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.....
A fine copy of the first separate printing, the offprint issue, of this key work in aeronautical engineering “from the private library of Orville Wright” hand-stamped on the verso of the front wrapper. “Using a glider construction of earlier experimenters, Wilbur and Orville Wright (1871-1948) added motive power to wings.....
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.....
Very rare first and only edition of an official document providing an insider’s view of 18th-century Catalan trade with Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo and Margarita Island, with information on both “the immense visible riches of the continent of America” (p. 1) and the use of slaves to support Spanish ventures.....
First editions of these four tracts (the second, De locutione, is the first folio edition; see below), including Girolamo Fabrizio’s (c. 1533-1619) two most important works, the De venarum ostiolis, and the De formato foetu. The De venarum ostiolis is of one of the great rarities of anatomical literature: Fabrizio’s.....
Rare first and only printing of the English astronomer John Bevis’s (1695-1771) legendary Uranographia Britannica [c. 1748], a celestial atlas of both high astronomical ambition and artistic beauty which was never formally published, its engraved sheets languishing in legal limbo, sequestered by the courts for some 35 years after the...
Rare 19th-century shipping guide to the Pacific coast ports of North America and Hawaii. The volume was issued by the J. D. Spreckels & Bros. shipping company operating out of San Diego to highlight their services in the region and to orientate potential clients to the particular requirements of each...
Very rare first and sole edition of this work on the underlying principles of insurance contracts and business ventures, focusing in particular on the psychological, ethical, and mathematical dimensions of gambling and risk-taking. Beginning with the premise that man’s most fundamental urge is to gain wealth, Codronchi discusses the effects.....
Rare first and sole edition of this clear and systematic treatise on civil architecture, by Bergamo architect Nicolino de’ Calepio, of interest for the regional interpretation of classicizing forms. The treatise is divided into five parts, beginning with a discussion of building materials and other fundamentals such as taking measurements.....
First edition of a rare and fundamental handbook for seventeenth-century missionaries to Indochina. The volume is a formative document by François Pallu (d. 1684) and Pierre Lambert de la Motte (d. 1679), founding members of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris and driving forces behind the establishment in 1665.....
Auction catalogue of the library and art collection of the English author George Daniel (1789-1864) – sold over ten days in 1864 at Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge in London – here in a copy fully annotated with names of purchasers and prices realized. Daniel’s library was especially rich in Elizabethan.....
Only edition of this very rare celestial atlas: Schiller’s masterwork. The Coelum Stellatum Christianum presented the most recent stellar information in a completely different context, redrawing constellations with subjects from Christian iconography in place of traditional figures from classical mythology. For the signs of the zodiac, for example, Schiller substituted.....
Rare 18th-century engraving – relating to the Spanish Flota de Indias and to the important naval port of Cadiz – printed by the renowned Remondini firm of printmakers, a company noted for aggressively expanding its print selling business far from its home base in the Veneto. The hand-colored print depicts...
Rare first edition of this illustrated biography and genealogy of Matilda of Canossa, the medieval “sublime heroine” of papal fidelity, and one of the rare medieval women remembered for her military accomplishments. Intent on dispelling various misconceptions about her as well as honoring her kinsman Alberico Cybo Malaspina, to whom.....
A very fine (and quite unusual) example – here in vibrant contemporary hand-color – of the printmaker Matthäus Merian the Elder’s (1593-1650) renowned series of engravings recording the famous ‘Dance of Death’ mural formerly in the courtyard of Basel’s Predigerkloster. Contemporary hand-colored copies of this work are very rare. Merian’s.....
Rare first edition of the Dutch physicist Martin van Marum’s (1750-1837) spectacular foundational work in high-energy electrical research and a landmark in scientific illustration from an era in which experimental data increasingly took the form of fleeting, transient effects highly resistant to standard methods of artistic representation. Appearing just after.....
First edition of this classic in the history of science, a nice large genuine example of the last of Kepler’s works to appear in his lifetime, and in the judgment of Prof. Owen Gingerich, “the chief vehicle for the recognition of his astronomical accomplishments.” — DSB, p. 304: It contains.....
![Prezage malheureux. [With:] Tout d’amitié et rien de force. Nicolas GUÉRARD.](/pictures/thumb/212.jpg?v=1551241855)
![[Opera,comprising:]De venarum ostiolis. Hieronymus FABRICIUS.](/pictures/thumb/203.jpg?v=1548787672)
![[Uranographia Britannica] / [Atlas Celeste]. John BEVIS.](/pictures/thumb/5806.jpg?v=1548449446)
