Rare first edition in Spanish of the most influential illustrated technological compendium of the Renaissance, “the first independent work on machinery published” (Zeitlinger). The work is at least partly based upon the unpublished notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci: According to A.P. Usher, several inventions formerly ascribed to Besson are derived..... More about Teatro de los Instrumentos y Figuras Mathematicas y Mecanicas

Very rare first and only edition of this highly unusual 18th-century German work recording a lively conversation among early book printers – held from beyond the grave – in which they debate their respective roles in the invention and perfection of printing with movable type. The interlocutors are Johannes Gutenberg... More about Merckwürdiges Gespräch im Reiche der Todten zwischen den Ersten Erfindern der...

Extremely rare first edition of a 1751 Portuguese report concerning a deadly encounter with a fearsome monster on Brazil’s western frontier, in the Andes Mountains of Chile, near the province’s border with Peru, Paraguay and Tucuman. The pamphlet – illustrated with a striking woodcut of the creature on its front..... More about Monstruo prodigioso, que appareceo no Reino de Chile. Relação de hum monstruo prodigioso, que...

Pair of rare 17th-century French satirical engravings – here in vibrant contemporary hand-color – which treat the theme known as the ‘debat pour la culotte,’ a discussion about who ‘wears the pants’ in a marriage and, by extension, how non-traditional gender roles and authority structures at home broadly affected (and..... More about Prezage malheureux. [With:] Tout d’amitié et rien de force

An extraordinary volume – previously unrecognized in bibliographic scholarship – which once formed part of the library of George Sandys (1578-1644), the poet, traveler, colonial treasurer of the Virginia Company, and “one of the most important men in the history of Colonial Jamestown” (Grizzard, p. 193), whose English verse translation..... More about The natural and morall historie of the East and West Indies