Cambridge: Ex officinâ Johan. Hayes, celeberrimæ Academiæ typographi. Impensis Richardi Green bibliopolæ Cantab., 1694
$1,500.00
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.
“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.
Apparently the product of folklore, the Biddenden maids, Elisa and Mary Chulkhurst (1100-1134), were conjoined twins, named after their hometown of Biddenden, in Kent, England. They are said to have lived for 34 years joined at their hips and shoulders until they died, six hours apart.
First edition of this revision of sumptuary laws regulating dress, dowry and feasts promulgated by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti in 1568 and revised several times until the end of the century.
The dress code of women attracts particular attention, skirts are meant to be neither too long, nor too short; jewelry is to be worn in moderation.
Universal STC, no. 865850; R. Campioni, op. cit., p.148; M.G. Muzzarelli, ed., Le legislazioni suntuarie secoli XIII-XVI. Emilia Romagna, Rom, 2002, pp. 42-43; Z. Zanardi, ed., Bononia manifesta. Bandi, editti, costituzioni e provvedimenti diversi stampati nel XVI secolo per Bologna e il suo territorio, (Firenze, 1996), p. 226, no. 1555; R. Campioni, Libri di merlette e disposizioni suntuarie nel secolo XVI: alcune indicazioni per l’Emilia Romagna, in: “Le trame della moda”, A.G. Cavagna & G. Butazzi, eds., Roma, 1995, pp. 125-149, and P. Goretti, La regolamentazione delle apparenze: vesti e orna- menti nella legislazione suntuaria Bolognese del XVI secolo, in: “Schede umanistiche”, 1996, no. 2, pp. 117-137.
With 75 full-paged Engravings of Scientific Instruments
Florence: Nella Nuova Stamperia di Gio: Filippo Cecchi, 1691
$2,500.00
Large Quarto: 360 x 258 mm. π4, †4, A-Z4, Aa-Nn4, π2.
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
$2,800.00
Quarto: 26.5 x 20 cm. VII, 384. With an engraved frontispiece, engraved title vignette, and 3 folding engraved plates.
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.
Antwerp: Apud Michaelem Knobbaert, sub signo S. Petri, 1676
$2,800.00
Octavo: 19 x 11.8 cm. 279, [9] p. Collation: A-S8
"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.
Second edition of one of the earliest courses of scientific lectures to be given in England — John Keill had begun lecturing in Oxford about two years earlier. The author, Roger Cotes, the brilliant pupil and friend of Newton who died untimely at the age of thirty-four, composed these lectures jointly with William Whiston.
A collection of texts by prominent English Catholics, compiled and edited by John Gibbons and John Fenn (though often erroneously attributed to John Bridgewater.) Among the texts are Edmund Campion's "Rationes Decem", Cardinal William Allen's "Apologia pro sacerdotibus Societatis Iesu", Robert Parsons' "De Persecutione Anglicana", and the anonymous account of the capture, torture, trial, and execution of Edmund Campion and his companions Ralph Sherwin and Alexander Briant.
Allison & Rogers, English Counter-Reformation, Vol. 1, no. 524; De Backer-Sommervogel, Vol. III, col. 1403, no. 1; Adams G262 and E141; Shaaber G262 and A239; VD16 ZV 22415; Milward, Religious controversies of the Elizabethan age, 251; Haile, Elizabethan Cardinal, 1914, p. 376
Paris: Apud Simonem Benard, Ex Typographia Dionysii Thierry, 1682
$2,900.00
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.
“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.
Rotenburg ob der Tauber: druckts und verlegts Friedrich Gustav Lipß, 1681
$3,250.00
Quarto (204 x 163 mm) [8] p.
Exceedingly rare, revised and expanded edition of a pamphlet on the comet of 1680 and 1681, known variously as the Great Comet, Kirch's comet (after its discoverer), or Newton's Comet. The author, Friedrich Gustav Lips of Crailsheimwas director of the imperial gymnasium at Rothenburg ob der Tauber from 1666-1683.
Quarto: (195 x 160 mm) [32] p. (last page blank). Collation: A-D4.
First edition of this work on the comet of 1664 with a detailed description of the path of the comet. The author is Johannes Praetorius (i.e., Hans Schultze 1630-1680), here writing under the pseudonym of Johannes Richter “astrophilus"(star-lover).
FIRST and ONLY EDITION of what purports to be a translation of two accounts of exploration, but is more probably an original Portuguese work of popular fiction. The first tells of a French ship that set sail from Nantes in 1752 and, blown off course while rounding the Cape of Good Hope, landed at an unrecorded island at 58 degrees South.
Gonçalves Rodrigues, A tradução em Portugal 868. Coimbra, Miscelâneas 7961 (part 1), 7962 (part 2). Not in Innocêncio. Not in Howgego. Not in Azevedo-Samodães, Ameal, Avila-Perez, Monteverde. NUC: listing the second part only, at MH. OCLC: 80617647 (Harvard College Library: part 2 only); 70244342 (Newberry Library: both parts). Porbase locates two copies, both in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, but gives a collation of 8 pp. only (a link to a digital image of the title page is for the title page of the second part). Not located in Copac. KVK (51 databases searched) locates only the copies cited by Porbase. Not located in Aladin.
Quarto: 23.6 x 17 cm. [8], 56 Collation: a4, A-G4. 15 engraved plates engraved by Filippo de Grado.
Little is known of the author other than that he wrote another book on navigation in 1750. This work on the sector was translated into Spanish in 1758.
By the time this book was published, the design of the European sector had become standardized. Compare this design, for example, with that in the fourth edition of the works of Ozanam seventeen years earlier (L’usage du compas de proportion, 1736).
This is the sole German-language edition, translated by Justus Jonas the Elder, of Melanchthon’s “Causae quare et amplexae sint, et retinendam ducant doctrinam, quam profitentur, ecclesiae, quae Confessionem Augustae exhibitam imperatori sequuntur & quare iniquis iudicibus, collectis in synodo Tridentina, ut vocant, non sit adsentiendum”(1546), a work in which he defends the Augsburg Confession and condemns the newly convened Council of Trent.
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).
“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.
Quarto (200 x 160 mm.) [8], 79 p. Collation: ):(4, A-K4
An extremely rare work on the great comet of 1680 with references to Riccioli, Hevelius, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Descartes, et al. by a friend and pupil of the mathematician & astronomer Erhard Weigel (1625 – 1699). I have located only 1 copy outside of Germany (at the Adler Planetarium.
