Scarce edition of three alchemical texts—comprising the first illustrated appearance of the ‘Twelve Keys’ of Basil Valentine, and the first printed editions of Thomas Norton’ The Ordinall of Alchemy, and John Cremer’s ‘Testament’—collected by the pre-eminent Rosicrucian apologist Maier. The first work shows the intimate dependency of 17th-century alchemy and..... More

Fine sammelband of four scarce first editions of works by the Renaissance theologian, Lutheran reformer, and self-proclaimed founding Rosicrucian Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), including his celebrated Reipublicae Christianopolitanae, a Protestant vision of the Christian Utopia. The volume includes a folding engraved plate, often missing, depicting two views of the perfect..... More

Very rare first edition of a set of engravings by the Antwerp printmaker Jean-Baptiste Barbé (1578-1649) after the designs of Theodoor van Loon (c.1581-1649), a Flemish painter noted as an early stylistic follower of Caravaggio (1571-1610). The work presents bust-length portraits of the Holy Family, the Four Evangelists, and the..... More

First edition, first issue of an outstanding document in the history of science. The work grew out of the appearance of three comets in the autumn of 1618 and articulates the principal arguments of whether they were atmospheric or celestial phenomena. “In the course of his argument, Galileo distinguished physical..... More

Rare contemporary Portuguese account of the Dutch conquest in May 1624 of the principal Brazilian city, Salvador da Bahia, a brief victory that was reversed less than a year later by the largest armada ever sent to the Americas. This Dutch attempt to establish a colony in Brazil was the..... More

Very rare first edition of this handsomely illustrated work on barbers giving detailed instructions on both the medical and aesthetic aspects of the profession. Published at a time when barbers saw their territory increasingly contested by professional surgeons, Malfi’s work stresses the medical knowledge of barbers and their expertise in..... More

Rare editions of two works important for bringing the new computational technique of Briggs and Napier to the Continent. The first work is considered the second edition of Briggs exposition of his own as well as Napier's treatment of the logarithm (first 1624): "[It] included thirty thousand logarithms, those from..... More

Rare first edition of this polemical work against the use of liquid salts and defending in their stead the controlled use of arsenic, bound with three other titles by the same author on 1)pharmacy, 2)a distilled vitriolic spirit, 3) the use of hellebore. More

First edition of this illustrated Italian translation of the Roman poet Persius (CE 34-62) by Galileo’s correspondent, friend, and fellow member of the Accademia Linceo, containing “the first illustrations prepared with a microscope that were set forth in a printed book” (Singer p. 148), including the anatomical ‘bee’ engraving made..... More

Rare first edition of this Mannerist suite of designs for triumphal arches and entrances, by a Florentine who had been invited to the French court by Marie de Medici, became royal engineer to Louis XIII, and built grottos and fountains on the grounds of St. Germain-en-Laye and Fontainebleau. He was..... More

Very attractive copy of the rare first edition of the first work on logarithms printed in Italy, the first published work of a great mathematician of whom Galileo wrote, “few, if any, since Archimedes, have delved as far and as deep into the science of geometry.” Cavalieri introduced and popularized..... More

Rare first edition of the first book on Vietnam in English, an eyewitness account of the commerce, government and cultural life of Cochin-China (central Vietnam) written by the Jesuit missionary Cristoforo Borri and first published in Italian in 1631. Borri begins by marking the kingdom’s boundaries, identifying it as a...... More

Rare first and only edition of a treatise on trigonometry – illustrated with numerous woodcut diagrams – by James Hume of Godscroft, a Scottish mathematician living in Paris. The work includes information on logarithms as recently discovered by John Napier in 1614 (including a folding table of logarithms based on..... More