Only edition. Rare in its completeness, as offered here with its three parts. An understudied botanical work on exotic plants at the Orto Vaticano Indico in Rome, imported from different parts of the world for cultivation and acclimatization. The book was written by Filippo Luigi Gigli (or Gilii) (1756-1821), an..... More
1. Al suavissimo usignolo delle scene signora Maria Domenica Pini si scusa l’Autore d’aver così tardi decantata la di lei impareggiabil Virtù. In Siena, Bonetti, 1700. 2. Per il finto sdegno con l’amante della signora Maria Domenica Pini celebre cantatrice, e virtuosa della serenissima Gran Prencipessa di Toscana. Che nel..... More
The first and only edition of a rare treatise in 17 chapters, dedicated to advising women on a wide range of topics including dress, beauty, physical and mental health, passion pursuit, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. The book does not particularly favor religion or intellectual pursuits, but highlights horseback riding, hunting, travel..... More
The first and only edition of an illustrated manual for drawing and painting with a focus on composition and landscapes featuring archeological ruins, written by the neoclassical painter, writer, archeologist, and salonnière Marianna Candidi Dionigi.Marianna Candidi Dionigi (1756- 1826), born to an aristocratic and erudite Roman family, was educated by..... More
Dedication copy of a rare suite of large fantastic utopian architectural designs of surprising modernity for the time by the Swiss symbolist artist, architect and poet Albert Trachsel (1863-1929), considered by Vivien Greene, in her catalog for the 2017 Guggenheim exhibition in New York City, the “Edgar Allan Poe of..... More
Very rare. No US copy. De luxe publication of two illustrated works, published privately by the author, 10 years apart. The 43 full page plates are engraved in different techniques; mezzotint, copper engraving, lithography and line designs all by different artists active in Lombardy at the time. The engravers who..... More
First Latin edition, first issue of Part I of Theodor de Bry's great collection of voyages, “the rarest volume of that series” (Sabin 30377), with fine contemporary hand-color. The text consists of a Latin translation of Thomas Hariot’s A brief and true report of the new found land of Virginia..... More
A fine and very genuine copy of the rare first edition of Pablo José de Arriaga’s meticulous account of the Indians of Peru at the turn of the 17th century. Intended as a manual to help clerics identify and eradicate native “superstitions”, the work is filled with minute details describing..... More
Very rare first edition of a treatise by the Dutch autodidact astronomer Martin Hortensius (or van den Hove) (1605-39) refuting Johannes Kepler’s (1571-30) criticism of his measurements concerning the angular diameter of the sun. The two men first disputed this observational problem following Hortensius’ publication of his findings in the..... More
Very scarce first edition of Ramusio’s first published work, containing the first appearance of Peter Martyr in Italian, and constituting the first Italian language voyage anthology devoted to the Americas, As well as the second Italian voyage anthology overall, preceded only by the 1508 Montalbodo (which had a wider geographical..... More
Extremely rare first edition of this poem glorifying Maria Theresa, Infanta of Spain (1638-1683), whose hand in marriage would soon become part of the war bounty of Louis XIV during negotiations for the Treaty of the Pyrenees that ended the war between France and Spain in 1659. Colletet, who like..... More
The first edition of a rare suite of 23 splendidly engraved plates of drawing models for art students by the Bolognese artist Lodovico Mattioli (1662-1747). The models were adopted from works by Agostino Carracci, Jusepe de Ribera, Federico Barocci, and Carlo Maratti. The 23 finely executed plates represent a variety..... More
A large paper copy of this scarce final published work of Viviani, representing the culmination of his efforts to reconstruct a lost manuscript by Aristaeus the Elder on the exposition of curves. Nearing the end of his life, Viviani also took the opportunity of the present work’s publication to offer..... More
Scarce first edition of the first Italian-language Sacrobosco, composed by the Servite monk Mauro and containing an unusually rich program of illustrations. The work is further augmented by Mauro’s ‘additioni’ to the basic text of Sacrobosco and several appendices for the benefit of his vernacular reader, including the ‘secrets of..... More
The first edition of a twenty-seven-canto epic poem on the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) and Venice's conquest of Byzantium by Lucrezia Marinella (1571-1653), a prolific seventeenth-century Venetian writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. The poem has been called an "incisive pro-woman (or proto-feminist) text," marked by female characters "whose behavior..... More
An exceedingly rare (with no copies recorded in OCLC) pocket-sized booklet, published in 1580 for the Franciscan-observant Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception of the Church of San Francesco in Brescia. It details the indulgences and privileges, granted under unification with the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Conception of San Lorenzo in..... More
First edition. "Nothing is more beautiful than to know all things," proclaims the motto on this work's titlepage. Aiming to categorize all qualities and relationships and apply symbolic formulae to every department of learning, this two-part volume is Kircher's most ambitious and complex work. Building on the Ars Magna of..... More
The second posthumous edition of Tullia d’Aragona’s collection of poetry, published by Antoine Bulifon, who was “fundamentally important for the diffusion of women’s poetry” (Rabitti, p. 50). One of the most famous Italian sixteenth-century female poet-courtesans, Tullia d’Aragona (1501/1505-1556) has received considerable scholarly attention in the last decades, resulting in..... More
A later edition of the Secrets of Signora Isabella Cortese, an important publication on practical alchemy, written by a female author and addressed to female readers. “Cortese’s recipes for beauty waters, soaps, and perfumes, along with others for calcinated mercury and potable gold, are deemed useful to ‘every noble lady’..... More
The second edition of a very rare work on military architecture by Giusto Emilio Alberghetti (1666-1755), a member of the famous Alberghetti family, the chief suppliers of guns and cannons to the Venetian Arsenal from 1487 to 1793. The work provides a copiously illustrated survey of defensive and offensive architecture..... More
One of the earliest maps of China, depicting insular Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and the Great Wall in the north. The northwest coast of America can be found in the northeast corner of the map, separated from the Asian continent by the semi-mythical Strait of Anian. The map comes from..... More
![Item #5644B Tractado em que se co[n]tam muito por este[n]so as cousas da China, co[m] suas...](https://martayanlan.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5644B.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1651612936)
Very rare first edition of this eyewitness account: “the first European book devoted exclusively to China” (Lach, I.1, p. 330). This highly important work, the first printed book published in the West on the subject, served as the primary source on China for European authors and their readers - most..... More
A beautiful inky black and white example of the first English map of folio size of China, as well as arguably the most richly embellished, early map of the area by John Speed (1552-1629). The map also shows part of north-western America (upper right corner). “...Speed’s map visibly defines China..... More
An important map in a striking example that provides one of the finest specimens of Coronelli’s robust engraving style. In addition to being a state-of-the-art depiction of China, it also serves a visual compendium of the tools of a seventeenth-century surveyor and cartographer. The precisely engraved instruments decorating the map..... More
[Bound with:] [CHINA] / KIRWITZER,Wenceslaus Pantaleon / DARDE, Jean / MACHAUKT, J.-B. (trans.) Histoire de ce qui s’est passé au royaume de la Chine en l’année 1624. Paris, Sebastian Cramoisy, 1629. (2) ff., 102, 1 integral blank. [And with:] [ETHIOPIA] / MENDEZ, Alfonso / PAEZ, Gaspar / MACHAULT, J.-B..... More