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Early Printing & Manuscripts / Natural History & Science

First edition of one of the most important natural history books of the Renaissance

BELON, Pierre. L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions, & naifs portaicts retirez du naturel: escrite en sept livres.
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat (colophon: printed by Benoit Prévost), 1555. 7 parts in 1 volume. Folio. With a woodcut portrait on the back of the title-page (apparently of the dedicatee King Henri II, though copied in other books as a portrait of the author), large woodcuts of the skeletons of a man and a bird on pp. 40-41, plus 158 woodcuts (157 birds, 1 bat) in text. Contemporary blind- and gold-tooled calf (rebacked, with the original backstrip laid down). [28], 381, [1], [2 blank] pp. Full description
€ 29,500
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First Latin edition, printed by Plantin, of Belon's illutrated oriental travel account, with 43 woodcuts

BELON, Pierre. Plurimarum singularium & memorabilium rerum in Graecia, Asia, Aegypto, Judaea, Arabia, aliisq. exteris provinciis ab ipso conspectarum observationes, tribus libris expressae.
(2) BELON, Pierre. De neglecta stirpium cultura, atque earum cognitione libellus: edocens qua ratione silvestres arbores cicurari & mitescere queant. Antwerp, Christoffel Plantin, 1589. 2 works in 1 volume. 8vo. With Plantins woodcut compasses device on each title-page, 43 woodcuts in text (6 full-page), woodcut decorated initials. With an unrecorded 2-page corrigenda leaf. Contemporary overlapping limp vellum. [16], 495, [1 blank]; "78" [= 87], [1 blank], [2] pp. Full description
€ 4,750
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First modern treatise on oceanography, and a challenge to Machiavelli: rulers must be moral

BOTERO, Giovanni. Aggiunte fatte ... alla sua ragion di stato ove si tratta dell... con una relatione del mare.
Including:
2 [part 1]) Delleccellenze de gli antichi capitani libri due. ...
3 [part 4]) Dellagilita della forze del prencipe libri due. ...
4 [part 3]) Della riputatione del prencipe libri due. ...
5 [part 2]) Discorso della neutralita [del prencipe] ...
6 [part 5]) Discroso[!] intorno alla fortificatione ...
7 [part 6]) Relationi del mare ...
Rome, Giorgio Ferrari, 1598. A preliminary part and 6 text parts in one volume. 4to. With a general title-page and 6 part-titles. Set in an italic type (cut by Robert Granjon) with incidental roman. Sheepskin parchment (ca. 1700?). [22], [2 blank]; 72; 46, [2 blank]; 31, [1 blank]; 15, [1 blank]; 14, [2 blank]; 31, [1 blank] pp. Full description
€ 8,250
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Secrets of the goldsmith and sculptor; with an important passage on Michelangelo's sculptural techniques

CELLINI, Benvenuto. Due trattati, uno intorno alle otto principali arti dell' oreficeria. L'altro in materia dell'arte della scultura; dove si veggono infiniti segreti nel lavorar le figure di marmo, & nel gettarle di bronzo.
Florence, Valente Panizzi, Marco Peri, 1568. 4to. With the woodcut coat of arms of the Medici on the title-page, a woodcut printer's device at the end, 1 small and 36 large architectural historiated initials. 19th-century marbled-paper boards. [5], 61, [7] ll. Full description
€ 5,950
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Spanish handbook of chronography, with numerous woodcut illustrations

CHAVES, Jérôme de. Chronographia o reportorio de tiempos, el mas copioso y precisso, que hasta ahora ha salido a luz.
Sevilla, Fernando Diaz, Faustino de Magarino (colophon: printed by Fernando Diaz), 1584. 4to. With title printed in red and black with woodcut portrait of the author, Diaz's woodcut printer's device below the colophon on the last page, 2 full- or nearly full-page woodcuts, 19 half-page woodcuts, 7 half-page round woodcuts, and 43 small round woodcuts of phases of the moon. Many letterpress tables of the positions of the sun and moon, calendars, movable feasts, etc. Sheepskin parchment by Domingo V. Folch of the national bindery in Valencia (2nd half of 19th century), gold-tooled spine. 192, 201-"163" [= 263] ll. Full description
€ 12,500
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Sea salts not whale sperm

CORDUS, Valerius. De halosantho seu spermate ceti vulgo dicto, liber nunc primum in lucem abditus.
Zürich, [Jacob Gessner], 1566. 8vo. With woodcut printer's device on title-page and a woodcut initial. Modern paper boards, early marbled edges. [3], 37 ll. Full description
€ 1,500
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Early bogus claim to have squared the circle, with the circle’s views on the matter

FALCO, Jacobus (Jaime Juan FALCÓ y SEGURA). Hanc circuli quadraturam invenit.
Antwerp, Petrus Bellerus (Peter Belaert), 1591. Small 4to (19.5 x 14 cm). With a woodcut of Euclid (or possibly Archimedes) with an enormous pair of dividers in his right hand and a book in his left, and between the two legs of the dividers a sceptre passing through a crown, and 29 woodcut diagrams. 20th-century half calf. 29, [1] pp. Full description
€ 2,950
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"Few books had greater influence on the subsequent teaching of elementary mathematics"

FELICIANO, Francesco. Libro di arithmetica & geometria speculativa & praticale ... intitulato Scala Grimaldelli: novamente stampato
(Colophon: Venice, Francesco de Leno), 1563. 4to. With the title in a 5-piece woodcut border with an allusive woodcut illustration (ladder and key), and with numerous woodcut diagrams, geometric figures and other illustrations printed in the large fore-edge margin. Contemporary sheepskin parchment. [80] ll. Full description
€ 2,750
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Well-illustrated encyclopaedia of astronomical and surveying instruments from the time of Galileo,
with a world map in two hemispheres, and 3 volvelles

GALLUCCI, Giovanni Paolo. Della fabrica et uso di diversi stromenti di astronomia, et cosmografia, ove si vede la somma della teorica, et pratica di queste due nobilissime scienze.
Venice, Roberto Meietti, 1598. 4to (22 x 16.5 cm). With engraved title-page, folding woodcut plate, 3 woodcut volvelles with moving parts, and numerous woodcut illustrations in text. Including a world map in two hemispheres (incl. America and a scattering of islands at the location of Australia) on two facing pages, they reappear with volvelle attachments on both sides of leaf 149 and leaf 153. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment. [8], 228 ll. Full description
€ 35,000
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44 books found / Show all