51 x 35 cm. 364 pages. Collation: π1 (engraved t.p.), [?]7, (a)-(z)2, (aa)-(hh)2, (ii)1; A-Z2, Aa-Zz2, Aaa-Iii2. Complete with the additional engraved title page, printed title page, and 29 double-page engraved plates.
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The first 21 plates constitute a historical survey of cosmological theories, illustrating the motions of the sun and planets according to Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. The last eight plates are celestial hemispheres and planispheres depicting the constellations. Ten of the plates (9-11, 13, 15, 16, 18-21) are the work of Johannes van Loon (d. 1686). The allegorical title page is the work of Frederik Hendrik van den Hove (1628/29-1698).
Bibliographical references: Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, I:801B; Ashworth Jr., William B., “Allegorical Astronomy: Baroque Scientists encoded their most Dangerous Opinions in Art”, The Sciences, 25, (1985), nr. 5, 34-37
Cambridge: Ex officinâ Johan. Hayes, celeberrimæ Academiæ typographi. Impensis Richardi Green bibliopolæ Cantab., 1694
Folio: 32 x 20.5 cm. [8], lvi, 330; [2], 529, [43 ] p. Collation: a-g4, h2, (A)2, B-Z4, Aa-Tt4, Vv2, a-z4, aa-zz4, aaa-zzz4, aaaa-bbbb4, cccc2. With two added engraved portraits of Barnes and Euripides.
$2,500.00
“The merits of all preceding editions are eclipsed by this celebrated one of Joshua Barnes. Fabricius observes that ‘the text is accurately revised and printed, the metrical rules of Canter diligently corrected, and the entire ancient scholia on the first seven plays subjoined and enriched by excerpta from a manuscript in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The notes of various learned men, and those of Barnes accompany the scholia; the fragments of Euripides are carefully collected and displayed, with Greek and Latin notes as far as verse 2068; lastly, there are some epistles, attributed to Euripides.
Florence: Nella Nuova Stamperia di Gio: Filippo Cecchi, 1691
Large Quarto: 360 x 258 mm. π4, †4, A-Z4, Aa-Nn4, π2.
$2,500.00
This highly esteemed work represents the first group effort at scientific investigation on the part of about ten scientists, including Galileo’s pupil Viviani, the anatomist Alfonso Borelli, the embryologist Francesco Redi, the geologist Steno, Marcello Malpighi, Vicenzo VI, and the astronomer Cassini. The subjects of the experiments described here include air pressure, speed of sound, radiant heat, vacuum effects, hydrostatics, and optics.
Graesse vol.4, 335; Brunet V/29 (on the edition of 1666 and this, the 2nd edition of 1691); Dibner 82; Cinti 163; Riccardi II/407; Knowles Middleton, The Experimenters: A Study of the Accademia del Cimento.
Gioachino "the famous Italian" Greco was a masterful chess analyst, head and shoulders above his seventeenth-century contemporaries. His work consists of 94 chess gambits. “Greco’s games are naturally based upon the favorite Italian Openings of the day and it is hardly to be expected that he should have made any considerable addition to the large number of openings that were then known.
Bologna: Ex typ. Lælii a Vulpe Instituti scientiarum impressoris, 1774
Quarto: 26.5 x 20 cm. VII, 384. With an engraved frontispiece, engraved title vignette, and 3 folding engraved plates.
$2,800.00
In 1750 Zanotti produced a volume covering 1751-1762. In 1762 he published another volume for the years 1763-1774. This volume, for 1775-1786 was the last published in Zanotti’s lifetime. In 1786, his successor at the observatory, Petronio Mateucci, published a final volume for 1787-1798.
Like the astronomer Eustachio Manfredi, his godfather, Zanotti belonged to a prominent family distinguished in the arts, letters, and sciences.
London: R. & W. Leybourn for Thomas Pierrepont, 1655
Quarto: 18 x 13.4 cm. [8], 212 p. Collation: π2, A-Z4, Aa-Dd4, Ee2. lacking π1 (vertical half-title) and A4 (a cancel) as in the Folger and Harvard copies. The BL copy also lacks π1, but mentions an errata leaf, not referenced elsewhere.
$2,900.00
Bound in contemporary calf, rebacked, with repairs to the corners. Minor staining, endpapers renewed. Occasional minor staining. Title set within typographic border, three engraved plates (one folding), woodcut diagrams. Provenance: E.M. Lawson & Company, East Hagbourne, 1980
"Thomas Stirrup was an instrument maker who specialized in sundials. Taylor (E. G. R. Taylor, The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England) indicates that he might also have been a teacher of mathematics.
Paris: Apud Simonem Benard, Ex Typographia Dionysii Thierry, 1682
Quarto: 24.2 x 19 cm. [xxvi], 864, [clxxxviii] pp. Signatures: a4, e4, i4, õ1, A-5Q4, a-z4, [2d]a4 (lacking blank 2G4). With an added engraved frontispiece.
Octavo: 18 x 11.25 cm. a-e8 (a1 = engraved title); A-Y8 (leaves Y7 and Y8 blank)
$3,000.00
The first illustrated edition of "In Praise of Folly", with commentary by G. Listrius and engravings by Hans Holbein, edited by Charles Patin. The illustrations are after those made by Holbein (and a few by his brother Ambrosius) in 1516 in the margins of a 1515 edition of the present work originally owned by Holbein's (and Erasmus') associate Oswald Myconius (1488-1552).
"Holbein’s earliest surviving work appears to be drawings in the margins of a copy of the second edition of Erasmus’ Moriae Encomium that belonged to the humanist and schoolmaster Oswald Myconius, originally Geisshüsler (1488-1552).
Luther wrote his “On the Papacy in Rome” in response to the Franciscan monk Augustine Alveld’s “A Useful Booklet about the Papal See and About St. Peter.” Alveld wrote his work after the Leipzig debate to counter Luther’s thesis that the pope had no authority in the church. He sought to prove “on the holy basis of the holy canon of the Bible... that the Apostolic See is a divine institution.
“The first task Luther undertook at the Wartburg (his “Patmos”), after only a few days, was to write ‘Psalm 67 (68): About Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost.” This psalm had its special place in the Augustinians’ mass liturgy and at Matins between Ascension and Pentecost, again an indication of how Luther was still living in the accustomed liturgy. The exposition gave a contemporary interpretation of the struggle between God and his enemies.
Quarto: 25.8 x 16.7 cm. *4, a-z4, aa-zz4, aaa-kkk4, lll2; A-Z4, Aa-Gg4, Hh2 (includes blank ggg4; lacks blank Hh2).
$3,500.00
“The great Estienne Sophocles, important for the scholia, which include those of Triclinius. The Greek text is followed by the commentary of Joachim Camerarius, and his Latin versions of Ajax and Electra. [Estienne] has again employed his peculiar system of diacritical annotations.” (Schreiber) With Estienne’s “Noli altum Sapere” printer’s device on the title page.
This is an extremely rare Vatican “Directorium”, the yearly calendar of the Church of Rome, published for the leap year 1684, during the reign of Pope Innocent XI (1611-1689), whose woodcut arms appear on the title page. It consists of a calendar for the year, in which there are printed against each day concise directions concerning the Office and Mass to be said on that day. There are also indications of fast days, special indulgences, days of devotion, etc.
First edition of this collection by the diarist Catherine Jemmat. Jemmat tells us that some of the poems were supplied by friends, and there is as yet no scholarly consensus on which poems may be confidently ascribed to her. Yet a number of the poems and the essays seem to reflect aspects of Jemmat's own difficult life. She suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father and husband, and was forced to write in order to support herself and her young daughter.
Antwerp: Apud Michaelem Knobbaert, sub signo S. Petri, 1676
Octavo: 19 x 11.8 cm. 279, [9] p. Collation: A-S8
$3,600.00
"The 'Spiritual Exercises' encapsulated the essence of Ignatius' own spiritual turn-around and presented it in a form meant to guide others to analogous changes of vision and motivation. Ignatius used the 'Exercises' as the primary means of motivating his first disciples and prescribed it as an experience for all who later entered the Society of Jesus. Although at no point intended exclusively for Jesuits, the 'Exercises' remain the document that told Jesuits on the most profound level what they were and what they were supposed to be.
Quarto: 18 x 14 cm. [14] p. A4, B3 (lacking final blank).
$3,600.00
The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre remains the most infamous of the violent, mob-led tumults that rocked France during the French Wars of Religion. Over a period of two days, 23rd and 24th August 1572, Paris witnessed the slaughter of Huguenots at the hands of Catholics who feared a Protestant attack on the city in reprisal for the attempted assassination of the Huguenot leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny.
Illustrated with 93 woodcut illustrations of the architecture of Rome. This edition has been enlarged by Girolamo Ferrucci to include information on the dramatic renovations and new buildings constructed during the reign of Pope Sixtus V (reg. 1585-1590). A number of the changes, renovations and restorations undertaken by Sixtus are depicted in the woodcuts, which were prepared specifically for this this edition.
Cicognara 3741; Schudt 601; Rossetti, Rome: The Guide Books, G 480; Borroni 7914/6; Fossati-Bellani 900; Platneriana 296; Choix, 16979; Adams F 1155; Philip Jacks in Dictionary of Art XI.838 & his "The Antiquarian and the myth of antiquity", pp. 180-84; R Weiss, "Andrea Fulvio antiquario romano 1470-1527", Ann. Scuol. Sup. Pisa ii.28 (1959) 1-44, & "Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity" (1969), 86-9 & 178-9.
London: Printed for G. Kearsley, at Johnson’s Head, No. 46, Fleet-Street, 1788
Octavo: 21 x 13 cm. pp. [ii], ii, 178, [18]. Collation: [A]2, B-Z4, A1. With an added engraved frontispiece of the Duchess, with breasts exposed "as she appeared at the Venetian Ambassador
$3,800.00
Duchess of Kingston, granddaughter of the poet Mary Chudleigh (1656-1710), from whom “she seemed to have inherited no notable literary tastes or talents”(Rizzo) Elizabeth was notorious for her sexual escapades, daring, and profligacy. She studiously cultivated this image, referring to herself (in the third person) thus: “She was both wasteful and penurious; the most enormous sums were expended to gratify her love of display, at the same time that she refused to incur some trifling necessary expense in her household….
Sole edition of this sermon, preached during the convocation of the Franciscans at Bologna in 1494. The author was Franciscan Provincial and lector of theology at Bologna. Very rare. Bryn Mawr and Yale only in North America.
London: For James Rivington and James Fletcher, 1759
Two large octavo volumes: [20], 455; [8], 387. I. A8, a2, B-Z8, Aa-Ff8, Gg4 II. A4, B-Z8, Aa-Bb8, Cc2. With four added engraved plates and a large folding map.
$4,200.00
This English translation preceded the French and German translations. Considered by Cowan to be "the foundation of a library of California," this work is the most extensive account of Lower California of its period. It was presumably published in part to counteract anti-Jesuit statements that had appeared in accounts of George Anson's voyage in the Pacific (1740-1744). Venegas was for many years a Jesuit missionary among the Indians of Mexico and California and his account of the Jesuit Missions in California ("The Reduction of California by the Jesuits, and their transactions to the present time") occupies more than half of the text of both volumes (more than 450 pages).
