Extremely rare ephemeral Bosinada [popular verse in Milanese dialect – see below]  in honor of Sophie Blanchard (1778–1819), the first professional female balloonist on the occasion of her solo flight August 15, 1811, organized for the celebrations of Napoleon's birthday in Milan. The balloon left Milan on the evening of..... More

Rare first edition of a Hebrew/Latin/Dutch pocket-lexicon, compiled by Johannes Leusden, a follower of the famous philologist and Christian Hebraist Johannes Buxtorf (1564-1629), who chaired Hebrew studies at Basel for over thirty years. The volume is comprised of four parts, with Leusden’s two philological works preceded by a supplement.  The..... More

Rare first edition of the first publication on optics (perspectiva), and a crucial text that was studied by Leonardo da Vinci. Johannes de Peckham’s (England c. 1230-1292) Perspectiva communis is illustrated with 77 woodcut diagrams depicting the human eye, the nature of vision, and the eye’s role in the representation..... More

First German language edition (also the first to be translated from the original Italian of 1611) of one of the earliest printed western works solely devoted to the Philippines by the Jesuit Gregorio Lopez, active in the Philippines from his arrival in May of 1601 until his death (in Manila)..... More

First edition of one of the great intellectual debates of the 16th century, the Elder Scaliger’s wide-ranging critique of Cardano’s de Subtilitate. The work provides a capital example of the amorphous and disputatious nature of Renaissance intellectual life just before the scientific revolution would constrict knowledge to the preserve of..... More

 [Bound with:] AULUS GELLIUS. Noctes Atticae. (Cologne), Eucharius Cervicornus [colophon: for Gottfried Hittorp], 1526. (12) ff., 202 pp., (13) ff. Same woodcut title page as the work above. Elaborate woodcut border on p. 1 incorporates figures of Agrippina and M. Agrippa, with the printer’s device at the foot. Woodcut head-..... More

A fine, separately published, French engraving of Webber's iconic scene of the tragic death of Captain James Cook in Hawaii.  The edition was dedicated to Louis-Antoine Bougainville, the French explorer and circumnavigator, who is herein identified as a member of the Society of the Cincinnati.  The official account of Cook's..... More

Rare first edition of one of the earliest works on the subject of scurvy by the well-known anatomist, undertaken to survey the incidence of the disease in the ducal territories around Wittenberg, and consequently qualifying as an example of public health medicine. According to O’Malley, its positive result was the..... More

Extremely rare first edition of the first French account of the East Indies to appear in print (cf. Lach & van Kley, III: 373), here in an impeccable copy bound in contemporary vellum. The work is that of the French adventurer François Martin de Vitré (c. 1575-c. 1631), who, upon..... More

Extremely rare early 18th-century Italian handbook offering advice to husbands, wives and their priests about how to maintain a happy marriage (or at least how to keep the peace). Il marito e la moglie is the work of the Jesuit Fulvio Fontana (1649-1723), who shaped the manual for the use..... More

Rare first edition of this profusely illustrated technological classic on the use of a quadrant and related instruments by Petrus Apianus (1492-1552), “a pioneer in astronomical and geographical instrumentation, and one of the most successful popularizers of these subjects during the 16th century” (DSB). The Instrument Buch is among the..... More

Rare first illustrated edition – and fine copy – of Leon Battista Alberti’s (1404-72) L’Architettura (De re aedificatoria), the first modern architectural treatise, here in the influential translation of Cosimo Bartoli (1503-72), who was one of the most important proponents of the use of the vernacular in 16th-century technical publications..... More