Science

Contact Andrea Mazzocchi

Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.
  1. ADAMS, John Couch.

    The scientific Papers … edited by William Grylls Adams … with a Memoir by J.W.L. Glaisher.

    Cambridge, University Press, 1896 [– 1900].

    First edition of the posthumously published collected papers of the Cambridge mathematician and astronomer, John Couch Adams (1819–1892). ‘In retrospect Adams’ many mathematical and astronomical achievements pale in comparison to his analysis of the orbit of Uranus and his prediction of...

    £175

  2. ANDREWS, Mark E.

    The Science and Engineering of Water: An illustrated catalogue of books and manuscripts on Italian hydraulics,...

    Toronto, A.E. Publications, 2022.

    A lavishly illustrated catalogue, tracing the development of science and engineering through the early modern period. Some 367 printed books, manuscripts, and maps are presented in chronological order, highlighting the relationship between the evolution of ideas and the authors who documented...

    £85

  3. ANDREWS, Mark E.

    The Science and Engineering of Materials: A Theatre of Machine Books, 1472–1800.

    Toronto, AE Publications, 2023.

    An extraordinary survey of four centuries of machine books, tracing the evolution of printing techniques and draughtsmanship alongside the development of the machines themselves. In this catalogue of eighty-six works from his collection of books on civil engineering, Mark Andrews situates a series...

    £85

  4. BESSEMER, Henry.

    Autograph letter, signed, to the editor of The Engineer.

    165 Denmark Hill, Surrey, 5 May 1896.

    The steelmaker Sir Henry Bessemer (1813–1898) presents his compliments to ‘the Editor of the Engineer’ and regrets that, owing to ‘a painful accident to his leg’, he is unable to call personally in order to deliver an enclosed letter (not present). ‘A copy has also been simultaneously forwarded...

    £200

  5. BONET, Nicolas.

    Habes Nicholai Bonetti viri p[er]spicacissimi quattuor volumina: Metaphysicam videl[icet] naturale[m] phylosophia[m]...

    Venice, Boneto Locatello for the heirs of Ottaviano Scoto, 1505.

    First collected edition of the works of the French Franciscan Friar Nicolas Bonet (c. 1280–1343), owned and annotated by the Italian historian, biographer, and physician Paolo Giovio (1486–1552).

    £4000

  6. BOTTO, Giuseppe Domenico.

    Observations microscopiques sur les mouvements des globules végétaux suspendus dans un menstrue.

    [Turin], Imprimerie Royale, [1840].

    An extremely rare offprint from the Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino on Brownian Movement and a contribution to the ‘heated controversy with the best known botanists of the world [started by the] discovery that made [Amici] famous ... that of the fertilization of phanerogams, particularly...

    £675

  7. CARON, Jean-Charles-Félix.

    Compendium institutionum philosophiae, in quo de rhetorica et philosophia, tractatur. Ad usum candidatorum...

    Paris, N. M. Tilliard, 1770.

    Very uncommon guide, by the Parisian surgeon Jean-Charles-Félix Caron, to the philosophy student in the University of Paris needs to know in order to graduate first as bachelor and then as master of arts in the university. The work is essentially a kind of bluffer’s guide: “there are people who,...

    £750

  8. CATANEO, Girolamo. 

    De arte bellica, sive de designandis ac construendis arcibus et propugnaculis, necnon et de iis oppugnandis,...

    Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1600.

    First Latin edition, scarce on the market, of this handsomely illustrated military classic, first published in Italian at Brescia in 1564.  Edited and published by Jean de Tournes, this edition is dedicated to Henry IV of France.  The military architect Cataneo (active 1540–1584) was considered,...

    £1850

  9. CREVE, Carl Caspar. 

    Vom Metallreize, einem neuentdeckten untrüglichen Prüfungsmittel des wahren Todes.  Mit einer Kupfertafel. 

    Leipzig and Gera, Wilhelm Heinsius, 1796.

    First edition of this uncommon contribution to the medical literature in which Creve proposes a new method of ascertaining death using a metal conductor attached to muscle tissue, part of the body of research that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

    £550

  10. FINÉ, Oronce. 

    Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da...

    Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587. 

    First Italian edition of the works of Finé.  Among the most influential scientific scholars of the sixteenth century, over three decades at the Collège Royale Oronce Finé (1494–1555) made considerable contributions to various branches of mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic to astronomy...

    £2750

  11. GALILEI, Galileo.

    Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze attenenti alla mecanica & i movimenti locali...

    Leiden, Elzevier, 1638.

    First edition of the first modern textbook of physics and the foundation of the science of mechanics; a very important copy, owned and annotated by Pierre Varignon, intimate friend of Newton, Leibniz, and the Bernoullis.

    £195000

  12. [GUARINI, Giambattista Lascaris].

    Ragionamenti filosofici.

    Rome, Gioacchino Puccinelli, 1785[-6].

    Only edition, very uncommon, of this collection of 33 essays on scientific and philosophical subjects, published with the aspiration to provide a complete course of physics and philosophy. The work is divided into four parts. The first deals with materialism and idealism, the physical attributes of bodies,...

    £875

  13. HEADRICK, Rev.

    James. View of the Mineralogy, Agriculture, Manufactures and Fisheries of the Island of Arran. With Notices of Antiquities,...

    Edinburgh: Printed by D. Willison, for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh, and John Murray, 32. Fleet-Street, London. 1807.

    First edition. The eccentric clergyman and geologist James Headrick (1759-1841) pursued a lifelong interest in the natural sciences and for a time found employment with Sir John Sinclair, probably working on The Statistical Account of Scotland. He was disappointed in repeated attempts to secure an academic...

    £250

  14. HUMBLOT, F.

    Journal de voyage ...

    France, June-September 1866.

    A handsome manuscript on mining engineering, apparently unpublished, recording visits undertaken by the engineer F. Humblot to coal mines and iron works in eastern and southern France in 1866, containing well over one hundred beautifully executed technical drawings.

    £3500

  15. HUTTEAU, Jean Baptiste Louis Philippe.

    Trattato dei contratti per le condotte di terra e di acqua reso conforme al codice civile...

    Milan, Francesco Sonzogno, 1806.

    A lovely copy of this rare Italian translation of a treatise by the French lawyer Jean Baptiste Hutteau (1765–1855) on the laws relating to the transport of goods, whether by road or by water, in the light of the new Napoleonic Code civil. The work describes the ways in which goods should be handed...

    £225

  16. MAPLET, John, and W.H. DAVIES (editor).

    A greene Forest, or a naturall Historie, wherein may bee seene first the...

    London, Hesperides Press, 1930.

    Limited edition, numbered 31 of fifty copies on Millbourne pure rag hand-made paper, signed by Davies.

    £75

  17. MARZAGLIA, Gaetano.

    Fascetto di pratiche matematiche spiegate alle persone popolari per uso del comercio umano, e civile, in questa...

    Verona, Dionisio Ramanzini, 1780.

    A lovely copy of the second edition, considerably augmented from the first of 1754, of this book of applied mathematical problems by the Veronese mathematician Gaetano Marzaglia (or Marcegaglia, 1716–1787), heavily influenced by the work of Wolff, who provides the motto to the book, and whose works...

    £650

  18. MEITNER, Lise, and Otto R. FRISCH. 

    On the Products of the Fission of Uranium and Thorium under Neutron Bombardment. 

    Copenhagen, Ejnar Munksgaard, 1939. 

    First edition of this highly important paper, published in Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.  Mathematisk-Fysiske Meddelelser, vol. 17, no. 5. 

    £850

  19. MORTON, John.

    The natural History of Northampton-Shire, with some Account of the Antiquities, to which is annex’d a Transcript...

    London, R. Knaplock and R. Wilkin, 1712.

    First edition of Morton’s systematic natural history of Northamptonshire. Compiled over the course of a decade, Morton’s Natural History provides a careful account of the natural history, minerals, fossils, and geography of the county, accompanied by fourteen large copper-engravings....

    £775

  20. NEWTON, Isaac.

    Opuscula Mathematica, philosophica et philologica. Collegit partimque Latine vertit ac recensuit Joh. Castillioneus...

    Lausanne and Geneva, Bousquet & soc., 1744.

    First edition of Newton’s collected works, a major tool in the dissemination of Newton’s science and a major publication in the history of science.  The edition, edited and introduced by the Pisa alumnus Giovanni Salvemini da Castiglione, contains twenty-six works (which, while having appeared...

    £3500