Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair


Hynes Convention Center
November 15-17, 2019


Booth #124


TO ORDER OR INQUIRE
 
10 West 66th Street, Suite 26-B
New York, NY 10023
212.308.0018

Piranesi #14

Travel & Americana (#1-13)
Art, Architecture, Humanities (#14-26)
Science & Medicine (#27-34)


Official Handbook on Silver, Gold and Precious Stones
Metallurgical Assaying, American Bullion
& Spanish Monetary Policy

1. [Americana] / [Economics] / ARFE Y VILLAFAÑE, Juan de . Quilatador, de la plata, oro, y piedras, conforme a las leyes reales, y para declaracion de ellas . Madrid, G. Drouy, 1598. 8vo. With woodcut arms, author portrait, monogram, and device, and with manuscript diagrams of diamonds in margins of the text. Bound in 17th-century mottled calf.
$18,000

This rare handbook by the renowned sculptor-goldsmith-theorist Juan de Arfe y Villafañe (1535-1600) presents the most influential information on the assaying of silver, gold, gemstones and a variety of other commodities published on the Iberian Peninsula during the 16th and 17th centuries. The work is important for our understanding of monetary practices during the ‘Spanish Price Revolution,’ an era of high inflation caused by the large influx of gold and silver transported to Europe by the Spanish treasure fleet from the New World, principally Mexico and Peru.  

A Botanical Voyage to the Caribbean

2.  [Americana] / LEDRU, André Pierre. Reise nach den Inseln Teneriffa, Trinidad, St. Thomas, St. Crux und Porto-Rico… Leipzig, Büschler, 1811-12. 8vo. 2 volumes. Bound in matching contemporary quarter calf and papers over boards.
$2450

Rare first German edition of a travelogue of a voyage made in 1796-98 to the Canary Islands and Caribbean archipelagos by the expedition’s official naturalist. The translation appeared just two years after the French original (Paris, 1810). 

Eliza Haywood in Italian Translation
Indentured Servitude in 18th-Century Delaware
No Copies in America

3. [Americana] / [18th-Century Novel] / [Indentured Servitude] / [Italian Translation] / [HAYWOOD, Eliza] . Memorie d’un giovane nobile sventurato, Che ritorna finalmente da una lunga sciavitù, sofferta nell’America per l’arti pessime d’un crudele suo Zio . Venice, G. Bettinelli, 1745. 12mo. Bound in contemporary cartonnato .
$1850

Very rare first and only edition (no copies recorded in America) of the Italian translation of Eliza Haywood’s (c. 1693-1756) novel based on one of the great causes célèbres of mid-18th-centuy Ireland. Among the most important (and prolific) founders of the novel in English, Haywood wrote her Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman (London, Freeman, 1743) in response to the ongoing case against the Earl of Anglesey, who stood accused of arranging for the kidnapping of his nephew (a rival claimant to his titles and estates) and of having the boy shipped as an indentured servant to Delaware. The novel would later serve as a model for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1886). 

The First English Sea Atlas of America

4. [Americana] / [Atlas]. The English Pilot. [ The Fourth Book .] Describing The West-India Navigation, from Hudson’s Bay to the River Amazones. London, Mount & Davidson, 1794. Folio With 26 engraved maps (21 of which are double-page or folding). Bound in in contemporary sheep.
$25,000

A spectacular copy of the final edition of the English Pilot , The Fourth Book , “the first wholly English sea atlas of American waters” (Verner). The work was sufficiently in demand to justify 37 legitimate editions from 1689 to 1794 and three pirated editions. All editions are rare. During the history of this title its charts underwent numerous changes. The first edition contained only 18 maps whereas this 1794 final edition contains 26. An unusually fine example.

Extensively Illustrated Navigational Manuscript
From 1670s France
Related to Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Reforms
In Maritime Pedagogy

5. [Americana] / [Manuscript] / [Navigation] / [France] . [ De la navigation ]. France [Le Havre?], s.n., [c. 1671]. 4to. With some 200 illustrations, diagrams, charts, and ‘paper instruments,’ 8 of which include volvelles (all intact), 6 of which are folding, and several of which are in color. Bound in contemporary vellum painted brown, red sprinkled edges.
$24,500

Extensively illustrated, visually appealing, unpublished French navigational manuscript dating from the early 1670s, an important early witness to the maritime pedagogical reforms instituted by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83) during his effort to strengthen the French navy, create a favorable balance of trade for the nation, increase France’s colonial holdings, and ensure that the newly founded French East India and West India Companies (1664) had uninterrupted access to foreign markets for coffee, cotton, pepper, sugar, dyewoods, furs, and the like. The manuscript likely relates to the newly founded hydrographical school at Le Havre.

One of the Earliest Illustrated Works on the New World

6. [Americana] / BENZONI , Girolamo . La Historia del Mondo Nuovo... Venice, P. & F. Tini, 1572. 8vo, With author portrait and 18 half-page woodcuts. Bound in contemporary limp vellum.
$18,500

Scarce first complete edition of the second printed work devoted to the customs of the American Indians illustrated from life. This edition is augmented with a section on the Canary Islands and an extra illustration. Benzoni’s is one of the earliest accounts of the European colonial establishment in America by a writer who was not Spanish, and the spirited woodcuts (all but one of which show Native Americans) were among the first to give Europeans images of Indians and their activities.

Marquette, Joliet & La Salle
The Discovery of the Mississippi
The First Map of the Mississippi
The First Naming of Lake Michigan

7. [Americana] / [Marquette & Joliet]. Beschreibung einer Sonderbaren Reise etlicher bisher noch unbekannter Länder und Völker im Mitternächtigen America… [Bound first:] HENNEPIN, Louis. Beschreibung der Landschaft Louisiana, welche auf Befehlt des Königs in Frankreich neulich gegne Sudwesten Neu-Frankreichs in America entdecket worden . Nuremberg, A. Otto, 1689. 12mo. With 2 folding engraved maps. Bound in contemporary stiff vellum, initials ‘F.F.F.P.T.’ and the date ‘1693’ on front cover.
$22,500

Two seminal texts with maps on the exploration of the interior of North America issued together for the first time: Very rare first German edition of Joliet and Marquette’s account of their discovery of the upper Mississippi and its exploration to the Arkansas River in 1673, the first account of this important discovery and accordingly containing the first map to show the Mississippi River and to name Lake Michigan. The account is preceded here by the first German edition of Hennepin’s most important work, which contains the first printed account of La Salle’s travels and discoveries in the upper Mississippi and an important description of the Sioux.

A Son Honoreth His Father”
The Life of Cotton Mather 

8. [Americana] / MATHER, Samuel. The Life of the Very Reverend & Learned Cotton Mather. Boston, S. A. Gerish, 1729. 8vo. Bound in contemporary paneled sheep.
$950

First edition of this classic of American hagiography, the life of the most celebrated and prolific New England pastor, Cotton Mather (1663-1728), written by his son Samuel. 

A Masterpiece of Mexican Mapmaking
The Most Important Early Plan of Mexico City

9. [Americana] / [Mexico City] / [Wall Map] / CONDE, Diego Garcia. Plano General de Mexico levantado por el Teniente Coronel de Dragones Don Diego Garcia Conde en el año de 1793, y grabado en el año de 1807. Mexico City, 1807. 9-sheet engraved wall map, mounted (147.6 x 197.6 cm).
$85,000

Extremely rare, first and only printing in large format of the most important early plan of Mexico City and one of the most ambitious and significant maps of any kind produced in Mexico. The plates for this map were lost; it was later republished in a much smaller format in London in 1811 and again in New York in 1830. An exceptionally handsome example.

Encyclopédie Americano for Armchair Travelers

10. [Americana].   Il Gazzettiere Americano Contenente un Distinto Ragguaglio di Tutte le Parti del Nuovo Mondo... Livorno, M. Coltellini, 1763. 3 vols. With engraved frontispiece, title, and 78 maps and plates. Bound in early vellum.
$4500

First Italian edition of this comprehensive geographical dictionary of the New World. “This translation of the American Gazetteer [3 vols., London, 1762] is practically a new work, having been greatly enlarged, and with 80 plates and maps engraved for this edition” (Borba). The Gazzettiere focuses on the current state of affairs – commerce, the arts, and European political influences – as opposed to the history of discovery. Although it covers all areas of the New World, an English bias is evident in the extensive articles devoted to the New England area, particularly Boston, the “preeminent city of the British Empire in America” (I, 42).

Postal Atlas of China (1919)
With 47 Lithograph Maps

11. [China] / [Atlas] / [JACOT-GUILLARMOD, Charles] . Atlas postal de Chine. Postal Atlas of China. China Postal Album Showing the Postal Establishments and Postal Routes in Each Province. Peking, Directorate General of Posts, 1919. Elephant folio. With 47 lithograph province maps (37 of which are double page). Bound in original publisher’s buckram, title in French, Chinese and English embossed on upper cover.
$7500

Rare 1919 (second) edition of the official Chinese Postal Atlas, an impressive volume considerably expanded from the 1908 edition to include 47 lithograph maps (37 of which are double page) covering all Chinese provinces in great detail. The publication of the album was closely related to the rise of ‘Postal Romanization,’ a system of transliterating Chinese place names developed by the Imperial Post Office of China in the early 1900s. Charles Jacot-Guillarmod (1868-1925), a Swiss topographical engineer, was tasked with compiling the maps from regional working maps provided to him.

Early Indian ‘Gods & Goddesses’ Lithographs
In a Contemporary Binding from Palma de Mallorca

12. [India] / SHAHA, Amar Nath . [ Chore Bagan Art Studio Lithographs ]. Calcutta, Chore Bagan Art Studio, c. 1880s. Folio. 5 full-page lithographs. Half bound in contemporary red silk and red buckram.
$5000

Rare suite of five 19th-century ‘Gods & Goddesses’ lithographs from the Calcutta press of Chore Bagan Art Studio, here remarkably well preserved in a contemporary binding from Palma de Mallorca. The volume is an important witness to how such prints travelled and were collected far from their intended audience on the Indian subcontinent

The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Russia
In the 18th Century
Complete with the Folding Table

13. [Russia] / HEYM, Johann / [GEYM, Ivan Andreevich] . Versuch einer vollständigen geographisch-topographischen Encyklopädie des Russischen Reichs nach alphabetischer ordnung . Göttingen, J. C. Dieterich, 1796. With one folding table. Bound in contemporary half calf and speckled paper over boards.
$2850

Very rare first edition of this encyclopedia of Catherine the Great’s Russia published the year of her death by a German professor at Moscow University intent on advertising the country’s cultural and educational advances. The large folding chart (often missing) is a census of 44 different regions of the Russian Empire, divided into North, South and Central territories and listing over 400 towns and cities with their populations.


Art, Architecture, Humanities (#14-26 )


Piranesi’s Campus Martius
Architecture, Ruin, Utopia, Fantasy, Archaeology
A Fine Example of this Lavishly Illustrated Masterwork

14. [Architecture] / [Urban Planning] / [Archaeology] / [Rome] / PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista. Campus Martius Antiquae Urbis . Rome, Piranesi, 1762. Elephant folio. With 2 etched title pages, 2 large etched headpieces, 2 large etched initials, 2 large etched tailpieces, and 52 etched/engraved coppers on XLVIII consecutively numbered plates (2 folding, 1 double page), including the 6-sheet Ichnographia map (joined). Bound in contemporary calf.
$38,500

First edition – and fine copy – of Piranesi’s incomparable reconstruction Rome’s Campus Martius, a work famed for its archaeological ambition, its graphic inventiveness, and as a sourcebook for the architectural imagination which continues to influence architectural theorists and practitioners today. In the 6-sheet Ichnographia and in the work’s other ideal imaginings of Rome’s ancient urban environment, Piranesi overcomes the limitations of practical architecture, building his visions on paper instead of in stone. The Campus Martius marked the culmination of the friendship between Piranesi and the great Scottish architect Robert Adam (1754-98), the work’s dedicatee.

Deluxe Prospectus
For the Architecture of Rome’s EUR District

15. [Architecture] / [Rome] / [CINI, Vittorio] . Esposizione Universale di Roma MCMXLII .XX. E. F. Rome & Milan, A Cura del Commissariato Generale, 1939. Folio. With 29 illustrations in the text (4 of which are double page, 13 of which are full page, the majority in color). Bound in publisher’s red leather.
$6000

Rare first edition of this deluxe, illustrated atlas folio published in 1939 as an advance prospectus showcasing the architecture of the Esposizione Universale di Roma, the world’s fair planned for 1942 to celebrate twenty years of rule under Benito Mussolini. Because of the outbreak of World War II, the fair was never held, but much of its built environment was later completed and today forms the core of the EUR district of Rome, an important example of mid-century urban planning famed for its Fascist-era architecture.

Barbaro’s First Thoughts on Perspective
The First Architectural Treatise to Use Volvelles & Flaps

16. [Architecture] / VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus . I Dieci Libri dell’Architettura di Vitruvio Tradutti et Commentati da Mons. Barbaro . Venice, F. Marcolini, 1556. Folio. With woodcut title page and 131 woodcuts, with 3 volvelles, 6 extensions and 2 cancels as called for. Bound in 18th-century vellum over boards.
$20,000

Scarce first edition of “the splendid culmination of the Renaissance tradition of Vitruvian studies” (Rosand), containing Barbaro’s first thoughts on perspective and an outline of his future work La practica della perspectiva (1568). This is the only edition to contain the original woodcuts designed by Palladio and cut by Palladio and Salviati: All later editions contain reduced reproductions.

An Early Anatomy Book for Artists
“The Most Beautiful Reproductions
Of Vesalius’ Illustrations Ever to be Made” (Cushing)

17. [Art] / [Anatomy] / TORTEBAT, François / [PILES, Roger de] . Abregé d’anatomie, accomodé aux arts de peinture et sculpture … Paris, Tortebat, 1667 [1668]. Folio. With 12 full-page plates, woodcut tailpieces and initials. Bound in contemporary vellum.
$9850

An attractive example of the rare first edition of one of the earliest and most influential anatomical treatises published expressly for the use of artists, with text by the famed theorist, art historian and connoisseur Roger de Piles (1635-1709) and fine, full-page plates engraved after Vesalius by François Tortebat (c. 1616-1690). “Tortebat’s 12 copperplates designed for artists are by common consent the most beautiful reproductions of Vesalius’ illustrations ever to be made” (Cushing). Some bibliographers call this work the first artist’s anatomy ever to have been published (Choulant).

The Earliest Illustrated Sales Catalogue
Marketing Classical Sculpture
For Public or Private Collections
With 56 Full-Page Engravings
No Copies in America

18. [Art] / [ROST, Carl Christian Heinrich.] Magazin der Rostischen Kunsthandlung zu Leipzig. Erste Abtheilung. Leipzig, s.n., [1796]. 4to. With engraving on title page. [Bound with:] Magazin der Rostischen Kunsthandlung zu Leipzig. Zweite Abtheilung. Abgüsse antiker und moderner Statuen, Figuren, Büsten, Basreliefs über die besten Originale geformt in der Rostischen Kunsthandlung. Leipzig, s.n., 1794. With engraved title, 56 full-page engravings, with engraving on title page to catalogue text. [And with:] Magazin der Rostischen Kunsthandlung zu Leipzig. Dritte Abtheilung. Musicalien der Rostischen Kunsthandlung zu Leipzig. Leipzig, s.n., [1796]. With engraving on title page. Bound in contemporary pasteboards.
$11,000

Set of 3 very rare 18th-century sales catalogues – unrecorded in American libraries – from the emporium of the Leipzig art dealer C. C. H. Rost (d. 1798), including his richly illustrated inventory of plaster casts made after the “best original” statues from Greco-Roman antiquity, among which are actual size reproductions of such famed pieces as the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön, and the Venus de’ Medici. An indispensable document for understanding the wider influence of such casts on burgeoning German Neoclassicism and on the development of early art museums.

Faces in the News
The Invention of Popular Portraiture
In Late Renaissance Italy
Suite of 58 Engraved Portraits
Of Contemporary Figures, Some Bizarre

19. [Art] / [Portraiture] /[Engraving] / [Etching] / [VACCARI, Andrea] / [ORLANDI, Giovanni] . Effiggie naturali de i maggior prencipi et piu valorosi capitani di questa eta con l’arme loro . Rome, A. Vaccharius, 1599 [c. 1609-10]. 4to. With engraved title and 58 engraved portraits. Bound in 18 th -century calf. With bookplate of John Rushout, 2nd Baron Northwick (1770-1859).
$7500

Very rare suite of 58 16th- and early 17th-century engraved portraits of contemporary Western European, Eastern European and Ottoman sovereigns, princes, military figures, and other (sometimes quite bizarre) personages, both male and female, produced in Rome by the publishers Giovanni Orlandi and Andrea Vaccari. The engravings are an important witness to the expansion of the genre of portraiture to appeal to and capitalize on a burgeoning public interest in famous individuals in the news at the time, effectively putting faces to names of figures who were being widely discussed in popular journalistic reports.

The Apostles of Wierix, De Vos, & Francken

20. [Art] / WIERIX, Antonius II / DE VOS, Maarten / FRANCKEN, Ambrosius . The Apostles (with Christ and Saint Paul ). Amsterdam, Claes Jansz. Visscher, c. 1600 (?). 14 numbered engravings. Bound in marbled paper.
$2450

Rare suite of prints depicting the 12 Apostles , designed by Ambrosius Francken and engraved by Antonius Wierix, including 2 additional images of Christ and Paul by Maarten de Vos. Each Apostle print contains a phrase in all capitals taken from the Apostles’ Creed, which can be read continually and in its entirety by moving from the first Apostle (Peter) through the last (Matthew). The progressive reading of this ‘strip’ adds a traditional devotional function to these pictorially innovative engravings.

No American Copy
Re-Using Copperplates Engraved 200 Years Earlier

21. [Art] / VANHOREN, P. / VOS, Maarten de / COLLAERT, Joannis . Leven en daeden van den H. Joannes den Dooper, met korte Zedelessen . Sint Truiden [Belgium], J. B. Smits, 1801. With engraved title and 21 engraved plates. Bound in contemporary marbled wrappers.
$950

Extremely rare work unusual for its re-use of copperplates originally engraved more than 200 years earlier. The 21 engravings here first appeared in 1590 in an (equally rare) Antwerp suite on the Life of John the Baptist by Maarten de Vos and engraved by Jan Collaert. Printed in a tiny village in the province of Limburg, the present volume is an interesting witness to the long afterlife of plates outside of publishing dynasties (e.g., De Rossi in Rome) and institutional context (i.e., at the Calcografia Romana). 

First German Life of Catherine of Siena
With Woodcuts by Dürer’s Pupil Schäufelein

22. [Art] / [Women] / [RAIMUNDUS DE CAPUA] / [SCHÄUFELEIN, Hans] . Hystori und wunderbarlich legend Katharine von Senis … Augsburg, Otmar & Rynman, 1515. 4to. Quarter bound in contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards.
$18,500

Very rare first German-language edition of Raymond of Capua’s (c. 1330-99) Life of St. Catherine of Siena (1337-80), finely illustrated with 49 woodcuts by Hans Schäufelein (c. 1480-1540), one of Albrecht Dürer’s most gifted pupils and a key inheritor of the master’s innovative graphic style.

Plato’s Timaeus in Italian, First Edition

23. [Classics] / PLATO. Il dialogo di Platone intitolato Timeo, overo della natura del mondo. Tradotto di lingua greca in italiana da M. Sebastiano Erizzo… Venice, Comin da Trino, 1557. 4to. Bound in 17th-century stiff vellum.
$2850

Rare first Italian edition of this Platonic dialogue. The Timaeus is noted for its extended treatment of the nature of physical matter and cosmology and was a favorite among Renaissance readers for its myth of the Atlantis, which influenced other Renaissance utopias. The 1550’s or thereabouts saw the first Italian translation of the most popular Platonic dialogues, whether directly from Greek (as here) or via Ficino’s Latin translation

First Edition (12mo) of Rousseau’s Émile

24. [Education] / ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques . Émile ou de l’Éducation … Amsterdam, J. Néaulme [i.e., Paris, Duchesne], 1762. 4 volumes in 12mo. With 5 engravings. Bound in contemporary mottled calf.
$2800

First edition (12mo) of Rousseau’s classic treatise on education, illustrated with 5 full-page engravings. Émile was banned in Paris and Geneva and publicly burned in 1762, the year of its first publication. During the French Revolution it served as the inspiration for what became a new national system of education.

Christianopolis
“The First Account of an Explicitly Protestant Utopia”

25. [Utopia] / [ANDREAE, Johann Valentin.]   Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio ... Strasburg, Heirs of L. Zetzner, 1619. 12mo. With a folding engraved plate depicting Christianopolis. [Bound with:] Herculis Christiani luctae XXIV. Strasburg, Zetzner, 1615. [And:] Turris Babel sive Judiciorum de Fraternitate Rosaceae Crucis Chaos. Strasburg, Zetzner, 1619. [And:] Civis Christianus, sive Peregrini quondam errantis restitutiones.  Strasburg, Zetzner, 1619. Bound in contemporary vellum.
$14,500

Fine Sammelband of four scarce first editions of works by the Renaissance theologian, Lutheran reformer, and self-proclaimed founding Rosicrucian Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), including his celebrated Reipublicae Christianopolitanae , a Protestant vision of the Christian Utopia. The volume includes a folding engraved plate, often missing, depicting two views of the perfect city: a bird’s-eye view of its walls, courtyards, and central tower, together with an aerial blueprint of its symmetrical architectural layout.

First Spanish Translation
Life of Maria Ana of Portugal

26. [Women] / [Jesuits] / [Americana] / RITTER, Joseph & GUERRA, José (trans.). Vida, y Virtudes de la Serenissima Señora Da. Maria Ana, Reyna de Portugal … Madrid, A. Marin, 1757. 8vo. With engraved portrait of Maria Ana. Bound in contemporary calf.
$950

Rare first edition of this Spanish translation of the life of Queen Maria Ana of Portugal. For a period of eight years during her husband’s illness, Maria Ana controlled one of the most powerful European empires of the 18th century, and, according to Ritter, took a special interest in missionary activities in the her most distant domains. Produced under the patronage of Maria Ana’s daughter, Queen Barbara, the present translation brings for the first time to a vernacular audience the life of this formidable femme forte .


Science & Medicine (#27-34)


A ‘Golden Triplet’ of Alchemical Texts
Including the ‘Twelve Keys’ Emblematized

27. [Alchemy] / MAIER, Michael. Tripus Aureus, hoc est, Tres Tractatus Chymici Selectissimi ... Frankfurt, P. Jacob for L. Jennis, 1618. 4to. With engraved vignette, portrait, and 2 full-page, 15 half-page, and 2 quarter-page engravings. Bound in patterned paper over boards.
$15,000

Scare first edition of two key alchemical texts and the first illustrated edition of a third, all edited by the leading Alchemist and Magus at the Court of Rudolphine Prague, Michael Maier. The collection consists of first editions of Thomas Norton’s Ordinall of Alchemy , the first edition of John Cremer’s Testament , and both are preceded by the first illustrated edition of Basil Valentine’s Twelve Keys .

From Peking To Prague
The Chinese Astronomy of François Noël
With A Large Folding Star Chart
Of the Southern Hemisphere

28. [Astronomy] / [China] / NOËL, François . Observationes Mathematicae, et Physicae in India et in China... Prague, J. Kamenicky, 1710. 4to. With full-page engraved Chinese Calendar, numerous woodcut diagrams and tables with woodcut Chinese letters, a full-page engraved plate of astronomical observations, and a folding engraved star chart. Bound in contemporary calf.
$28,500

Rare first and sole edition of one of the few works published in Europe to record detailed, first-person observations made at Jesuit astronomical observatories in China in the 17th century, and one of the first works to convey information on Chinese observational data and astronomical traditions to a Western audience. The volume contains a large folding celestial chart of the southern skies incorporating observations Noël made at the Jesuit Colleges at Rachol in Goa, Macao, and Bahia in Brazil.

Astronomical Textbook for the University of Paris
An Early Volume from the Press of Henri Estienne
With 24 Woodcuts

29. [Astronomy] / SACROBOSCO, Johannes de / LEFÈVRE D’ÉTAPLES, Jacques / BONETUS DE LATIS / EUCLID.   Textus de Sphaera … cum additione (quantum necessarium est) adiecta . Paris, H. Estienne, 1511. 4to. With 24 woodcut diagrams. Bound in later speckled paper over boards, old vellum spine.
$6850

Rare 1511 second Estienne edition (first 1507) of Sacrobosco’s (1195-1256) Sphaer a, “the most used textbook in astronomy and cosmography from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth century” (Thorndike). Printed expressly for the use of students at the University of Paris, Estienne’s Sphaera is illustrated with numerous fine woodcuts and supplemented with a commentary by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1455-1536) and with a related treatise by the contemporary Jewish scholar Bonetus de Latis (fl. 1490s-1510s), as well as geometrical extracts from the first four books of Euclid’s Elements

Early Computational Handbook
On Algorism

30. [MATH] / HUSWIRT, Johannes . Enchiridion novus Algorismi… Cologne, H. Quentell, 1504. 8vo. Bound in early pasteboards.
$18,500

Rare 1504 second edition (first in 1501) of this very early computational handbook, one of the earliest books on the Arabic system of numerals printed in Germany, containing the rules of the numerical operations and including the first commercial computing rules. The scarcity of early editions of this text is perhaps due to its heavy use as a calculation manual. The Greek ‘enchiridion’ means ‘that which stays in the hand,’ and indeed the book might even be considered an early form of portable calculator.

The First Copper-Engraved Anatomical Illustrations
Bound with among the Earliest ‘Modern’
Anatomical Illustrations in Woodcut

31. [Medicine] / VESALIUS, Andreas & GRÉVIN, Jacques . Les Portraicts anatomiques de toutes les parties du corps humain … Paris, Wechel, 1569. Folio. With full-page 40 engraved plates. [Bound with:] ESTIENNE, Charles & RIVIÈRE, Estienne de la . La Dissection des parties du corps humain … Paris, S. de Colines, 1546. With 64 full-page woodcuts. Bound in early, possibly contemporary, reversed calf.
$75,000

A handsome volume of the two most important anatomical works of the French Renaissance, both in their first French editions. Together these two spectacularly illustrated works present the pinnacle of 16th-century anatomical illustration, the Estienne in woodcut (Estienne) and the Vesalius in copperplate engraving.

Rare Popular French Materia Medica

32. [Medicine] / [Plague] / GOEUROT, Jean. Le sommaire et entretenement de Vie, Tressingulier de toute Medecine & cirurgie…item ung regime singulier contra la peste… item le traitre du regime de sante compose recentement par Maistre Pierre de Tuxiganes . Paris, [Pierre Sergent, 1537]. 8vo. Bound in crushed morocco signed Capé.
$6000

Extremely rare early edition (first, 1530) of this collection of vernacular materia medica with recipes. Printed in a small, popular format in French gothic for a general public, this is a rare survival of a pocket self-help guide for those who could not afford professional care in early modern Europe. Goeurot’s importance in English medicine is evident from the numerous English translations his work enjoyed throughout the 16th century. 

“The First Work on Ophthalmology” (Garrison & Morton)

33. [Medicine] / [Ophthalmology] / GUILLEMEAU, Jacques . Traité des maladies de l’oeil, qui sont en nombre de cent treize… Lyon, P. Rigaud, 1610. 8vo. Bound in 19th-century calf à l’antique .
$3850

Rare second edition of “decidedly the best of the Renaissance books on ophthalmology” (Garrison). Guillemeau was a leading authority on ophthalmology, obstetrics, and pediatrics, and his works were widely read across Germany and the low countries, but it was in England that he had the most impact: the Traité was the basis for the earliest general book on the eye in English, Bannister’s One Hundred and Thirteen Diseases of the Eyes and Eyelids (1622).

Curious Crustaceans
Early Work on Lobsters,
Crabs, Shrimp, and Crayfish
With Discussion of Specimens
From the Author’s Wunderkammer

34. [Zoology] / [Crustaceans] / [Cabinets of Curiosity] / SACHS, Philipp Jacob. Gammarologia [in Greek] , sive, Gammarorum, vulgo Cancrorum… Frankfurt & Leipzig, Esaiae Fellgibelii, 1665. 8vo. With an engraved folding frontispiece and 10 full-page engravings. Bound in contemporary vellum.
$975

Scarce first edition of an early illustrated study on gammarids, or what today would generally be termed crustaceans, i.e., marine, river and terrestrial lobsters, crabs, crayfish, shrimps, and krill. This comprehensive treatise – here in a fine copy preserved a contemporary vellum binding – was written by Philipp Jakob Sachs von Loewenheim (1627-72), who discusses curious analogs from his personal “museum” and even depicts a child born with lobster claw feet (split-foot malformation).

TO ORDER  OR  INQUIRE:

Martayan Lan Rare Books
10 West 66th Street, Suite 26-B
New York, NY 10023

Tel: 212 308 0018