*
CESALPINO, Andrea. De Metallicis libri tres. Rome, Aloysius Zanetti, 1596.
4to., (8) ff., 222 pp., (1) f. Bound in contemporary limp vellum, some tears to spine, and housed in half red morocco and linen book box; ownership inscription of the Convent of Santa Maria of Scala, Italy; ex libris of Robert Honeyman IV on front pastedown; light scattered foxing; some underlining and marginal annotations in an early hand. A very genuine copy; excellent.
$18,500 A lovely copy of the first edition of this famous compendium on metals by the remarkable Renaissance scientist Andrea Cesalpino whose achievements in several fields are celebrated in every standard history of science. In addition to its commentary on traditional sources from Dioscorides to Albertus Magnus, many rare specimens from the Vatican's collection in the 'Metallotheca' are described here for the first time, preceding by more than a century Mercati's posthumously published Metallotheca (1717). Cesalpino was, in fact, Mercati's teacher and after the latter's premature death succeeded him as papal physician in Rome where he researched and wrote the present work.
Book I deals with the genesis of minerals and sketches a theory of classification according to their admixtures of the four elements; Book II treats limestone, marble, precious stones and salts, and the processes by which crystallization gives minerals their regular form; Book III is devoted to metals. (See Partington for an extensive commentary on this work.)
De Metallicis is also of interest, however, as a compendium of fantastic lore culled from contemporary sources: "Not only do we hear of a lynx-stone near Naples that bears mushrooms, which Cesalpino regards as a great marvel but which may be a fact, but we have the gem jasper suspended as an amulet or are regaled with the virtues of bezaar or bezoar stones. One from Persia that grows in goats is tested in this wise. They smear a thread with poison such as the juice of white hellebore and draw it with a needle through the foot of a dog or other part of an animal, leaving the thread in the wound. When symptoms of poisoning aggravate, they bring the stone near, and if it is genuine, the animal feels relief from that remedy...[!]" (Thorndike, History of Magic VI.335).
Among other notable distinctions, Cesalpino (1519-1603) was a professor of botany and medicine at Pisa and succeeded Aldrovandi as the director of the Botanic Gardens at Bologna
* Adams C-19; Partington, A History of Chemistry II.89-92; DSB XV.80-81; Hoover 212; Honeyman II.564.
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