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Early Printing & Manuscripts / Natural History & Science

Medical secrets plus a largely imaginary Medieval European view of India

[ACHILLINI, Alessandro]. Secreta secretorum Aristotelis.
Including:
ARISTOTLE [pseudo]. Maximi philosophi ... de signis aquarum: & tempestatum.
ARISTOTLE [pseudo]. Maximi philosophurum ... de mineralibus.
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS. De intellectu.
AVERROES. De beatitudine anime.
ACHILLINI, Alexander. De universalibus.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT [pseudo]. De mirabilibus Indie.
(Colophon: Lyon, Antoine Blanchard, 1528. Small 8vo. With a title-page with a 4-piece decorated woodcut border with flowers, birds and snails, woodcut printer's device on last page, 6 woodcut initials and a leaf ornament. Set in 3 sizes of rotunda gothic types, with the title in roman capitals. Contemporary blind-tooled sheepskin(?) parchment over wooden boards, in a panel design with quadruple fillets and 2 decorative rolls, brass catch-plates and anchor-plates (straps and clasps lost). LXXXIII ll. Full description
€ 11,500
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The book that opened America

ACOSTA, José de. Historie naturael ende morael van de Westersche Indien.
Enkhuizen, Jacob Lenaertsz. Meyn (colophon: Haarlem, printed by Gillis Rooman), 1598. 8vo. With a woodcut decoration on the title-page. Vellum (ca. 1700?). [7], 398, [8] ll. Full description
€ 7,500
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Rare early edition of a popular book of botanical, mineralogical and zoological wonders,
with a large woodcut of the author among his books

ALBERTUS MAGNUS (pseudo). Liber secretorum ... De virtutibus herbarum: & animalium quorundam. Eiusdemq[ue] liber De mirabilibus mundi: & etiam de quibusdam effectibus causatis a quibusdam animalibus &c.
(Colophon: Venice, Johan Baptist Sessa, 12 February 1502). Small 4to (21 x 15.5 cm). With a large woodcut portrait of the author at his desk. Gold-tooled maroon morocco (ca. 1870/90?) for James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk (1827-1905), gilt edges. 16 ll. Full description
€ 12,500
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Extremely rare Antwerp edition (1502) of popular pseudo-Magnus treatises Liber aggregationis and De mirabilibus mundi

ALBERTUS MAGNUS (pseudo). De virtutibus herbarum. De virtutibus lapidum. De virutibus animalium et mirabilibus mundi. Item parvum regimen sanitatis valde utile. [Liber aggregationis and De mirabilibus mundi].
[colophon (f4r):] Antwerp, Govaert Bac, 1502. 4to. With a full-page woodcut on the title-page (a monk offering a book to a prince), repeated on the back of the title-page, and Govaert Bacs full-page woodcut printer's device of on the verso of the last leaf. With 3- and 4-line lombardic initials and smaller 2-line initials, supplied by hand in red. Rubricated throughout. 19th-century calf with double gold fillets along the edges of both boards. [36] ll. Full description
€ 35,000
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Largest assembly of natural history illustrations published before the 18th century

ALDROVANDI (ALDOVANDUS), Ulisse. [Opera omnia].
Bologna, 1599-1668. 13 volumes. Folio (35 x 24 cm). With engraved title-page to each volume, engraved full-page portrait of Aldrovandi in 3 volumes and several thousand woodcut illustrations in text, mostly after designs by J. Ligozzi and many full-page. Blind-tooled vellum (ca. 1645 & ca. 1670), with a large centrepiece on each board (the 11 volumes dated 1599-1642 from a single block; the 2 volumes dated 1648 & 1667 from a different block), the spines uniformly gold-tooled in the 18th-century. Full description
€ 150,000
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Famous sundial in the form of a poplar leaf, with beautiful woodcuts

APIANUS, Petrus. Folium populi.
(Colophon:) Ingolstadt, [Petrus Apianus], 22 October 1533. Folio (30 x 20.5 cm). With the text in Latin and German, title-page in red and black with a large woodcut by Hans Brosamer; a nearly full-page woodcut of the coat of arms of the dedicatee, J.G. of Loubenberg; a large woodcut diagram printed twice (in the Latin and in the German text); and 7 decorative initial letters. Without the folding plate included in a very small number of copies. Modern boards with the original fly-leaves preserved. [22] pp. Full description
€ 2,250
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How to determine the hour of the day astronomically: first description of the "horoscopion"

APIANUS, Petrus (= Peter APIAN, Peter BIENEWITZ). Horoscopion Apiani generale dignoscendis horis cuiuscumque.
Ingolstadt, [the author], 1533. Small folio (20 x 29 cm). Title printed in red and black with a large woodcut showing Apianus's scientific instrument described in this work, the "horoscopion", several tables and 25 woodcut illustrations in the text (1 nearly full-page). Modern brown sheepskin with new paste-downs, blind-tooled triple-fillet frame on each board, author's name in gold on spine, blue sprinkled edges. [39], [1 blank] pp. Full description
€ 6,500
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Extensively illustrated classic of cosmography, geodesy, mensuration, perspective and optics

APIANUS (APIAN), Petrus and Gemma FRISIUS. Cosmographia.
Antwerp, Jan Verwithagen (colophon: printed by Verwithagen), 1574. 4to. With a large woodcut on the title-page (with a terrestrial globe and other instruments); 4 printed paper volvelles with moving parts and a woodcut sun dial with a string attached to its centre; a folding woodcut cordiform mappa mundi (block size 19×27.5 cm) with letterpress text in the margins; well over 100 further woodcut illustrations, diagrams, maps, etc., in the text. Recased in 17th-century(?) limp sheepskin parchment. [2], 64, [2] ll. plus folding woodcut. Full description
€ 12,500
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Second edition (1 year after the first, both very rare) of a classic on falconry and hawking by King Henri IV’s falconer

ARCUSSIA, Charles d'. La fauconnerie ... Divisee en trois livres. Avec une briefve instruction pour traitter les autours, sur la fin de l'oeuvre, ...
Paris, Jean Houzé, 1599. 8vo. With Houzé's woodcut device, 6 full-page engravings of birds of prey (12.5 x 8.5 cm) plus 3 (of 5) repeats and all on integral leaves. Red goatskin morocco, signed in the foot of the front turn-in by M[arcel] GODILLOT (active as bookbinder 1938-1975), with wide gold-tooled turn-ins and gold fillets on board edge. 272, [8] pp. Full description
€ 18,000
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Belon's account of his extensive travels in the Levant, with 44 woodcut illustrations

BELON, Pierre. Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays estranges.
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat (colophon: printed by Benoist Prévost for Gilles Corozet, Guillaume Cavellat), 1555. 3 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With title in woodcut border with Cavellet's device and initials at the foot, each part-title with Cavellet's woodcut device, 1 folding woodcut map (31.5 x 35 cm) showing Mount Sinai, 44 woodcuts in the text (including a portrait of the author by Geoffroy Tory), and numerous fine decorated initials. Overlapping vellum (ca. 1600?). [12], 212, [1] ll. Full description
€ 12,500
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41 books found / Show all