Very rare first edition of a set of engravings by the Antwerp printmaker Jean-Baptiste Barbé (1578-1649) after the designs of Theodoor van Loon (c.1581-1649), a Flemish painter noted as an early stylistic follower of Caravaggio (1571-1610). The work presents bust-length portraits of the Holy Family, the Four Evangelists, and the..... More
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
First edition, first issue of an outstanding document in the history of science. The work grew out of the appearance of three comets in the autumn of 1618 and articulates the principal arguments of whether they were atmospheric or celestial phenomena. “In the course of his argument, Galileo distinguished physical..... More
First edition of a rare volume of prose and verse glorifying the military exploits of the Prince-Elector (Kurfürst) of Bavaria Maximilian I (1572-1651) by members of the University of Ingolstadt, as compiled by the Jesuit philosopher-theologian Georg Stengel (1584-1651). The Gloria Bellica is an important witness to the intertwining of..... More
Rare first and only edition of this illustrated funeral book recording the ceremonies for Pope Paul V (1550-1621) held in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, with a fine suite of full-page engravings of ephemeral sculpture and architecture, including a series of 16 sculptures of Virtues by the great Gian Lorenzo..... More
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
A fine example of a “map of great importance” (Burden). It was first and only cartographic document reflecting an early plan for the colonization of New England. The map "locates twenty patentees among whom the region extending from Cape Cod to Maine was divided..... More
A very nice example of this rare and fundamentally important map, the earliest English map specifically of North America that is realistically acquirable. The Briggs was also among the very earliest maps to include the key place names associated with early English colonization: Plymouth, New England, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard..... 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 first and only edition, first issue, of the Vicenza architect Ottavio Revesi Bruti’s (c. 1585-1648) richly illustrated folio describing his new instrument for accurately constructing scale drawings of the architectural orders without reliance on laborious calculations, a boon both for practical architects eager to avoid difficult mathematics on the..... More
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
Rare first French edition of the earliest written eyewitness account of Japan, by the adventurer, pirate, missionary and mercenary who was among the first Europeans to visit that country. In 1537 Mendes Pinto (1509?-1583) began a 21-year odyssey to the East. Although his reliability has been questioned almost since the..... More
Rare first edition of this polemical work against the use of liquid salts and defending in their stead the controlled use of arsenic, bound with three other titles by the same author on 1)pharmacy, 2)a distilled vitriolic spirit, 3) the use of hellebore. More
The title in Asher’s English translation is: Considerations and reasons of the noble Directors of the Chartered West-India Company, delivered in the assembly of their High Might. the States General of these Free United Netherlands, on the present deliberations on a Truce with the King of Spain. With Conscientious Reflections..... More
First edition of this illustrated Italian translation of the Roman poet Persius (CE 34-62) by Galileo’s correspondent, friend, and fellow member of the Accademia Linceo, containing “the first illustrations prepared with a microscope that were set forth in a printed book” (Singer p. 148), including the anatomical ‘bee’ engraving made..... More
Rare first edition of this important and graphically striking work on sixteenth-century fortification by Girolamo Portigiani (c. 1540-91). Consisting entirely of finely engraved images of star forts and details of their defensive systems, the volume is in fact as much a book about virtuoso perspective as it is an exploration..... More
Rare first edition of this Mannerist suite of designs for triumphal arches and entrances, by a Florentine who had been invited to the French court by Marie de Medici, became royal engineer to Louis XIII, and built grottos and fountains on the grounds of St. Germain-en-Laye and Fontainebleau. He was..... More
Very rare first and only edition of the mathematician Pierre Vernier’s (1580-1637) landmark work introducing his invention of an ingenious new scale – here illustrated with a fold-out engraving – designed to greatly increase the accuracy of mensuration instruments. The scarcity of this treatise belies its broad impact on many..... More
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Very attractive copy of the rare first edition of the first work on logarithms printed in Italy, the first published work of a great mathematician of whom Galileo wrote, “few, if any, since Archimedes, have delved as far and as deep into the science of geometry.” Cavalieri introduced and popularized..... More
First collected edition of this landmark of discovery Americana, augmented with new material and, above all, the first appearance of Champlain’s seminal two-sheet map of the Great Lakes. This copy comes in the rare first issue of both text and map, in a splendid contemporary red morocco binding with the..... More
Rare first edition of the first book on Vietnam in English, an eyewitness account of the commerce, government and cultural life of Cochin-China (central Vietnam) written by the Jesuit missionary Cristoforo Borri and first published in Italian in 1631. Borri begins by marking the kingdom’s boundaries, identifying it as a...... More
Rare first French edition (original Spanish 1585) of Diego de Torres's history of north Africa, a detailed account of the on-going conflict between the Xarifes (the Saadian dynasty), the king of Fez, and the Turks, augmented with his own first-hand observations. Following the expulsion of the Moors from Europe..... More
Rare first and only edition of a treatise on trigonometry – illustrated with numerous woodcut diagrams – by James Hume of Godscroft, a Scottish mathematician living in Paris. The work includes information on logarithms as recently discovered by John Napier in 1614 (including a folding table of logarithms based on..... More
The preferred large format French language 3rd edition. This is a large and absolutely genuine example of this classic illustrated travelogue to the East and West Indies, termed by Lach “the most important of the firsthand accounts published independently of the great travel collections” (I.198). No other book contained so..... More
First edition of Galileo’s most important work, the foundation of modern physics. This work was Galileo’s ‘greatest scientific achievement … Mathematicians and physicists of the later seventeenth century, Isaac Newton among them, rightly supposed that Galileo had begun a new era in the science of mechanics. It was upon his..... More