Dont la Vente commencera le 4 Mars 1756. vi, 63 pp. 8vo, cont. vellum over boards, single gilt fillet round sides, flat spine gilt, gilt wheat sheaves in five of the compartments, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Paris: G. Martin & P.G. Simon, 1756.

[bound with]:

(SIREJACOB, J.A.J.). Catalogue d’une très-belle Collection d’Estampes, de Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Teniers, Callot & autres fameux Maîtres Italiens, François & Flamands. Assemblées depuis longues Années, & Délaissées par Monsieur J.A.J. Sirejacob, Ecuyer. Qui se Vendront…a Bruxelles, Lundi le 27. Août 1764. & jours suivans… 1 p.l., 76 pp. 8vo. Brussels: H.V. Lemincks, [1764]... More

Engraved frontis.; eight engraved vignettes and head- & tailpieces, 19 finely engraved plates (most folding) & some engravings in the text. 18 p.l., 254, [36] pp. of index & errata. Thick 8vo (160 x 105 mm.), late 18th-cent. marbled boards (extremities a little rubbed & worn). Dresden: [C. G. Nitzsche], 1765.

An important German edition of Bosse’s Traité des manières de graver en Taille douce (1st ed., in French: 1645), considerably augmented for the German audience. This work was translated and published by Carl Gottlieb Nitzsche from the 1745 Cochin edition. The Cochin edition was the first to promote etching... More

Single purple paper sheet (298 x 209 mm.), mounted on beige paper, collaged yellow pieces of paper with ms. text., signed. [Amsterdam]: 1977.

Manuscript collage language work by Mexican artist Ulises Carrión. He contributed a version of the piece to the magazine Kontexts, it appears in issue 5 (1974).

Near fine; adhesive in corners bleeding through. Signed in the lower left corner: “Ulises Carrión, ‘77.” From the collection of Guy Schraenen (1941-2018). With thanks to Rich Dana, Sackner Archive Project Coordinator Librarian at the University of Iowa Special Collections, who confirmed the appearance of this work in Kontexts issue... More

One folding engraved plate. [6] pp. Small 4to, attractive modern marbled boards, leather lettering-piece on spine. Augsburg: D. Francken, 1610.

First edition and very rare. Faulhaber (1580-1635), a teacher of mathematics at Ulm and a friend of Kepler, made his most lasting accomplishments in the dissemination and explanation of the logarithmic method of calculation.

This is Faulhaber’s second book and caused him considerable problems with the city’s municipal council, as it was published without the permission of the office responsible for supervision of the schools. This book describes a surveying instrument invented by Daniel Speckle in the Netherlands. The fine... More

Engraved title, engraved portrait of the author, one folding engraved plate, 27 engravings of the Moon, & 26 woodcuts of planets. [3] leaves, 151 pp., [2] leaves of index. Small 4to, antique vellum, recased. Naples: Gaffaro, 1646.

First edition of a great and important treatise on astronomy and optics. Using his newly invented telescope, Fontana (ca. 1585-1656) made groundbreaking observations of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars, and published them one year before Hevelius’ Selenographia. The author’s portrait is the only confirmed portrait of Fontana that we are aware of.

The book features the earliest known detailed image of... More

Woodcut Medicean arms on title. 36 pp. Small 4to, attractive antique calf (final five leaves a little stained & with some minor marginal paper repairs), spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Florence: C. Giunti, 1605.

First edition of this rare and important book on the new star of October 1604; it plays a significant role in the first great controversy of Galileo’s scientific career in which he turned his back on the whole philosophical approach to science and sought reliable information and secure knowledge about the physical world through observations and calculations. The controversy which arose from the... More

Engraved frontis. port. of Harris, 14 engraved plates (some folding, one with a short tear without loss) & numerous woodcut illus. in the text. Title in red & black. [463] leaves; [386] leaves. Two vols. Folio, cont. panelled calf (extremities a little worn, some browning as is usual with this book), red morocco lettering pieces on spines (Vol. I label recent & sympathetically done). London: 1704-10.

First edition of the first technical encyclopedia in any language and a landmark in the history of technology. “This was the first general scientific encyclopedia, and for it Harris drew upon some of the... More

Illus. in the text. xiv, [2], 1020 cols.; 1 p.l., [1029]-1802 cols., [1] p., one leaf of errata. Two vols. 8vo, fine cont. speckled polished sheep, spines gilt, contrasting leather lettering pieces on spines. Frankfurt am Main: A. Hermann the Younger, 1802.

First edition of this great and influential music dictionary. Koch’s “Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition (1782-93) and Musikalisches Lexikon (1802)…are the most comprehensive works of their kind in the Classic era…the Lexikon, a dictionary of musical terms, is a valuable source of information on theory and aesthetics, much of it is drawn from the Versuch, and Koch frequently... More

Finely engraved title-pages, engraved dedication leaf to Louis XV, engraved head- & tail-pieces, & many engravings in the text. Vol. I: two engraved plates & Vol. II: 63 engraved plates. 5 p.l., 468, [2] pp.; 2 p.l., xii, [4], 132 (i.e. 135 leaves incl. 47*, 86*, & 107*); 2 leaves. Two vols. Folio, cont. red morocco, triple gilt fillet round sides, spines richly gilt, a.e.g. Paris: 1750.

First edition and a magnificent large set bound in contemporary red morocco; this is a presentation copy from Baron Holbach, inscribed on the free front-endpaper: “This Book I receiv’d from the Baron D’Holbach... More

A total of 26 engravings: frontis. port., ten engraved plates pasted on (four folding, two with the extended portion of the plates replaced in excellent facsimile), four engraved illus. in the text, two engraved plates (one folding), & 9 further engravings following A3. 3 p.l., 1-6 leaves, [leaf 7, which contains four engraved images marked A-D, as in early issues, has been cut up & the images have been pasted on the blank versos of A8, B1, B2, & B3], [8]-10 numbered leaves, 11-24, 24-29, 29-49, 48-78 (all sequences with frequent mispaginations), [4], 1-5, [28], 16 pp. Small 8vo, orig... More

22 finely hand-colored full-page woodcuts. 35; 39, 30 folding leaves. Three vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers (some marginal worming in Vol. III), orig. block printed title label on each upper cover, new stitching. Tokyo: 1872.

First edition in Japanese of this collection of translations from a variety of Western ophthalmological texts. NLM suggests the author was Paul Silex (1858-1929), but this is clearly impossible. The present work is the earliest work published in Japan on Western techniques in ophthalmology, preceding the Ika zensho ganka-hen of 1879 (see Mestler, A Galaxy of Old Japanese Medical Books, IV, p. 336.

The attractive plates... More

One folding engraved plate. Title within ornamental type border. 2 p.l., 12 pp. Small 4to, attractive antique calf (minor worming at head), spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Nuremberg: P. Fürsten, n.d. [but about 1660].

First published in 1597, this is a description of the author’s newly invented quadrant — depicted on the plate — which could be used by engineers for surveying. It was an extremely successful text with at least five later editions. Ritter (1579-died after 1640), a native of Nuremberg, was an astronomer and innovative cartographer, famous for his “sundial” world map. He had studied... More