Folio, (7) ff, 1-246 pp., 249-482 pp, (5) ff. With 2 engraved title pages, 1 engraved portrait of Emperor Leopold I, 1 full-page engraving of the “Arbor Philosophica” or Porphyrian tree, 2 engraved plates of volvelles to be mounted, 5 double-page folding tables, and numerous figures in text. Bound in calf over boards; some browning as usual and minor staining. Leaf *2 with Privilege in the first volume, often missing, is lacking in our copy. Generally very good.

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 the Majorcan philosopher Raymond Lull, which organized all knowledge into a single system by means of geometrical and combinatorial processes, Kircher develops here Lull's system in ways which anticipate Leibniz. 

"The most distinctive characteristic of Lull's art is clearly its combinatory nature, which led to both the use of complex semi-mechanical techniques which sometimes required figures with separately revolving concentric wheels -- "volvelles" in bibliographical parlance - and to the symbolic notation of the alphabet. These features justify its classification among the forerunners of both modern symbolic logic and computer science, with its exhaustive consideration of all possible combinations of the material under examination, reduced to a symbolic coding" (DSB VIII: 549).

The copy offered here is unusual for having the volvelles still in their unmounted state as issued by the publisher.

Our copy comes from the Library of Schloss Nordkirchen.

 *Sommervogel IV.1066-67.28; Merrill 22; Ferguson I.467; DSB VIII: 549.

Sold