmann's collection at the front of the composite volume in which his own work was bound. The importance of the museum as an innovation in this branch of natural history is symbolised by the frontispiece of Kentmann's catalogue - the only illustration it contained. His little cabinet with its numbered drawers was termed significantly an 'ark' . [The third innovation is that Gesner's] is the first such work in which there is a clear expression of a programme of co-operative research on fossils. Gesner had already received specimens and drawings from Kentmann and several other correspondents, but his book was explicitly designed to elicit further information of the same kind" (Rudwick, pp. 1-11). ABPC/RBH list only two complete copies since Honeyman: Freilich (Sotheby's New York, January 11, 2001, lot 209, $87,000) and Macclesfield (Sotheby's, November 4, 2004, lot 890, £26,400 = $49,122). Provenance: Thomas Stewart Traill, M.D. (1781-1862), physician, chemist, meteorologist, zoologist and specialist in medical jurisprudence, FRSE from 1819 (engraved bookplate of on front pastedown and an inscription in brown ink "Purchased at the sale of Revd. George Loves Books and presented to Dr Thomas Stewart Traill of Tirlet, by his sincere friend, Wm. G. Watt" - i.e., William Graham Watt (1776-1866), 7th Laird of Skaill House, Breckness Estate). Traill Island in Greenland and Mount Traill in Nigeria are named after him. When John James Audubon arrived in Liverpool in July 1826 Traill helped him to find a publisher for The Birds of America; in gratitude Audubon named the Traill's flycatcher after him. "The short title of Gesner's book is deceptive: more fully it is A Book on fossil Objects, chiefly Stones and Gems, their Shapes and Appearance. This shows at once that the word 'fossil' has changed its meaning radically since Gesner's day. By origin the word meant simply 'dug up', and Gesner, like all his contemporaries and predecessors back to Aristotle, used it to describe any distinctive objects or materials dug up from the earth or lying on its surface . Gesner's book dealt with a number of objects that we would now recognise as the fossil remains of organisms, but they were described in the context of a wide variety of mineral ores, natural crystals, and useful rocks . In retrospect, we can see that the essential problem was that of determining which of this broad range of objects were organic and which were not . it was not until the early 19th century that the word 'fossil' became restricted to this end of the spectrum [i.e., organic remains] - though even today a relic of its former breath of meaning is still preserved in the use of the term 'fossil fuels' for coal and oil" (Rudwick, pp. 1-2). "Gesner deviates from almost all previous authors on minerals by presenting his description of minerals not as an alphabetical list, but in a true system of classification. In his numerous other writings on plants and animals, he always attempted to classify natural objects in an organized hierarchy. When his attention was turned to minerals, he faced a difficult problem. There was no well-defined and recognized form by which the natural objects from the earth could be classified. Furthermore, the fossilized remains of plants and animals were at the time not differentiated from true minerals. Gesner's solution to the problem was quaint and interesting. He writes in the dedicatory epistle that he was unwillin.

Small folio (312 x 213 mm.), 40 unnumbered leaves. With 10 full-page woodcuts, woodcut initials (including 8 coloured in red), text in double columns, 53 lines. Eight of the cuts are partially coloured in red and in one case also in brown by a contemporary hand; in the six woodcuts showing a naked figure the sexual organs have been coloured in grey ink (possibly at the time of binding). Some contemporary manuscript marginal notes in a very small hand. Pale brown stain in fore-edge margin of g1 and g4, ruled borders of 8 of the woodcuts shaved along the upper edge (as in other copies), but a fine and large copy with no markings and no repairs or restoration. Bound in brown half morocco with marbled sides and endpapers in the 19th century, probably for the Royal Academy.Provenance: The Royal Academy of Arts, with their initials at foot of spine; sold at Sotheby?s on 14th June 1966; private collection. Second Latin edition (the sixth edition chronologically including three Spanish editions), and a fine and large copy of the first printed medical book to be illustrated with realistic figures, in particular, anatomical illustrations. This is the first edition that is obtainable for practical purposes: in the last hundred years no copy of a Spanish edition is recorded in the most comprehensive online database as being sold, only one copy (lacking one leaf) of the 1491 edition, and four of the 1493 edition, of which one was imperfect and two were from the collection of Dr. Otto Schäfer. The Fasciculus Medicinae is a collection of medical texts, some medieval but none of them classical or Arabic, first printed in 1491. In the Italian translation of 1493 ?it underwent changes sufficiently significant to make it into what Dr. Singer has called the first modern medical book imbued with humanist spirit ? perhaps a rather ambitious statement? (PMM). The woodcuts were dramatically improved, and it contained additional illustrations and, most notably, the anatomical text of Mundinus. The present edition contains six treatises, on urology, flebotomy, surgery, gynæcology, and epidemiology (the Consilium pro peste evitanda of PETRUS DE TUSSIGNANO). The sixth book is on anatomy, the Anathomia of MUNDINUS, which was the first monograph on anatomy to appear in print and the only book on the subject during the fifteenth century. Of the ten woodcuts in this edition, the first eight appeared in the 1493 edition, one (depicting the sick room of a man with the plague) is a close copy from that edition, and one (the dissection scene) is new. Two of the cuts are urological, one astrological, one medical, one is the often repeated ?wound man?, one a bloodletting scene, and one shows the female internal organs. The cut on the first page of the book shows the Paduan physician Petrus de Montagnana teaching; the library surrounding him is composed entirely of classical and Arabic works. The new cut shows Mundinus lecturing while a male cadaver is dissected, and accompanies Mundinus?s work on anatomy because he re-introduced dissection, which had been neglected for 1500 years before him. These illustrations are of quite extraordinary quality, especially bearing in mind that they had no precedent in a medical book. They were designed by an artist of the first rank, attributed to the school of Gentile Bellini (1429?1507), the presiding genii of late Gothic and early Renaissance Venice. They elevate the book into the ranks of finely illustrated incunabula, and give it an interest far beyond the world of medicine. The so-called ?author? was Johannes von Kirchheim, to whom the work was in all probability attributed by its Italian printers, who in doing so corrupted his name to Ketham. Kirchheim, born in Swabia, was professor of medicine in Vienna in about 1460. There were 14 printed editions up to 1523, ?but the influence of the book, particularly through its illustrations, long outlived them? (PMM). Klebs 573.2. Hain *9775. BMC V, 351. Choulant, Handbuch, pp. 402?405 (unaware of the Spanish editions). Choulant pp. 115?122. Herrlinger pp. 28?29 & 65?66. Norman catalogue 1211. Dyson Perrins, Italian Book-illustration and Early Printing, 96. See G&M 363 and 363.1, Printing and the Mind of Man 36, Grolier One Hundred (Medicine) 10A, and Stillwell, The Awakening Interest in Science, III 436 and IV 667 (1491 edition).

2 parts in 1 volume, folio, 4 leaves (the last blank), 288 pages; 4 leaves, 474 pages, 1 leaf (blank but for printer?s device on verso). Woodcut device on title, woodcut on verso (repeated on the separate title-page to second part by Witelo), 4 woodcuts in the text (including one of the eye and one repeated from the first part) and numerous diagrams. Paper lightly foxed and pale dampstains in outer corners of last 50 leaves, otherwise a fine and clean copy. 18th century calf-backed boards (rebacked with the original spine laid down, corners renewed). FIRST EDITION of ?the most influential optics book ever produced? (DiLaura). It ?synthesized, clarified and augmented all previous work on vision, perception, reflection, and refraction of light. It gave a new intromission theory of vision, elaborated a theory of visual perception, described apparatus and procedures for measuring geometric optical properties of reflection and refraction, and presented an elaborate analysis of plane and curved mirrors? (ibid). Written in 1028?1038 by the Egyptian Arabic scholar Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), the work was tranlated into Latin no later than 1200 as De Aspectibus. ?The influence of Alhacen?s De Aspectibus was profound. Between the time of its appearance and about 1400, virtually every optics text in the Latin West either cited it explicitly or bore its influence, and all were derivative, smaller in scope, and shorter in length. By 1325 it was in use at universities. Optics texts from the advent of printing until the end of the 17th century all show the influence of the De Aspectibus. The greatest opticians of the age read and learned from Risner?s Opticae Thesaurus; Thomas Hariot, Johannes Kepler, Willebrord Snell, and René Descartes all cited the work. 100 years after its publication, Isaac Barrow cited the work in his Lectiones Opticae et Geometricae of 1674. The Opticae Thesaurus swept the field of optics, being considered by contemporaries to treat all of the then-current optics and becoming the foremost advanced optics text of the Renaissance? (ibid). The second part is the ?Ten Books of Optics? by the 13th-century Polish scholar Witelo, the earliest treatise on optics written by a European, first published in 1535. It was a redaction and augmentation of Alhazen?s De Aspectibus, and the most-used advanced text on optics in the Middle Ages. DiLaura, Bibliotheca Opticoria, 30 and 31 for a full discussion of these works; also DSB. Dibner 138. Norman catalogue 1027.

Hardcover. Etat : Near fine. First. First complete edition in Italian, first octavo edition. Venice: Giovanbattista Pedrezano (for Nicolo Bascarini), 1548. Small octavo (6 5/8" x 4 1/4", 167mm x 108mm). [Full collation available.] With 60 double-page engraved maps integral with the text. Bound in modern laced vellum with yapp edges. On the spine, author and title gilt to green morocco. Tanned in places, with some signs of small local damp or soiling. An old bookseller's description of the work (perhaps this example?) mounted to the verso of the second free end-paper. Gilt booklabel of Lord Wardington to the rear paste-down. Claudius Ptolemaeus (usually anglicized to Ptolemy) was a second-century philosopher living in Roman Alexandria in Egypt. In the Greek tradition (Ptolemy wrote in Greek, which was the administrative language of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean), philosophy -- the love of wisdom -- bridged what we now divide into the humanities and the sciences; he was a mathematician, natural scientist and geographer-astronomer. No manuscripts of the Geographical Guidance survive from before the XIIIc, but some XIIIc examples survive with maps that bear some relation to those Ptolemy himself drew. Thus, with the exception of some excavated carved maps, Ptolemy is the source for ancient cartography as well as its culmination. It was crucial to explorers; Columbus expected to find the East Indies because of Ptolemy's calculations and assertions about longitude. As the world expanded beyond its ancient bounds, discoveries were integrated into the Ptolemaic maps, distinct with their trapezoidal frames. The 1548 (colophon dated October 1547) edition of Ptolemy stands apart from earlier issues in various ways. It is the first "pocket" issue of the work, making it at least plausible for it to accompany an explorer. The commentary of Sebastian Münster -- a truly pan-European humanist effort -- and the text of Ptolemy were both translated by Pietro Andrea Mattioli (Matthioli), better known as the botanist and translator of Dioscorides. Gastaldi's 60 maps -- he was also responsible for updating and adding modern place names, a massive task reflected in the 127-page index -- are unusually decorative as well as up-to-date, especially given their diminutive size. There is a robust group non-European maps, with particular focus on the Silk Road and India (maps 46-53) and 5 maps of the Americas (54-48) -- including the first regional maps of North America. (Indeed, Nordenskiöld dubs this "the very first atlas of the new world.") The two world maps (one a sea chart) show the turning-point in the understanding of the world. Both continue to conceptualize America as connected to Asia, though the world map proper is beginning to conceive of a break between northwestern America and northeastern Asia. The present example was in the collection of Sir (Robert) Leicester Harmsworth, Bt. (1870-1937), who in addition to being a director at Amalgamated Press -- which at its zenith owned the Daily Mail, The Observer and the Times -- was also an MP for Caithness (and Sutherland). It was lot 9239 of his sale at Sotheby's London, 9 June 1952. It was again offered at Sotheby's by an undesignated consignor 18 July 1961 (lot 531), when it was bought by Charles W. Traylen on behalf of Christopher Henry Beaumont Pease, 2nd Baron Wardington (1924-2005). Lord Wardington was a book collector of great renown, building a splendid library at his Oxfordshire home, Wardington Manor. His particular interest was the very finest examples of cartography. His sale (part two, Sotheby's London, 10 October 2006; the present item lot 403) was a landmark in the field, and its catalogue practically a reference work in its own right. Adams P 2234; Alden & Landis 548/31; Burden, North America 16 & 17; Edit16 CNCE 47524; Harrisse, BAV 285; JCB(3) I:153; Mortimer, Italian 404; Nordenskiöld 2:214; Phillips, Atlases 369; Sabin 66502; Shirley, Mapping of the World 87 & 88; Streeter sale 1.

First editions of both works, each printed by Erhard Ratdolt, bound together in a contemporary vellum wrapper. Ratdolt was the greatest scientific printer of the incunable period, producing elegant and accurate texts of the most important astronomers and mathematicians of his time. The first text here is by Regiomontanus, an early practitioner of modern observational astronomy and an influence on Copernicus, who owned a copy of this book. It is a series of tables for calculating the positions of celestial bodies, a major advance in accuracy over earlier attempts such as the Alfonsine Tables. The Regiomontanus was edited by his former pupil Johannes Angelus (Johann Engel), who had studied under him in Vienna. He is also the author of the second work here, a profusely illustrated guide to the composition of horoscopes which functions as a visual dictionary of astrological symbolism. Drawing significantly from the earlier works of Julius Firmicus Maternus and Pietro d'Abano, the Astrolabium associates each ascending degree of the zodiac with an image representing a human quality. Both books are conspicuously rare in commerce, though well-held institutionally. This is the only copy of this edition of Regiomontanus to appear in auction records going back to 1975. In the same period only one other copy of Angelus's Astrolabium appears, lacking one quire. This copy is from the collection of German-Canadian doctor Otto Schaefer (1919-2009), a pioneer of Arctic medicine. Regiomontanus: HC 13801* (incl H 15206*); BMC II 383; BSB-Ink R-82; Bod-inc R-041; Klebs 834.1; Goff R112; ISTC ir00112000; Stillwell Science 217. Angelus. H 1100*; BMC II 382; BSB-Ink E-63; GW 1900; Bod-inc A-283; Klebs 375.1; Goff A711; ISTC ia00711000. 2 works bound in 1 vol., chancery quarto (221 x 160 mm). Contemporary vellum wrappers attached to spine with two sets of six twisted vellum ties sewn through two leather patches, title in ink on front cover, remains of paper label on spine. Custom green morocco-backed bookform slipcase and chemise. Regiomontanus, 156 leaves (some gatherings unopened, Tabella sinus recti bound at beginning instead of end as usual); Angelus, 176 leaves. Full-page woodcut of Ratdolt's device hand-coloured in red at end of Regiomontanus, many woodcuts in text, woodcut initials. First few leaves a little dustsoiled, some light dampstains at ends, small puncture in gutter occasionally touching a letter, still very good, a most appealing volume.

Basel: Per Ioannem Oporinum, [1555]. Second and best folio edition (first published in 1543) of the most important anatomical treatise of the sixteenth century. With author's final additions and corrections as well as a renewed woodcut title-page and and initials. Large folio (16 x 10 7/8 inches; 407 x 275 mm). [12], 504, [1, folding table paginated "505"], [1, unpaginated leaf of figures to be superimposed], 507-824, [48] pp. Collation: a-z6 A-V6 X2 (including fold-out sheet) Y-Z6 aa6 bb8 (bb 6-7 is fold-out sheet) cc- zz6 Aa8 Bb-Ee6. Complete with woodcut title, woodcut portrait of the author on a6 verso, numerous woodcut illustrations (including nineteen full-page anatomical illustrations), two folding tables with woodcut diagrams, woodcut printer's device on verso of final leaf, and seven-to twelve-line historiated woodcut initials. Full 17th century paneled calf, boards paneled in gilt. Rebacked with early spine laid- down. Spine stamped in gilt. Red Morocco spine label, lettered in gilt. With some expert restoration to folding plates. A small professional repair to page 203. Some minor marginal staining to pages 509-566 and 794 through the end. A handsome copy with crisp clean pages. Overall a very good copy. "This edition contains Vesalius's final revisions of the text, along with significant typographical improvements and refinements. Oporinus set the second folio edition in larger type (forty-nine instead of fifty-seven lines per page), which required recutting of all the small initials letters so that they could fit seven lines of the new type. Oporinus also used heavier and finer paper for the second edition, and improved the presswork so that the second edition is a superior example of bookmaking" (Norman Library). Aside from the renewed engraved title-page and initials, this second edition (1555) used the same plates as the first edition. The woodblocks survived in Germany until the Second World War during which they were destroyed while in the Munich Library. Before they were destroyed in the war, the Bremer press published their 1935 Andreae Vesalii Bruxellensis Icones Anatomicae edition useing the original blocks from 1543 and 1555, and interspersed passages of text, the "key" to the illustrations from the 1555 (present) edition. "The young Vesalius, with an iconoclastic zeal characteristic of the sixteenth century, and a forcible style all his own, endeavoured to do all that Galen had done and to do it better. The result was â The Structure of the Human Body', published when he was twenty-nine; a complete anatomical and physiological study of every part of the human body, based on first-hand examination and his five years' experience as public prosector in the medical school at Padua. The five books deal with the bones and muscles, blood vessels, nerves, abdominal viscera, thoracic organs and the brain. Galen was not merely improved upon: he was superseded; and the history of anatomy is divided into two periods, pre-Vesalian and post-Vesalian. The Fabrica, a handsomely printed folio, is remarkable for its series of magnificent plates, which set new technical standards of anatomical illustrations, and indeed of book illustration in general. They have generally been ascribed to an artist of Titian's school, long (but no longer) thought to be Jan Stephen van Calcar (1499-c. 1550). Vesalius's was the most splendid and the most comprehensive of a large number of anatomical treatises of the sixteenth century. The second edition (1555) used the same plates (the woodblocks indeed survived in Germany until the Second World War) but contains minor variations in the text. No other work of the sixteenth century equals it" (Printing and the Mind of Man ). Adams V605.Choulant-Frank, pp. 181-182. Cushing, Vesalius, VI.A.-3. Garrison and Morton 377. NLM/Durling 4579. Norman Library 2139. Osler 568. Waller 9901. Wellcome 6562. Printing and the Mind of Man 71 (describing the 1543 first folio edition). HBS 68434. $105,000.

Hardcover. Etat : Very Good. No Jacket. About this Item: [Strassburg: The 'R-Printer', (Adolf Rusch), circa 1476] In a binding with the original chain., 1476. Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Folio; size of binding: 8 1/4 inches x 11 1/2 in. x 2 1/4 in. (thick). This copy consists of 217 printed leaves and a blank at the end, and is without signatures or catchwords. It is printed in Rusch's type 103, with 35 lines to the page, and appears to be one of the latest books printed in this type, which was the first roman type used in Germany. The name "the R-Printer" is derived from the peculiar majuscule R in type 103. This printer is now generally identified with Adolf Rusch of Ingeweiler, who married Johann Mentelin's daughter Salome and is said to have succeeded to Mentelin's printing business. In this copy the capital letters, initial-strokes, and paragraph marks have been supplied in red. Original blind-tooled calf, over oak, with authentic eleven-inch iron chain attached to the back cover, (the back hinge of the binding broken), and the remains of a brass clasp. The early binder has covered the inside of his oak boards with leaves of vellum on which appear eight pages of an old manuscript book in Latin, written in a minute but clear hand, 32 lines to the page. This is an unrestored binding and shows some wear. In the Rosenbach Company Catalogue 56 p. 11; Exhibition of Monuments of Printing 1455-1500, June 1931; this book is listed as follows: 1470 Strassburg "R" Printer Jacobus Magnus' Sophologium, including eight leaves of thirteenth century MS. on vellum, with original chain. The Sophologium is a collection of moral maxims and wise passages from poets, orators, philosophers, and theologians, well selected and arranged in three books, containing ten treatises. It is especially valuable for having preserved passages from the works of 13th and 14th century authors once highly esteemed but scarcely known today. The author of the Sophologium, Jacques Le Grand, or, as he is better known under his Latin name, Jacobus Magni, or Magnus, was born about the middle of the 14th century at Toulouse, France, and died after 1422. He was a member of the order of Augustinian Hermits, or Friars. Endowed with love of learning, he applied himself ardently to his studies and soon acquired a knowledge of all the sciences cultivated at that period. He was not ignorant of the Greek and Latin authors. In his works he treats of all the sciences, divine and human, of all the virtues, and of the various states of life. Jacobus Magni became professor of philosophy and theology at Padua. He wrote commentaries on the philosophy of Aristotle, and was celebrated for his interpretations of the Scriptures. This is a rare example of an unrestored chained binding. Stillwell M 34 Hain-Copinger 10471 Proctor 240 British Museum Cat. Vol. 1, p. 62. Seller Inventory # ABE-983540416.

Hardcover. Etat : Near fine. First. First complete edition in Italian, first octavo edition. Venice: Giovanbattista Pedrezano (for Nicolo Bascarini), 1548. Small octavo (6 3/8" x 4 1/4", 162mm x 109mm). [Full collation available.] With 60 double-page engraved maps integral with the text. Bound in contemporary stabbed vellum with yapp edges and four pig-skin ties. Author and title manuscript to the spine in an old hand (XVIc?): "ClaudioPtolomeo.Geograf". Lower front tie perished. Binding a little soiled but overall very good. Some repairs to the front joint (end-papers renewed?), with the title-leaf (â 1) re-mounted. Lacking â 3 (dedication to Leone Strozzi). Closed tear to the lower margin of CC8 (not affecting the text). Fresh internally, with good margins. Ink monogram (?) to the lower edge of the title-page. Graphite marking to I3r, I6v and I7r, ink marking to 12 pages, and ink commentary (usually to other sources) to 17 pages. Place-names in maps 9 ("Germania nova tabula MDXXXXII") and 23 ("Polonia et Hungaria nova tabula") highlighted in brushed sanguine ink. Presented in a grey cloth clam-shell box. Claudius Ptolemaeus (usually anglicized to Ptolemy) was a second-century philosopher living in Roman Alexandria in Egypt. In the Greek tradition (Ptolemy wrote in Greek, which was the administrative language of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean), philosophy -- the love of wisdom -- bridged what we now divide into the humanities and the sciences; he was a mathematician, natural scientist and geographer-astronomer. No manuscripts of the Geographical Guidance survive from before the XIIIc, but some XIIIc examples survive with maps that bear some relation to those Ptolemy himself drew. Thus, with the exception of some excavated carved maps, Ptolemy is the source for ancient cartography as well as its culmination. It was crucial to explorers; Columbus expected to find the East Indies because of Ptolemy's calculations and assertions about longitude. As the world expanded beyond its ancient bounds, discoveries were integrated into the Ptolemaic maps, distinct with their trapezoidal frames. The 1548 (colophon dated October 1547) edition of Ptolemy stands apart from earlier issues in various ways. It is the first "pocket" issue of the work, making it at least plausible for it to accompany an explorer. The commentary of Sebastian Münster -- a truly pan-European humanist effort -- and the text of Ptolemy were both translated by Pietro Andrea Mattioli (Matthioli), better known as the botanist and translator of Dioscorides. Gastaldi's 60 maps -- he was also responsible for updating and adding modern place names, a massive task reflected in the 127-page index -- are unusually decorative as well as up-to-date, especially given their diminutive size. There is a robust group non-European maps, with particular focus on the Silk Road and India (maps 46-53) and 5 maps of the Americas (54-48) -- including the first regional maps of North America. (Indeed, Nordenskiöld dubs this "the very first atlas of the new world.") The two world maps (one a sea chart) show the turning-point in the understanding of the world. Both continue to conceptualize America as connected to Asia, though the world map proper is beginning to conceive of a break between northwestern America and northeastern Asia. The annotator(s) of the volume was certainly learned, with cross-references to Girava, Pliny, Solinus, Ortelius and Apianus. From the collection of Charles J. Tanenbaum (d. 2009), sold at Sotheby's New York 11 December 2008 (the present item lot 31) to benefit his Pine Tree Foundation, which has granted funds to the John Carter Brown Library, the New York Public Library, the Grolier Club and other major institutions. Adams P 2234; Alden & Landis 548/31; Burden, North America 16 & 17; Edit16 CNCE 47524; Harrisse, BAV 285; JCB(3) I:153; Mortimer, Italian 404; Nordenskiöld 2:214; Phillips, Atlases 369; Sabin 66502; Shirley, Mapping of the World 87 & 88; Streeter sale 1.

Folio (235 x 338 mm). 2 parts in 1 vol. (6) pp., 1 blank leaf, 288 pp. (8), 474, (2) pp. With 2 different woodcut printer's devices on title-page and colophon, half-page woodcut on reverse of title-page (repeated on half-title of pt. 2), and numerous diagrams in the text. Contemporary full limp vellum binding with later ink spine label (wants ties). First edition of "the most important work of its kind in Arabic literature" (cf. Poggendorf), this copy inscribed by the German humanist Wilhelm Xylander (1532-76), sometime rector of Heidelberg University. - Ibn al-Haytham (965-c. 1040), known as Alhazen in the Western tradition, has been hailed as "the greatest Muslim physicist and one of the greatest students of optics of all times [.] The Latin translation [.] exerted a great influence upon Western science. It showed a great progress in experimental method. [Alhazen's book contains] research in catoptrics, [a] study of atmospheric refraction, [a] better description of the eye, and better understanding of vision [as well as an] attempt to explain binocular vision [and the] earliest use of the camera obscura" (Sarton). "This combined edition served as the standard reference work on optics well into the 17th century, influencing scientists such as Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes" (Norman). - "The Arab physicist Alhazen preserved for us all that was known by the ancients in the field of optics and added some contributions of his own. His book remained a standard authority thru the 1600s. He understood that light emanated spherically from a point and greatly improved on Ptolemy's uncertain rule for refraction which, he showed, held true only for small angles. He covered many cases of reflection and refraction and his explanation of the structure and function of the eye was followed for 600 years" (Dibner). - The 'Liber de crepusculis', the work on dawn and twilight included in Risner's 'Opticae thesaurus' and attributed to Alhazen, is actually the work of his contemporary Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn Mu'adh al-Jayyani (cf. Norman; DSB, p. 208). The optical study by the Polish scholar Witelo, likewise here included, is "a massive work that relies extensively on Alhazen [and] offers an analysis of reflection that was not surpassed until the 17th century" (Norman). - Binding stained; edges worn. Interior browned with some waterstaining throughout the margins; occasional edge defects. Inscribed on the title-page by Wilhelm Xylander, professor of Greek and Logic at Heidelberg and editor of numerous translations from Greek (cf. ADB XLIV, 582-593): "Xylandri dono Antonius Roverius Nemausensis possidet" (followed by a Greek dedication and Xylander's signature). The recipient Antonius Roverius (Antoine Rouvier) from Nîmes had matriculated at Heidelberg on 1 July 1572. - Later in the library of the famed microscope builder and collector Alfred Nachet (1831-1908) and his son Albert. - An appealing copy of a principal work of Arabic science as received in the West with important provenance. - VD 16, H 693 (H 692, V 1761). Adams A 745. BM-STC 383. Dibner 138. Norman 1027. Honeyman I, 73. DSB VI, 205 & XIV, 461. GAL I, 470. Poggendorf I, 31. Duncan 113. Sarton I, 721. Carmody p. 140. Thorndike/Kibre 803, 1208. Vagnetti D62. BNHCat A 241. IA 103.705. Brunet I, 180. Arabick Roots Doha AR79. Collection Nachet (1929), 50 (this copy).

Hardcover. Etat : Very Good. Folio (430 x 288 mm), pp [iv] 262 [2, blank], with woodcut printer s device on title and 175 woodcuts and woodcut diagrams, including 37 full-page woodcut astronomical figures of which 18 (one half-page and 17 full-page) have a total of 35 volvelles; a fine complete copy in contemporary calf, gilt fillets on covers, spine with gilt compartments. Splendid Copy of an Extremely Rare Astronomical work, dedicated to the Palatine Count Frederick IV. Bassantin s beautifully produced work for calculating planetary positions, largely associated with Apianus great Astronomicum Caesareum 1540. Many of the large woodcut diagrams and volvelles are very similar to that work, including the first volvelle, a full-page celestial planisphere of the northern hemisphere. The size of this volume and the extent of its illustration make this an unusually fine example of the attention given to the printing of scientific works at this period (Mortimer). James Bassantin (d. 1568) was a Scots astronomer and astrologer, born in the reign of James IV. He studied at the University of Glasgow, devoting himself to science and mathematics. He continued his education on the Continent in several countries, before settling in France as a teacher of mathematics, first in Lyons and then in Paris. Bassantin was knowledgeable of advances in German and Italian mathematics and astronomy. He produced a revised edition of Jacques Foucard s Paraphrase de l astrolabe (Lyons 1555), which contained his Amplification de l usage de l astrolabe , reprinted several times. It demonstrates finding positions in ecliptic latitude of the moon, planets, and fixed stars, as well as the use of the shadow square. In 1562 Bassantin returned to Scotland. On route, according to Sir James Melville (Memoirs of his own life p 203), he met Sir Robert Melville, Sir James s brother, and predicted to him that there would be at length captivity and utter wreck for Mary, Queen of Scots, at the hands of Elizabeth, and also that the kingdom of England would eventually fall of right to the crown of Scotland, but at the cost of many bloody battles, in which the Spaniards would take part. Bassantin was a convinced Protestant and in politics a supporter of the regent Murray (based on the ODNB entry). Provenance: inscription on title: Ex libris Caroli Parisot Sacri Regni Imperii Equitis empt. Parisiis 6R an. dmi. 1676 Cartier De Tournes 704; cf Mortimer 47 and Horblit sale catalogue lot 89; OCLC lists UCLA, and the Smithsonian.