Rare first edition of this landmark of cryptography, “the first printed book on the subject” (Kahn), here in an example heavily annotated in several early modern hands, with its two woodcut title pages decorated in contemporary hand-color, and all preserved in a fine, stamped German binding dated 1587. The only..... 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

This rare handbook by the renowned sculptor-goldsmith-theorist Juan de Arfe y Villafañe (1535-1600) – not to be confused with the author’s similar title of 1572 – presents the most influential information on the assaying of silver, gold, gemstones and a variety of other commodities published on the Iberian peninsula during..... 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-century alchemy and..... 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

Extensively illustrated, visually appealing unpublished French navigational manuscript dating from the early 1670s, making it an important early witness to the maritime pedagogical reforms instituted by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) during his effort to strengthen the French navy, create a favorable balance of trade for the nation, increase France’s colonial holdings..... More

First edition, and a fine copy, of one of the great classics of science. Complete copies, such as ours, have become difficult to find on the market. This book is notable for its importance in the fields of electricity and air pressure and for its account of the discovery of..... More

Extremely rare copy of a classic work produced in 1661 during Japan’s intellectual awakening by the important mathematician Isomura Yoshinori (d. 1710). This much enlarged third edition (1684) includes new uses for pi, such as novel calculations of the surface of a sphere. It solves other practical problems, for instance..... More

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

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

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