First edition and an outstanding copy of the first illustrated encyclopedia published at the dawn of the discovery period. As a comprehensive contemporary picture of geographical and historical knowledge, the 'Nuremberg Chronicle' as it is called, offers nothing less than a history of the world, and, in its own fashion... More about Liber cronicarum cum figuris et ymaginibus

Rare 1540 (first quarto) Tudor translation of an important early medical work on the curative properties of the American wood known as ‘guaiacum,’ a text first published in Latin in 1519 as De Guaiaci Medicina et Morbo Gallico by the German scholar, poet and reformation thinker Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523)... More about Of the Wood Called Guaiacum that healeth the frenche pockes, and also helpeth the goute in the...

Very rare first edition (1565) – virtually unacquirable for the past half century or more – of the first printed work devoted to the botanical and medicinal discoveries made in the Americas, a treatise which, through its later expansions and numerous translations, would remain “for many years the most important... More about Dos libros. El uno trata de todas las cosas q(ue) trae(n) de n(uest)ras Indias Occide(n)tales,...

Rare first edition of the naturalist Charles de l’Ecluse’s (Carolus Clusius; 1526-1609) botany of Sir Francis Drake’s 1577-80 circumnavigation (the first by an Englishman), the first printed book in botanical literature to be substantially based on a specific trans-Atlantic voyage of any kind, and indeed the first substantial record of..... More about Aliquot notae in Garciae aromatum historiam

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 about Dichiaratione di tutte le Istorie, che si sontengenono nei Quadri posti novamente nelle Sale...

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...

Stunning copy of this "important and influential history of the Ottoman Empire, based on an important collection of source material, which includes Leonard of Chios letter on the fall of Constantinople, Spandugino's account of Ottoman life and manners, and the accounts of Giovio, Menavino, Barletius and others.- Atabey 1088 The... More about Historia Universale dell'Origine Guerre, et Imperio de Turchi con le vite de tutti gl'imperatori...

Scarce augmented edition of this illustrated technological classic, "second only to Agricola in the number of original contributions to the literature of mining and metallurgy and the beauty of the graphic treatment of the crafts." - Dibner 89 (1574) It is testimony to the work's usefulness as a practical handbook... More about Aula Subterranea Domina Dominantium Subdita Subditorum. Das ist: untererdische Hofhaltung, ohne...

Two important and generously illustrated botanical works produced by respected Linnaean correspondents at the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. Amman’s Stirpium rariorum contains useful descriptions of 285 plants from Eastern Europe and “Ruthenia” (now Ukraine), enhanced with 35 clear engravings. According to Hunt, Amman “made a notable contribution..... More about Stirpium rariorum in Imperio Rutheno sponte provenientium icones et descriptiones

Very rare first and sole edition of the first treatise published by the pioneering French mineralogist Jean-Baptiste Romé de L’Isle (1736-1780), and his sole work on marine biology, concerning the “movement, generation and nature” of the freshwater polyp. In the present work Romé hypothesizes, drawing on observations by the naturalist..... More about Lettre de M. Derome Delisle, a M. Bertrand. Sur les polyps d’eau-douce

First edition and fine copy of this work on plant classification which eclipsed all previous taxonomies, and whose general arrangement of families remains current today. Jussieu’s taxonomy was based on the species contained in the Jardin du Roi, supplemented by material provided by some of the great 18th-century Pacific discovery..... More about Genera Plantarum secundum Ordines Natur ales Disposita, juxta Methodum im Horto Regio Parisiensi...

Rare, boldly printed broadside announcing the early exhibition of one of the most famous discoveries in the history of American paleontology, that of the ‘Warren Mastodon,’ excavated in 1845 from a peat bog near Newburgh, New York, and since 1906 on display at the Museum of Natural History. The animal... More about Now Exhibiting at the Hall. The Skeleton of this Gigantic Animal was Discovered in the Month of...

Rare first Russian edition – published only a month after the English original and here preserved in its original wrappers – of Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions of Man and Animals (1872), a book renowned not only for its insight into the connection between human behavior and evolution..... More about O Vyranzenii oscuscenij u celoveka i zivotnych [The Expression of the Emotions of Man and Animals