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Science & Technology / Optics & Perspective

If all the gunpowder in the world were put in a globe of glass or paper
and set on fire all at once, what would happen?

MYDORGE, Claude. Examen du livre des recreations mathematiques.
Rouen, Charles Osmont, 1643, 8vo. With numerous woodcut illustrations illustrating the problems. Contemporary limp vellum. [1], [1 blank], [5], [1 blank], [7], [1 blank], 280, 63, [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [2], 67-106, [43], [1 blank] pp. Full description
€ 1,400
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Of one of the most influential seventeenth-century treatises on perspective

NICERON, Jean-François. La perspective curieuse du reverend P. Niceron. Minime divisee en quatre livres. Loptique et la catoptrique du R. P. Mersenne du meseme ordre, mise en lumiere aprés la mort de lautheur. Oeuvre tres-utile aux peintres, architects, sculpteurs graveurs, & à tous autres qui se meslent du dessein.
Paris, Jean du Puis, 1663.
Including: MERSENNE, Marin. L'optique et la catoptrique du reverend Pere Mersenne minime. Novvellement mise en lumiere, aprés lar mort de lautheur. Paris, the widow of F. Langlois, 1651.
2 works in 1 volume. Folio. With a (partially) folded full page engraved portrait of the author as a frontispiece, an engraved title-page, a large woodcut vignette on the title-page, 50 full page engraved plates (including 1 folding), all numbered in a decorative banner in the plate.Contemporary or near contemporary (late 17th or early 18th century) brown calf. [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [8], 191, [1]; [1], [1 blank], [10], 134, [2 blank] pp. Full description
€ 3,950
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Extensively illustrated manuscript course of practical geometry with more than 350 figures, including perspective, projections, architecture, cartography & sundials

[MANUSCRIPT]. PRÉVOST, M. Cours de géométrie pratique professé par M. Prevost et suivi par C.F. Frenet. Comprenant 1o. La géométrie élémentaire avec ses applications au toisé, au cubage, géodésie, etc. 2o. La géométrie descriptive avec ses applications à la perspective, à la coupe des pierres etc.
[Lyon?, ca. 1825?]. Oblong folio (35 x 45 cm). With a flourished calligraphic title-page signed "[Charles] Esclozas scripsit", and 140 leaves with more than 350 figures in black ink and sometimes pencil, red ink or coloured washes (blue, yellow, red, green and grey), illustrating plain and solid geometry, projections, perspective, architecture, bridges, cartography, globes, sundials, etc., and with text and illustrations in black thick-thin borders. Contemporary green half morocco, spine richly gold-tooled. [1], [1 blank], [97], [1 blank] pp. plus 140 illustration ll. partly numbered in 13 series. Full description
€ 25,000
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Influential book on optics by a noted protégé and collegue of Peter Ramus,
based on the work of Ibn al-Haytham (AlHazen)

RISNER, Friedrich. Opticae libri quatuor ex voto Petri Rami novissimo Fridericum Risnerum per ejusdem in mathematicis adjutorem olim conscripti, ...
Kassel, Wilhelm Wessel (sold by Johann Berner in Frankfurt), 1615. 4to. With numerous optical, astronomical and mathematical woodcut diagrams in text, woodcut headpieces, tailpieces and initials, and headpieces built up from cast fleurons. 18th-century tan calf, gold-tooled double fillets, re-backed in sheepskin. [20], 259, [1 blank] pp. Full description
€ 19,500
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First edition of an Italian work on physics in the wake of Galileo's trial

ROSSETTI, Donato. Antignome fisico-matematiche con il nuovo orbe, e sistema terrestre.
Livorno, Giovanni Vincenzo Bonfigli, 1667. 4to. With 66 woodcut diagrams and other illustrations in text. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment, with 2 fastenings made from loops of braided cord on the front cover but only traces of thongs on the back. XII, 179, [1] pp. Full description
€ 7,500
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Lavishly illustrated course in the art of baroque architectural drawing and ornamental design

SCHÜBLER, Johann Jakob. Grondige en duydelyke onderwyzing der volkomen kolommen-ordening, zoo als men dezelve in de heedendaagse-boukunst, gewoon is te gebruyken. ...
Including: Het tweede deel van het Grondig onderwys ..., waar in voorgestelt word zes nieuwe geinventeerde portaalen met sierlyke balkons op vrystaande kolommen; ...
Amsterdam, Petrus II Schenk, 1728. 2 volumes bound as 1. Folio (33.5 x 20.5 cm).. With 2 title-pages, each with the same large engraved illustration of an Amsterdam patrician's residence, 2 engraved architectural frontispieces, and 34 illustration plates (I-XVII, I-XVII), al engraved after the author's drawings, mostly by Renz and Montalegre (the second frontispiece by Johann Christoph Weigel). Modern maroon half calf. [6], 16; [4], 22 pp. plus frontispieces and plates. Full description
€ 2,500
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Robert Smith's influential theories on light and optics together in the first edition of an illustrated textbook for university students

[SMITH, Robert and others]. The elementary parts of Dr. Smith's compleat system of opticks, selected and arranged for the use of students at the universities: to which are added in the form of notes some explanatory propositions from other authors.
Cambridge, printed by J. Archdeacon, 1778. Large 4to (27 x 20.5 cm). With 17 numbered, folding engraved plates. Contemporary gold-tooled brown sprinkled calf, gold-tooled red morocco spine label, gold-tooled board edges. VI, [9], [1 blank], 119, [1 blank] pp. Full description
€ 6,000
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An early mention of Australia and a window into early 17th-century Spanish daily life

SUAREZ DE FIGUEROA, Christobal (Thomaso GARZONI). Plaza universal de todas ciencias, y artes, parte traduzida de Toscano, y parte compuesta por el doctor Christoval Suearez de Figueroa.
Perpignan, Luis Roure, 1630 (colophon: 1629). 4to. With title printed in woodcut border with large woodcut coat of arms; interesting woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces. Contemporary mottled calf. [8], 379, [1 blank] ll. Full description
€ 6,500
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Rare, richly illustrated 17th-century guide to chiromancy: the practice of fortune-telling through the study of the palm (palm reading)

[TAISNIER, Jean (?)]. La science curieuse, ou traité de la chyromance, récueilly des plus graves autheurs que ont traité de cette matiere, & plus exactement recherché qu'il n'a esté cy-devant par aucun autre.
Paris, Francois Clousier, 1665. 4to (21.5 x 16.5 cm). Illustrated with 90 engraved plates (9 showing 1 full-page hand each, 1 table and 80 showing 16 smaller hands each, with the relevant lines for reading palms). With 1 woodcut decorated initial, and several woodcut head- and tailpieces. Contemporary mottled calf, sewn on 5 supports, gold-tooled board edges, gold-tooled spine with the title lettered in gold. [1], [1 blank], [6], 212 pp. Full description
€ 2,950
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