First edition, first issue of this rare alchemical work, highly unusual for its early use of four-colour printing. Pantheo was a Venetian priest who published, in 1518 the alchemical Ars transmutationis metallicae. ‘Portions of this were reproduced in the Voarchadumia in 1530, but [it] is quite a distinct work and... 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

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

Scarce Strasburg edition of the collected works of Lull, including commentaries of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, and here with an important 17th-century presentation of the Lullian Ars by the encyclopedist Johann Alsted. Both were influential on Leibniz, Commenius and other 17th-century encyclopedists. "The most distinctive characteristic of Lull's Art is... More

First collected edition of Galileo’s works, appearing only a year after his death and of great interest for his 17th-century reception: this was the edition in which Newton and later eminent scientists read their Galileo. Included here are not only most of the seminal pieces written and published over a.... More

Extremely rare group of anatomical pamphlets in first Latin edition by Lodewijk de Bils, a nobleman from Flanders, who advertised a method of turning bodies into transparent teaching tools preserved and embalmed in a wax-like substance. The sammelband includes his treatises on the gall-bladder (Epistolica Dissertatio) and on the dissection... More

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

First complete edition (second; first 1674, see below) of this important Galileianum, an assembly of previously unpublished writings by Galileo, together with texts by Torricelli and Viviani himself, inscribed by Viviani to an unknown (scored) receipient. Vincenzo Viviani resided with Galileo at Arectri from October 1639 as his pupil, amanuensis... More

Very rare first and only edition of this book of geometrical problems proposed by Galileo’s last disciple, including Viviani’s own solution to the Florentine Enigma he had published earlier that year under a pseudonym. In the dedication to Prince Ferdinand de Medici, he identifies himself for the first time as... More

Rare first edition – illustrated with a fine folding etched map – of the hydraulic engineer Jean-André Floquet’s project proposal for the ‘Canal de Provence,’ a waterway intended to link Marseille with Aix-en-Provence and the Durance River to the north. The etched map is a reduced-size version of an exceptionally... More

Scarce first edition of this work describing various species of marine life found in the Adriatic, illustrated with four plates of unusually high quality coming from a regional press, of interest for the continuing life of the Kircherian tradition in the study of Natural History in opposition to the taxonomic... More

Rare first edition of this handsomely illustrated treatise on the cultivation and manufacture of linen, a staple of the textile and paper industries until the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney (a mere two years after this book was published) and cheaper methods of paper processing curtailed its... More

First edition of a landmark publication in the history of chemistry, Fourcroy’s 10-volume encyclopedic treatise of chemical theory and application. The treatise draws on twenty years of research conducted by Fourcroy, from his private lectures in the early 1780s to his most recent investigations into mercury oxides and salts, carried... More