Only recorded copy of a very early illustrated edition (3rd) of this anonymous collection of ‘nouvelles,’ a literary genre presenting brief prose narratives taken from bourgeois life. The Parangon des nouvelles honnestes utiles et delectables, following the famous Les cent nouvelles nouvelles (c. 1460), collected vernacular tales purporting to be..... More about Le Parangon des nouvelles honnestes utiles et delectables

Extraordinary manuscript of a 16th-century relación written in Chile that provides an account of a 1540 shipwreck in the Straits of Magellan and describes the travails faced by the survivors during their long sojourn in the South American wilderness. Itself a remarkable record of an early Spanish voyage to the..... More about Relazion que dio Pedro de Obiedo marinero natural del Condado de Nieva y Antonio de Covos...

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..... More about Opera,comprising:]De venarum ostiolis

First edition of a rare and enigmatic text with its origins in a Persian-language travel diary of Uruch Beg Bayat (1560-1605), a nobleman and secretary in the delegation sent to Europe in 1599 by the Safavid ruler Shah ‘Abbas I at the urging of Sir Anthony Sherley (1565-1635), whose own... More about Relaciones de Don Juan de Persia

Scarce first Latin edition (following the original German by a year) of one of the most widely diffused Northern European surveying and drafting books, of great interest for the history of scale drawing, architectural drafting, and precision instrumentation, by the Flemish-born polymath and instrument maker Levinus Hulsius (1546-1606). The third... More about Tractatus Primus [-Secundus -Tertius] Instrumentorum Mechanicorum

Very rare first and only edition of an early important collection of 201 medical case-studies, or observationes, by the physician and botanist Paul de Reneaulme (1560-1624), a native of Blois, who is best remembered for his finely illustrated work on plants, the Specimen historiae plantarum (1611). The present work, notable... More about Ex curationibus observationes quibus videre ets [sic] morbos…

Rare 1611 (second) edition of The Noble art of Venerie or Hunting, an important and “beautifully illustrated handbook” treating all aspects of Elizabethan hunting and which “influenced a broad range of readers in early modern England” (Hamrick, 9). The work is largely a translation of Jacques de Fouilloux’s “astoundingly popular..... More about The Noble art of Venerie or Hunting. Wherein is handled and set out the Vertues, Nature, and...

Scarce, French-language edition of Du Laurens'works, with a set of 26 anatomical engravings derived from Vesalius and others. "This is the second edition of the French translation of Du Laurens' collected works... which preceeded the publication of the Latin text. In addition to the author's textbook of anatomy and his... More about Toutes Les Oeuvres

First edition of the most influential seventeenth-century edition of Archimedes’ complete works. The work contains the Greek text with a Latin “trot” running alongside and has extensive exegetical notes. It was still regarded as the best edition in 1670 when Sturm made his German translation. “The success of the humanist..... More about Archimedis Opera quae extant. Novis Demonstrationibus Commentariisque illustrata

Scarce edition of three alchemical texts—comprising the first illustrated appearance of the ‘Twelve Keys’ of Basil Valentine, and the first printed editions of Thomas Norton’ The Ordinall of Alchemy, and John Cremer’s ‘Testament’—collected by the pre-eminent Rosicrucian apologist Maier. The first work shows the intimate dependency of 17th C alchemy..... More about Tripus Aureus, hoc est, Tres Tractatus Chymici Selectissimi, nempe I. Basilii...

Scarce first edition and an attractive copy, bound in what must be a presentation binding with the image of Saint Benedict stamped on the front cover and the arms of the author stamped on the back cover. The work is one of the more fanciful illustrated chronicles devoted to the... More about Nova Typis Transacta Navigatio. Novi Orbis Indiae Occidentalis…authore Honorio Philopono

Rare contemporary Portuguese account of the Dutch conquest in May 1624 of the principal Brazilian city, Salvador da Bahia, a brief victory that was reversed less than a year later by the largest armada ever sent to the Americas. This Dutch attempt to establish a colony in Brazil was the... More about Jornada dos Vassalos da Coroa de Portugal, pera se recuperare a Cidade do Salvador, na Bahya de...

Rare editions of two works important for bringing the new computational technique of Briggs and Napier to the Continent. The first work is considered the second edition of Briggs exposition of his own as well as Napier's treatment of the logarithm (first 1624): "[It] included thirty thousand logarithms, those from... More about Arithmetica Logarithmica sive Logarithmorum Chiliades Centrum, pro numeris naturali serie...