Four folding engraved plates. xxxviii, [2], 184 pp. 4to, cont. mottled calf, spine gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Paris: David l’aîné, 1749.

First edition of one of Alembert’s most important books. “During the late 1740’s, d’Alembert, Clairaut, and Euler were all working on the famous three-body problem, with varying success. D’Alembert’s interest in celestial mechanics thus led him, in 1749, to publish a masterly work, the Recherches sur la Précession des Equinoxes…The precession of the equinoxes, a problem previously attacked by Clairaut, was very difficult. D’Alembert’s method was similar to Clairaut’s but he employed more terms in his... More

80 pp. 8vo (216 x 135 mm.), early 20th-cent. cloth-backed marbled boards & orig. printed wrappers mounted on stubs, gilt title on spine. Paris: Bonnefons Delavialle, Ch. Paillet; London: Treuttel & Wurtz, Jarman; Amsterdam: Dufour & De la Chaux; Brussels: Danot; Berlin: Logier & Simon Schropp; Vienna: Schabacher, [1826].

A fascinating and rare auction catalogue of an extensive and influential collection of Asian artifacts belonging to a “F. Sallé,” with many contemporary pencil annotations in the margins. We have been unable to ascertain his first name, but Sallé appears in numerous early 19th-century Parisian auction catalogues as the commissaire-priseur.

This... More

Numerous fine woodcut initials, diagrams, tables, & maps in the text. Woodcut printer’s device at end. 14 p.l., 18 leaves, [6] leaves, 30, xxxi-cxxvi leaves, 4 leaves. Folio, cont. Flemish blindstamped calf binding over wooden boards (rather well rebacked, a few unimportant stains), rolls of medallion heads & foliage forming a double panel, orig. clasps and catches, metal corner guards. Cologne: J. Prael for P. Quentel, 1537.

[bound after]:

ANSELM, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. In Omnes Pauli Apostili Epistolas enarrationes. Title within fine woodcut border by Anton Woensam of Worms. Some fine large woodcut initials. 8 p.l., 531 pp. Folio. Cologne... More

Numerous charts, diagrams, facsimiles, maps, ports., & tables. 15 vols. in 14. Large 4to, orig. blue printed stiff wrappers bound in cont. red morocco & marbled boards, spines nicely gilt, t.e.g., others uncut. Copenhagen: Libraria Gyldendaliana, 1913-29.

This is a particularly handsome and well-bound set of the magnificent and rare definitive edition of the collected works of Tycho Brahe. It is limited to 225 sets (of which only one hundred sets were for sale) and is printed on fine thick paper. Edited by the great scholar Dreyer, who wrote the standard biography of Brahe, this edition contains all of Brahe’s... More

147 woodcut diagrams in the text. 6 p.l., 196 leaves. Small folio (272 x 190 mm.), cont. Parisian binding of light brown calf (very skillful restorations to the binding), panelled in blind with gilt fleurons in the corners, gilt floral tool in the center of each cover of a hand holding flowers, small gilt stars in the six compartments of spine. Nuremberg: J. Petreius, 1543.

First edition, and a very fine and crisp copy, of “the earliest of the three books of science that most clarified the relationship of man and his universe (along with Newton’s Principia and Darwin’s Origin... More

Finely engraved added title & numerous woodcut diagrams & printed tables in the text. Printed title in red & black. 9 p.l. (incl. engraved title), 323, 184 pp. Two parts in one vol. Large 4to, cont. vellum over boards, covers nicely decorated with coats-of-arms in gilt & silver (now oxidized) on each cover, a.e.g., ties gone. Hamburg: Frobenius, 1634.

First edition of this handsome and rare work on trigonometry by a student of Tycho Brahe. Frobenius (1566-1645), after studying in Tübingen and Wittenberg, went in 1591 to the island of Hven where he intended to live and study with Tycho... More

Woodcut device of the Medicean stars on title & two woodcut diagrams in the text. 2 p.l., 54 pp., one blank leaf. Small 4to, late 19th-cent. green diced morocco, arms of the House of Visconti in gilt within a richly decorated border, spine richly gilt, a.e.g. Florence: P. Cecconcelli, 1619.

First edition and a very fine copy. Although published under the name of his pupil and assistant Mario Guiducci (1585-1646), the present book is actually the work of Galileo (the autograph manuscript survives). It is a concealed reply to the attack of the Jesuit Orazio Grassi’s De Tribus Cometis, published... 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

Two full-page & eight double-page illus. in the text. 77; 39; 32; 46 folding leaves. Seven parts bound in four vols. 8vo, orig. blue patterned wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (several labels defective), new stitching. Osaka: Nisshindo, 1688.

First edition of this uncommon work on traditional Japanese festivals, holidays, and rituals throughout the year. This book established the style of saijiki, which are richly detailed chronicles of the year’s events, imbued with Chinese elements including Confucianism.

Chiken Kaibara (1664-1700), and his uncle, the famous doctor Ekiken Kaibara (1630-1714), arranged this work by each season, describing all the... More

Engraved vignette on title & 47 folding engraved plates. Title printed in red & black. 2 p.l., [1]-636, [10] pp. Large 4to, cont. Dutch vellum over boards, panelled in blind with a blind arabesque in center of each cover. Leiden: J. & H. Verbeek, 1725.

First Latin edition of Keill’s lectures on physics and astronomy delivered at Oxford University; each was first separately published in 1702 (physics) and 1718 (astronomy). The 1702 Introductio ad veram Physicam was “probably the first textbook of Newtonian physics ever to appear.”–Gjertsen, The Newton Handbook, p. 284–(giving the date as 1701).

Keill (1671-1721), a student... More

Finely engraved frontis. port. of the author & eight folding engraved plates. Five vols. 8vo, fine cont. mottled calf (a few minor defects), flat spines gilt, red morocco lettering pieces on spines. Paris: Maradan, 1797.

Second edition, corrected, and enlarged. This edition expands the sections on mineralogy and petrology from two volumes to four. First published in 1795, this is the author’s chief work, which enjoyed considerable popularity among his contemporaries; it was founded for the most part on Werner’s teachings. “Taking a broad cosmogonical view of creation, Lamétherie regarded the major features of the earth as the result of... More