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ALDROVANDI, Ulisse. ~ De Piscibus Libri V. Et De Cetis Lib. Unus; Ioannes Cornelius Uterverius… collegit. Marc Antonivs Bernia in lucem restituit... cum indice copiosissimo.

Bologna: Nicoló Tebaldini,  1638.
Francis Willughby's copy of the fourth edition (first 1613). Ulisse Aldrovandi's unprecedented survey of the fish species was conceived as part of the author's extraordinarily ambitious project to build the first complete 'scientific' zoological encyclopedia. Only two of the parts, the Ornithology and De Animalibus Insectis, were published during his lifetime, whilst De Piscibus was edited by his pupils from his manuscripts. Aldrovandi's concern with actual observation and with descriptions from specimens, explicit in the building of his own museum of natural history, became compelling when the naturalist met Guillaume Rondelet in Rome, where the French physician was collecting specimens for his own work. The two spent days examining species in Rome's fish market, and the Italian naturalist started gathering material for what became one of the greatest collections of his time. As a scientist of the l6th century, Aldrovandi was necessarily dependent, for the parts related to exotic species, on the accounts of earlier or foreign naturalists, in particular Gesner, Salviati, Belon and Rondelet. Nevertheless, his study is the first complete ichthyological work which attempts to substitute, correct and integrate the received traditional literature with as much direct observation as possible, in the spirit of a new, modern scientific and experimental attitude. The scientific and demonstrative approach emerges particularly in the care and abundance of illustrative apparatus, which the author conceived as necessary complement to the text rather than as an ornamental addition.Francis Willughby (1635-1672), one of the foremost naturalists to come before Linnaeus owned and marked this copy, evidently in the course of the preparation of his own De Historia Piscium (1686). The unique weight of Aldrovandi's influence on the major subsequent works on natural history, culminating in Linnaeus's monumental survey, is evident in this association copy.   view more...
£3250.00
US$4861.33*





BERTHOLLET, Claude Louis. ~ Elements of the art of dyeing... translated from the French by William Hamilton...

London: by Stephen Couchman, and sold by J. Johnson,  1791.
First edition in English, very scarce, of Berthollet's important scientific contribution to the burgeoning European textile industry. Having collaborated with Lavoisier on the latter's pioneering chemical nomenclature and presented some seventeen memoirs to the Academy, the author was already an influential chemist when appointed inspector of dye works and director of the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins in 1784. The Gobelins had their origins in the workshops of Flemish weavers brought to Paris by Henri IV in 1602 and were formally established by Colbert in 1667 as the "Royal Manufactury of Furnishings to the Crown". They became the pre-eminent centre for tapestry weaving in EuropeIn the Éléments de l'art de la teinture Berthollet "endeavored to place the ancient craft of dyeing on a scientific basis by a systematic discussion of its procedures, coupled with an attempt to find an adequate set of theoretical principles to explain the chemical actions involved. His explanation was that, depending on the variable physical conditions of temperature, quantity of solvent employed, and so forth, when a cloth was dyed the reciprocal affinities of the particles of the dye, the mordants, and the cloth itself were responsible for the kind and quality of dyeing. The colors produced were due to the oxidation of the mordant by the atmosphere" (DSB).The British edition appeared in the same year as the French, reflecting the market for such a treatise in a country where textile production was becoming one of the most important national industries. A second British edition appeared at Edinburgh the following year and several reprints appeared in the nineteenth century, presumably a measure of the popularity and utility of this scientific manual of dyeing in the British industrial revolution.   view more...
£1300.00
US$1944.53*








CHAMPIER, Symphorien. ~ Campus Elysius Galliae amoenitate refertus: in quo sunt medicinæ compositæ, herbæ et plantæ virentes: in quo quicquid apud Indos, Arabes, et Poenos reperitur, apud Gallos reperiri posse demonstratur.

Lyon: Melchior & Gaspard Trechsel,  1533.
First edition of two of the most influential and characteristic works by the renaissance physician and humanist, Symphorien Champier, colleague of Michael Servetus and François Rabelais at the Schools of Medicine at Lyons.In the Campus Elysius Galliae and Hortus Gallicus, Champier sought to reform the French pharmacopoeia and material medica, insisting that France had all the medical resources it needed in the form of herbs and medicinal plants without recourse to the exotic remedies espoused by the Arabic medical tradition. In doing this, Champier linked politics, culture, medicine and horticulture in praising the new cultural fertility of France (the Hortus Gallicus is dedicated to King Francis I). He cites various drugs known to be "pernicious and venomous" to Europeans, albeit perfectly suited to the inhabitants of other regions and other times (cf. Cooper, Inventing the Indigenous: local knowledge and natural history in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 2007). Champier's thesis derives from his deep antipathy to the Arabic medical tradition: several of his many earlier works sought to purify Galenic and Hippocratic medicine of Arabic influence partly in the belief that by stripping away latter Arabic influence the physician was drawing closer to the pure Classical origins of western medicine. It also expresses his persistent critique of the occultist tradition, so deeply ingrained in medical theory and practice at the opening of the Renaissance.Champier's Renaissance attitudes to medicine may not have been original but they were certainly influential. Lyons was one of the most important centres of the Renaissance in France (witness his prominent contemporaries) and he was very prolific, writing or editing at least 45 individual books. Many of his works are hard to classify and their very diversity is typical of the spirit of the age. He has been criticised for attempting to uncover the truth by simply piling authority upon authority, drawing from history, poetry, philosophy, magic and medicine without distinction. This approach may be alien to the modern mind, but Champier wrote at the very beginning of the scientific Renaissance and his works are highly characteristic of the humanist cast of mind. "He shared with many humanists the capacity for oratorical exuberance. So that when Scaliger called him 'insolens, tumens, turgens,' perhaps this spirit should be interpreted as an indication that he was full of the 'spirit of the Renaissance,' that rare gas which the historical laboratory has never yet succeeded in holding in solution" (Thorndike). The three works here have separate titles but were almost certainly issued together. The Campus Elysius contains several additional tracts: De sanguinis missione; Epistola J. Champerii avunculo suo Symphoriano (dated 25 June 1532); Speculum medici Christiani (dedicated to Champier's son Antoine) and De Theriacâ gallicâ. The Periarcha is dedicated to Charles de l'Estang, protonotaire of Saint-Siége. Each work is notable for the careful typography characteristic of Champier's printed works: he worked closely with his printers (Dumaitre, Histoire de la medecine et du livre medical, p. 195).Symphorien Champier, was born into a bourgeois family at Saint-Symphorien-sur-Croise, near Lyon and studied at the University of Paris before 1495, when he matriculated at the medical school of Montpellier, which granted him his doctorate in 1504. He taught liberal arts in Grenoble and took a doctorate in theology in 1502. In 1509 he was appointed physician to Antoine Duke of Lorraine, who brought him to Nancy. Champier followed the duke several time to Italy, where he was involved in the battles of Agnadello (1509) and Marignano (1515). During his stays in Italy he won recognition as an academic teacher from the University of Pavia. In 1519 he became an alderman in Lyon, and for the last twenty years of his life he was at the center of the cultural Renaissance of that city, while simultaneously promoting the study of medicine by helping to found the College of the Holy Trinity and sponsoring translations of, and writing commentaries on, the works of Hippocrates and Galen.   view more...
£7500.00
US$11218.46*








(FOOD. MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT BOOK.) [CIEZA, Andres de.] ~ [Account book for the kitchen of the Hospital de Nuestra Señora de la Buena Dicha, Madrid.]

[Madrid,  1674-1675.]
A superbly presented manuscript account book prepared by the clerk of one of Madrid's early hospitals for the poor and destitute. It comprises a full record of daily expenditure for the kitchen of the hospital over two years. Each day contains roughly fifteen entries for staple foods used in preparation of meals for the inmates, mainly for bread, meat, fowl, raisins, wine (red and white) and oil. Other entries are for fuel for cooking, herbs and spices (aniseed and parsley), bran, fish (occasional and seasonal), salads and fruit (also seasonal). Each day is divided into two sections: the first, untitled, represents general expenditure, the second, title "cena" evidently for dinner alone. Each expenditure is noted with amounts probably in maraved' and the totals for each day and week are given. Monthly totals are scrupulously prepared and presented at the end of each year's accounts and provide an interesting index of the fluctuation of expenditure across the seasons. It would be useful (and straightforward) to examine whether these related to seasonal price fluctuations or to some external factor such as the changing number of inmates. The accounts include the occasional purchase of quires of paper, presumably for accounts such as this.Each week at the hospital appears to have been presided over by a "semanero" whose names appear in turn beside the accounts for Sunday. Sundays appear to have witnessed the greatest expenditure, with notably larger amounts spent on the purchase of meat.The hospital was founded in the calle de Silva in 1594 alongside the church of Nuestra Señora de la Buena Dicha and was in the care of the Hermandad de la Buena Dicha. Its twelve rooms catered for the local destitute of the parish of S. Martin.   view more...
£5500.00
US$8226.87*






GATTEY, François. ~ Éléments du nouveau systême métrique, suivis des tables de rapports des anciennes mesures agraires avec les nouvelles...

Paris: Bailly and Rondonneau,  'An X' [1801].
First edition of an important practical guide to the new metric system, designed to counteract the persistence of local customary measurements in the regions of France and containing numerous tables for conversion from the old measures to the new. François Gattey was, with Legendre, one of the members of the convention established in 1795 to enact the definitive adoption of the metric system."One of the most significant results of the French Revolution was the establishment of the metric system of weights and measures....On June 19, 1791, a committee of 12 mathematicians, geodesists, and physicists met with Louis XVI, who gave his formal approval. The next day, the king attempted to escape from France, was arrested, returned to Paris, and was imprisoned; a year later, from his cell, he issued the proclamation that directed two engineers, Jean Delambre and Pierre Méchain, to perform the operations necessary to determine the length of the metre. The intervening time had been spent by the scientists and engineers in preliminary research; Delambre and Méchain now set to work to measure the distance on the meridian from Barcelona, Spain, to Dunkirk in northern France. The survey proved arduous; civil and foreign war so hampered the operation that it was not completed for six years. While Delambre and Méchain were struggling in the field, administrative details were being worked out in Paris. In 1793 a provisional metre was constructed from geodetic data already available. In 1795 the firm decision was taken to enact adoption of the metric system for France. The new law defined the length, mass, and capacity standards and listed the prefixes for multiples and submultiples. With the formal presentation to the assembly of the standard metre, as determined by Delambre and Méchain, the metric system became a fact in June 1799. The motto adopted for the new system was 'For all people, for all time'" (Ency. Brit.).   view more...
£250.00
US$373.95*







LONGINUS, Caesar. ~ Trinum magicum, sive secretorum magicorum opus. Continens I. De magia naturali artificiosa et superstitiosa diquisitiones axiomaticas. II. Theatrum naturae praeter curam magneticam, & veterum sophorum sigilla & imagines magicas, etiam conclusiones physicas, elementales, coelestes & infernales exhibens. III. Oracula zoroastris, & mysteria mysticae philosophiae, Haebraeorum, Chaldaeorum, Aegyptiorum, Persarum, Orphicorum, & Pythagoricorum. Accrssere nonulla secreta secretorum & mirabilia mundi. Et tractatus de proprii cujusque nati daemonis inquisitione.

Frankfurt: Jacob Gothofred Seyler,  1673.
Probably from the collection of Isaac Newton: a collection of treatises on hermetic and magical philosophy. The volume contains no obvious marks of Newton's ownership (inscriptions in his hand, dog-earing etc) but it contains the shelf-marks and engraved bookplate of James Musgrave. It does not contain the Huggins bookplate and does not appear in the first listing of Newton's library made after his death for Huggins. However, in view of the subject matter it is quite likely to have been Newton's copy: since not all of his books came to have the Huggins plate and many books later proved to be Newton's were not listed in Huggins's inventory.The dispersal of Newton's library after his death was definitively recounted by John Harrison. Dying intestate, most of Newton's books were rapidly sold to John Huggins, Warden of the Fleet Prison and installed in the house of his third son, Charles Huggins at Chinnor Rectory. They later passed, with the house, by marriage to Dr James Musgrave who later moved (with his library) in 1778 to Barnsley Park in Gloucestershire. There they remained, largely undisturbed, before dispersal at auction in the early part of the twentieth-century.Books demonstrably from Newton's library have been recognised through a variety of means: notably the contemporary lists compiled of both the Huggins and Musgrave libraries, but also from the bookplates and shelf-marks they contain, and, occasionally from Newton's own annotations and trade-mark "dog-earing" of corners. Our little Longinus, in its early to mid-eighteenth century binding contains no obvious Newtonian markings and did not appear in the first listings listings of Newton's library made by Huggins and does not contain a Huggins bookplate. It does however contain two sets of Musgrave's markings (the Chinnor and Barnsley Park shelf-marks) plus Musgrave's distinctive bookplate.As Harrison points out, while Huggins' first list is the most useful of all the lists of Newton's books, it does have limitations, especially in relation to smaller books in octavo or duodecimo and volumes with multiple contents (tracts). A good number of books known to have been Newton's appear in the Musgrave list only but are missing from the Huggins list. While most larger books were fully listed, smaller books were far less accurately recorded. For example, Harrison cites the entry "3 Dozen of small chymical books", among which a volume such as ours could easily have passed unrecognised. Furthermore, such an arcane hermetic text is highly unlikely to have been added to the library from elsewhere by either Huggins or Musgrave. Certainly Musgrave added books (perhaps as many as 130 volumes) but these tended to be on more general non-scientific subjects. "The great majority of the doubtful books are theological (particularly sermons), and the rest comprise a few classical texts, works on modern history and biography, and works of English literature, together with a reference book or two" (Harrison p. 46). On the other hand, it is precisely the sort of book Newton had been reading avidly between c. 1670-90 (see Brewster, Newton Handbook, 11).The binding of the book is of interest, dating from the eighteenth rather than the seventeenth century. If we are correct in suggesting that the book had its origins among Newton's books then a rebinding must have taken place under the instruction of Musgrave while still at his house at Chinnor (the book's pastedown bears a Chinnor marking). It is known that Musgrave did oversee a degree of conservation and rebinding, especially among the flimsier tract volumes, though the style of our binding is quite different to these. The Longinus has not only been rebound, but has had its rather frayed title carefully repaired by backing on a blank leaf (not watermarked).In sum, the Musgrave markings and the subject matter strongly suggest Newton's earlier ownership, though, on present evidence, this cannot be definitively proved. A work was first published with this title in 1609, and again, in a form closer to our text in 1614. Thereafter it appeard in numerous editions throughout the seventeenth century. The first part considers the different varieties of magic with an added section on the medicinal and magical properties of plants, minerals and animals,;the second is a treatise on cures reputedly effected at a distance by means of the the "weapon salve" (unguento armaro); the third contains the oracles of Zoroaster in verse, and the mystic philosophy of the Hebrews, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Orphics and Pythagoreans in prose; and the final part, possibly added for this edition concerns the nature of the devil.   view more...
£4000.00
US$5983.18*




(MEDICAL MANUSCRIPT.) (BARTHEZ, Joseph Paul). ~ Extraits du cours des vertus des Plantes, Par Mr. Barthez chancelier de l'université de medecine de l'année 1774.

[Montepelier:   1774 or slightly later.]
An extensive notebook on the medicinal virtues of plants, compiled by Joseph Marie Joachim Vigarous de Montagut from lectures given by the great physician Joseph Paul Barthez at the medical school at Montpelier. The lectures evidently comprised a very complete survey of the field and were arranged according to the Linnaean classification of plant taxonomy rather than a medical classification. Each plant is defined using Linnaean names and there follows a brief decription of its uses according a wide variety of previous writers. These include Cullen, Van Helmont, Boerhaave, Jussieu, Fernel, Gesner, Pringle, Fuller, Willis, Sydenham, Linnaeus and Floyer and Barthez's own opinion is then frequently recorded.Viagrous de Montagut evidently attended the Montpelier medical school from an early age. If he made his notes in or soon after they were delivered in 1774, then he must have been just 15 (having been born in 1759). 1774 was the year in which Barthez had been elevated to position of Chancellor at Montpelier. He had been born and educated at Montpelier, taking his doctor's degree in 1753, and then acting as a military physician before becoming joint editor of the Journal des savants and the Encyclopédie méthodique and later returning to Montpelier in 1759. He later became both physician to Louis XVI and an adviser to Napoloeon. He published several influential medical treatises and is remembered as a primary exponent of the theories of vitalism in explaining the nature of biological life.Barthez's autograph letter tipped in to this manuscript is of interest. Probably addressed to Vigarous himself, Barthez recalls having travelled with Vigarous' father as part of the "juri médical" and having recognised the many injustices he had suffered (quite probably in the aftermath of the Revolution). The letter seems to have been sent with a copy of one of Barthez's books. Vigarous published several works himself, including Cours élémentaire de maladies de femmes (1801).   view more...
£1500.00
US$2243.69*



MOUCHEZ, Ernest Barthélémy. ~ La photographie astronomique a l'Observatoire de Paris et la carte du ciel.

Paris: Gauthier-Villars,  1887.
£3000.00
US$4487.39*






ROBINS, Benjamin. ~ New principles of gunnery: containing, the determination of the force of gun-powder, and an investigation of the difference in the resisting power of the air to swift and slow motions. By Benjamin Robins, F. R. S.

London: for J. Nourse,   1742.
First edition."New Principles of Gunnery transformed ballistics into a Newtonian science. Galileo's vacuum theory was the only practical theory before 1742, but only for low-velocity mortars as demonstrated in Bélidor's Le bombardier français (1731). Robins made it applicable for gunpowder weaponry in general. His key contribution was the invention and utilization of the ballistic pendulum. With Huygens's law of pendulum motion and Newton's law of linear momentum, he deduced the bullet's impact velocity from the subsequent swing angle. Robins then used the ballistic pendulum to verify his interior-ballistics theory, relying on Boyle's law, the thirty-ninth proposition from book one of the Principia, and the pneumatic chemistry techniques of Francis Hauksbee the elder and Stephen Hales. By applying Newton's second law of motion to velocity measurements at varying ranges, Robins also obtained the air-resistance force acting on musket balls. This revealed the significant limitations of Galileo's vacuum ballistics theory and of Newton's air-resistance function when approaching the speed of sound" (Steele in Oxford DNB).Robins was born of Quaker stock in Bath. He was initially self-educated but was later taught by the Newtonian editor Henry Pemberton and became a significant exponent of Newton's physics. He had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1727. His New principles of gunnery was widely-read and was translated into German by Euler and also into French.   view more...
£950.00
US$1421.01*




SANTORINI, Giovanni Domenico, (edited by Michael GIRARDI).  ~ Anatomici summi septemdecim tabulae quae nunc primum edit atque explicat iisque alias addit de structura mammarum et de tunica testica vaginali....

Parma: ex Regia Typographia,  1775.
First edition of one of the finest anatomies of the eighteenth century. Santorini (1681-1737) "worked as both a practicing physician and teacher-anatomist in Venice and was known to be one of the most careful and fastidious anatomists of his period. This work, edited by Michael Girardi (1731-97) and issued . . . after Santorini's death, contains illustrations of many parts of the human body, including the organs of smell and hearing, the pharynx, breasts, heart, stomach, liver, intestines, pancreas, and bladder. Of the 21 plates in the book, 17 were by Santorini, and each plate is accompanied by a companion outline plate that is marked with reference letters. The book is one of the finest anatomies of the 18th century because of its excellent illustrations and comprehensive commentary" (Heirs of Hippocrates)."Santorini died before the completion of these anatomical plates which he intended to be his chef d'œuvre. This elegrantly printed volume is the only significant medical book printed by the celebrated Giambattista Bodoni for the Duke of Parma... All the twenty-one prints of the work are done in a light crayon effect which, however, does not impair the anatomic clarity of the prints, but even brings out well the differences in the tissues. Each plate is accompanied by an outline plate which is marked with reference letters. The seventeen plates by Santorini have a ruled margin at the top and on the side, like the Eustachian plates, but have no signatures of the artists. They were drawn by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, who made the coppers for Tasso's Gierusalemme Liberata. A woman, Florentia Marcella, engraved Santorini's plates under Santorini's personal supervision. The work belongs to the best of its time., not only as regards the dissections and illustrations, but also as to the very elaborate commentary. The pictures deal with facial muscles, the base of the brain and other parts of the brain, the organs of smell and hearing, the pharynx, the breasts, the heart, the diaphragm with the beginning of the thoracic duct, the stomach, the liver, the intestines, the pancreas, the ileocaecal valve., the bladder, the muscles of the perineum, and the genitals. Covoli's pictures represent the breasts, the tunics of the testicle and a six months' foetus" (Choulant, pp. 263-64). Copies only rarely contain the portrait: it is lacking in the copies described in Norman, Heirs of Hippocrates and Choulant.   view more...
£1800.00
US$2692.43*



SENDIVOGIUS, Michael. ~ A new light of alchymy: taken out of the fountain of nature and manual experience, to which is added a treatise of sulphur. Written by Micheel Sandivogius. i.e. anagrammatically, divi leschi genus amo. Also nine books of the nature of things, written by Paracelsus, viz. Of the generations, growths, conservations, life, death, renewing, transmutation, separation, signatures of natural things. Also a chymical dictionary explaining hard places and words met withal in the writings of Paracelsus and other obscure authors. All which are faithfully translated out of the Latin into the English tongue, by J. F. MD.

London: A. Clark for Thomas Williams,  1674.
£1650.00
US$2468.06*




THOMSON, John. ~ The universal calculator; or the merchant's, tradesman's, and family's assistant. Being an entire, new, and complete set of tables, adapted for dealers in every branch of trade, by wholesale or retail, and all families. Shewing, at one View, The Amount or Value of any Number or Quantity of Goods or Merchandise, from One to Ten Thousand, at all the various Prices, from One Farthing, in regular progression, to Thirty Shillings; in 280 different Tables. Also, At the foot of each Table is shown the Division of the Pound, Yard, &c. into the following Particulars, entirely new, and not to be found in any other Book, viz. For Dealers by Weight, such as Grocers, &c... For Dealers by Measure, such as Milliners, Haberdashers, &c... There are also added, Twenty-Seven Tables, Shewing the Exchange on Bills, Commission or Brokerage on Goods, &c. from 1/8 to 5 per Cent. and Tables, shewing the amount of any Salary, Income, Expence, &c. by the Day, Week, Month, or Year. By John Thomson, Accomptant in Edinburgh, Author of the Tables of Interest, and Tables for Calculating the Price of all kinds of Grain.

Edinburgh: [Murray & Cochran] for W. Creech and C. Elliot, Edinburgh; and C. Dilly, in the Poultry, London,  1784.
£750.00
US$1121.85*





WILLUGHBY, Francis. ~ De Historia Piscium Libri Quatuor, Jussu & Sumptibus Societatis Regiae Londiniensis editi. In quibus non tantum De Piscibus in genere agitur, Sed & sepcies omnes, tum ab aliis traditae, tum novae & nondum editae bene multae, naturae ductum servante Methodo dispositae, accurate describuntur. Earumque effigies, quotquot haberi potuere, vel ad vivum delineatae, vel ad optima exemplaria impressae; Artifici manu elegantissime in Aes incisae, ad descriptiones illustrandas exhibentur. Cum Appendice Historias & Observationes in supplementum Operis collatas complectente. Totum Opus Recognovit, Coaptavit, Supplevit, Librum etiam primum & secundum integros adjecit Johannes Raius e Societate Regia.

Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre,  1686.
£4250.00
US$6357.13*


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10 March 2010