Rare first Italian edition and first edition in any vulgate language of “the first handbook of modern systematic mineralogy” (Horblit/Grolier, Latin no. 1546). “Agricola’s most important work...after De re metallica itself, was De Natura Fossilium which was the first systematic mineralogy... The De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum is considered the..... 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

First edition, and an important annotated copy, of the foundational text of scientific botany and the first articulation of the modern concept of species. Andrea Cesalpino’s (1519-1603) comparative plant taxonomy – “the first rational system of plant classification” (PMM) – far surpassed any rival system of his day. De plantis..... More

Scarce first French edition of this classic on the natural history of Latin America.  Streeter noted, “[Acosta] provided great detail in his descriptions of sailing directions, mineral wealth, trading commodities, Indian history, etc.  Consequently his work operated more strongly than any other in opening the eyes of the rest of..... More

Very rare first edition of this handsomely illustrated work on barbers giving detailed instructions on both the medical and aesthetic aspects of the profession. Published at a time when barbers saw their territory increasingly contested by professional surgeons, Malfi’s work stresses the medical knowledge of barbers and their expertise in..... More

Rare complete suite and an unusually fine copy of the quintessential 17th-century Italian Cry book, creatively adapting depictions of Bologna trades by Caracci made at the end of the 16th century into a full-fledged book of cries. Caracci's drawings were engraved by Simon Guillain in 1646 under the title of..... More

Very rare first and sole edition of this professional guide to assaying gold, silver and assorted precious metals by a practicing Madrid assayer, of interest for the international as well as mercantile history of Spain in the last years of her imperial period. The work treats the physical properties..... More

Rare first and only complete edition of an early work on fossils in the Americas by “one of the founders of paleontology” (Mancini, p. 131), the Franciscan historian and naturalist José Torrubia (1698-1761). La gigantologia Spagnola is a much-expanded version, composed in Italian, of an essay which first appeared in..... More

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

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

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