[AND:] [ANONYMOUS.] One manuscript leaf, 30-37 lines, in red and black, with additional tables. [BOUND FIRST:] Calendarium Romanum magnum. Colophon: Oppenheim, Jacob Koebel, 1518. Small folio (30 x 21 cm), [12] including woodcut title and dedication, 74, [52] ff. including 2 loose errata leaves. Including 1 full-page woodcut of zodiac..... More
Rare, second Italian-language edition (first 1522) of the Herbarius latinus, important for the dissemination of botanical/medical knowledge in popular culture and particularly for the adoption of this originally German-printed Latin work for readers in the Veneto. The second section, with 96 chapters, includes information on laxatives, aromatics, fruits, seeds, gums..... More
Very rare first Latin edition of one of Sebastian Münster’s (1488-1552) earliest astronomical works, the Canones super Novum Instrumentum Luminarium, a treatise on the use of an elaborate device known as the Instrumentum Novum (‘New Instrument’). The volume instructs users how to calculate such astronomical information as the appearance of..... More
Rare first edition of this influential balneological treatise by one of the founding fathers of hydrotherapy. A modern interpretation of Galen, Avicenna and Hippocrates, Brancaleoni's work promoted the healthful and hygienic effects of bathing a generation earlier than Falloppio, and well in advance of the 19th-century pan-European trend for spa..... More
First edition of this collection of writings of the Ferrarese humanist, posthumous but all appearing for the first time, including his proto-Copernican dissertation advocating the movement of the earth. Although Thorndike and others have speculated that Calcagnini may have gotten wind of Copernican heliocentrism during a stay in Eastern Europe..... More
Early edition of one of the rarest 16th-century German-language instrument books on the construction of sundials. First published in 1539 and reprinted the following year, this is probably the third edition. All are very rare. Strasbourg imprints on technology are highly unusual, and in Chrisman's analytic bibliography of Strasbourg books..... More
Rare first edition of Euclid extracts in Italian, preceded only by Tartaglia’s translation of 1543, of which it is independent. The first Italian translation made directly from the Greek. According to Rose, (Italian Renaissance of Mathematics, p. 189), the editor and translator Cainai omitted the proofs and figures of most..... More
Rare Leipzig printing of Agricola's first book devoted to mining, "a pioneer delineation of mining and metallurgy" (DSB), and of particular interest to the study of occupational diseases. In the form of a dialogue between a mining employee (Bermannus) and two doctors, the work treats the properties and relationships of..... More
An attractive and genuine example – with all volvelles present – of this copiously illustrated Paris edition (1553) of one of the most important astronomical and geographic texts of the Renaissance, Petrus Apianus’ Cosmographia. The work’s large, cordiform world map contains the most influential 16th-century representation of the New World..... More
Very rare complete first edition of the Scotsman James Bassantin’s (c. 1500-68) copiously illustrated, large-format compendium on calculating planetary positions. The Astronomique discours, which took as its forebear Peter Apian’s famous (1495-1552) Astronomicum Caesareum (1540), includes among its 175 woodcuts a total of 14 volvelles (13 of which are full..... More
Rare second edition (first 1555) of the first Western treatise on the art perfume making and cosmetics, containing over 300 recipes, which became something of a Venetian specialty in part because of that city’s supply of exotics from trade with the East, and in part for its fascination with feminine..... More
A handsome sammelband of the two most important anatomical works of the French Renaissance, both in their first French editions. Charles Estienne’s superbly-illustrated Dissection des Parties du Corps Humain is bound here after Jacques Grévin’s adaptation of Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica, being the first appearance of Vesalius in the..... More
Scarce first edition of "the first book on exercise and health, and an important source for the study of gymnastics among the ancients"; "one of the earliest books to discuss the therapeutic value of gymnastics and sports generally for the cure of disease and disability, and an important study of..... More
First edition, “become very rare” (Thieme-Becker XXIII, 45), of this illustrated perspective compendium, in the Nuremberg tradition of Kunstbuchleinen, which included such artists and goldsmiths as Stoer, Hirschvogel and Jamnitzer. The work follows and forms the technical counterpart to Lencker’s playful Perspectiva Literaria (1567), describing a drawing instrument of the author’s invention (pictured..... More
Rare first edition of Thomas Digges’s Alae seu scalae (1573), the most important astronomical work published in 16th-century England and a landmark in the Copernican Revolution. Writing shortly after the surprising appearance of the famous ‘new star’ of 1572 (later known as ‘Tycho’s supernova’), Digges sets out here to examine..... More
Rare first edition of the author’s first work, generally regarded as the most important treatise on mechanics since Archimedes and a critical influence on Galileo. The work is notable for its commitment to establishing mechanics on a rigorously mathematical basis, for its powerful argument that mechanics and statics are separate..... More
Early edition, with Latin commentary, of the most influential illustrated technological compendium of the Renaissance, "the first independent work on machinery published" - Zeitlinger. In 1569 King Charles IX appointed Besson master of the King's engines, and gave him exclusive rights to publish his designs; he quickly produced this lavishly..... More
Very rare first edition, second issue of this understudied work, “apparently the earliest Italian imprint to depict and discuss the Copernican system” (Gingerich) by the Cologne-born Professor of Mathematics at Padua. The work includes a printed diagram of the geo-heliocentric system of Martianus Capella (41r) as well as a diagram..... More
Rare first edition of Alessandro Lamo’s (1546-1610) illustrated evaluation of the life and work of the Cremonese painter Bernardino Campi (1522-1591). The Discorso, in addition to being the principal source for Campi’s biography, is considered the first critical writing to examine a still-living artist through the lens of regional art..... More
Extremely rare first edition of this highly original and insufficiently known work on mechanics, which recent scholarship by Camerota and Hellbing has shown to be the most important such work in the generation between Guidobaldo and Galileo. Highlights include the revolutionary view that the true science of motion is the..... More
First edition of this potted version of Venetian history as seen through the portraits and other paintings hanging in or decorating some of the public rooms of the Palazzo Ducale after the fire of 1577, of art historical interest for the disposition of numerous famous Venetian paintings during the 16th..... More
Very attractive and genuine copy of the scarce first edition. This is the complete extant text of the Alexandrian geometer Pappus (4th century AD) in the Latin translation of Federico Commandino, a crucial source for the history of ancient geometry (not infrequently the only extant witness) and a work which..... More
First edition of an Archimedean work by Galileo’s friend and early patron Guidobaldo del Monte. Guidobaldo’s Liber mechanicorum (1577), regarded as the greatest work on statics since the Greeks, employed the mathematically rigorous proofs of Archimedean models in investigating static and mechanical questions. The present work develops many of those..... More
First edition of New Theories of the Celestial Orbs Agreeing with the Observations of Copernicus, Magini's principal astronomical treatise. The work is of interest for the 16th century reception of Copernicus, whom Magini admired; and although he endorsed the unprecedented accuracy of Copernicus’ calculation of celestial movements he nevertheless publically..... 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