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.-
ARCHIMEDES, BOETHIUS, and CAMPANO da Novara; Luca GAURICO, editor.
Tetragonismus id est circuli quadratura per Campanum...
Venice, [Giacomo Penzio for] Giovanni Battista Sessa, 28 August 1503.
The first appearance in print of any complete work by Archimedes, ‘generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians the world has ever known’ (PMM), including one of the earliest approximations of the value of pi.
£18000
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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
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PONTANO, Giovanni.
De rebus coelestibus.
Naples, ‘ex officina Sigismundi Mayr Germani : summo ingenio artificis Ioannetto Salodio : Antonio Vuerengrundt : Evangelista Papiensi :...
First editions of three works on cosmology, ethics, and astrology by the Neapolitan humanist, poet, and polymath Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), an important sammelband from the celebrated library of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), professor of natural philosophy and natural history at the University...
£11000
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ANSELMI, Giorgio, the younger.
Georgii Anselmi nepotis Epigrammaton libri septem. Sosthyrides. Peplum Palladis. Aeglogae...
Venice, Maffeo Pasini, September 1528.
The definitive edition of the epigrams of Giorgio Anselmi, grandson of the astrologer and music theorist of the same name, with several epigrams on his grandfather’s lost works on magic and the occult.
£875
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EUCLID.
Στοιχειων βιβλ. ιε εκ των θεωνος συνουσιων. Εις του αυτου του πρωτον,...
Basel, Johannes Herwagen, September 1533.
Editio princeps of Euclid, the ‘oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today’ (PMM), a work which ‘has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible’ (DSB).
£18000
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ESTIENNE, Charles.
De re vestiaria libellus, ex Bayfio excerptus: addita vulgaris linguae interpretatione, in adulesce[n]tuloru[m]...
Paris, Robert Estienne, 1536.
A wonderful sammelband of four children’s books compiled and published by the Estiennes, covering Roman dress and vases as well as plants and trees, bound with Antonio Telesio’s celebrated treatise on colours.
£2250
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ORIBASIUS.
Commentaria in Aphorismos Hippocratis … Ioannis Guinterij Andernaciis medici industria velut e profundissimis tenebris...
Paris, Simon de Colines, 1533.
First edition of this commentary on Hippocrates, bound with a richly annotated copy of Galen’s works in the translation by Thomas Linacre.
£1750
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ARCHIMEDES.
Τα μεχρι νυν σωζομενα, απαντα … Opera, quae quidem extant, omnia, multis iam seculis desiderata...
Basel, Johannes Herwagen, [(colophon): March] 1544.
Editio princeps of the works of Archimedes, ‘the greatest mathematician and engineer of antiquity’ (PMM). Prior to this edition only a small tract in Latin translation, published in 1503, and a partial translation by Tartaglia, published in 1543, had appeared.
£45000
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TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.
Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546.]
First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations.
£6750
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BLANCHON, Jacques.
Iacobi Blanchoni Ucessiensis adversus Ludovicum Beneventanum abbatem Selestensem defensionum liber.
Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1550.
First edition of a very rare work of sixteenth-century Lyonnese Neoplatonism, an elegantly printed de Tournes edition.
£950
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[GALEN.] STEPHANUS.
Stephani Atheniensis philosophi explanationes in Galeni priorem librum therapeuticum ad Glauconem, Augustino...
Venice, Giunta, November 1554.
First edition of Agostino Gadaldini’s Latin translation of Galen’s medical treatise Ad Glauconem and of Stephanus’ commentary upon it, enhanced with his own scholia.
£950
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LANDI, Bassiano.
De origine et causa pestis Patauinae, anni MDLV ...
Venice, apud Balthassarem Constantinum (colophon: ‘Ioan. Gryphius excudebat’), 1555.
First edition of this important work investigating the causes of the plague which struck Padua in 1555, by the eminent, and controversial, professor of medicine Bassiano Landi (d. 1562). In his De origine Landi argues against the then popular belief that the plague had been caused by putrid...
£1250
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PADOVANI, Giovanni.
Opus de compositione et usu multiformium horologiorum solarium pro diversis mundi regionibus, idque ubique...
Venice, Francesco de Franceschi, 1570.
Scarce first edition of Padovani’s treatise on sundials, providing illustrated instruction on the use of various horizontal and vertical sundials and on calculating latitude, this copy owned and annotated by the author’s friend and collaborator Johannes Andrea de Muscis.
£2500
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[SACROBOSCO, Johannes de.]
CLAVIUS, Christophorus. In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius, nunc iterum ab ipso Auctore...
Rome, Francesco Zanetti for Domenico Basa, 1581.
Third edition, the first to contain Clavius’s condemnation of Copernicus, with ten highly detailed woodcut diagrams of solar and lunar eclipses not included in the first edition.
£2500
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RICHARDUS ANGLICUS.
Correctorium alchymiae ... Das is reformierte Alchimy, oder Alchimeibesserung, und Straffung der Alchimistischen...
Strasbourg, Bernard Jobin, 1581.
First edition of ‘a very rare collection’ (Duveen) of five alchemical treatises, comprising Richardus Anglicus’ Correctorium and Reformierte Alchimei, Lull’s Apertorium et accuratio vegetabilium and Vom philosophischen Stein, and Geber’s Secretum.
£4500
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MERCURIALE, Girolamo.
De arte gymnastica libri sex, in quibus exercitationum omnium vetustarum genera, loca, modi, facultates,...
Venice, [Lucantonio II] Giunta, 1587.
Third edition of ‘the first illustrated book on gymnastics’ (Morton). A physician occupying senior posts in the medical faculties of Padua, Bologna, Rome, and Pisa, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) draws heavily on accounts of ancient exercise to argue for its medical benefits, being the...
£2750
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MANFREDI, Girolamo, and Pedro de RIBAS, translator.
Libro llamado El porque provechosissimo para la conservacion...
Alcalá de Henares, Juan Iñiguez de Lequerica, 1587 [(colophon:) Hernan Ramirez, 1589].
Extremely rare, early Alcalá-printed edition of Pedro de Ribas’s Spanish translation of Manfredi’s popular Liber de Homine, a regimen sanitatis in question-and-answer form, in part censored by the translator.
£1250
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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
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PORTA, Giambattista della.
De humana physiognomonia … libri IIII; qui ab extimis, quae in hominum corporibus conspiciuntur signis,...
Hanau, Wilhelm Antonius for [Frankfurt,] Peter Fischer, 1593.
The second Latin edition and the first to be published in Germany of this richly illustrated work on physiognomy by the Italian polymath Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), a beautiful copy in strictly contemporary German white calf.
£2500
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[ARISTOTLE.]
Disputations on Aristotle’s Organon.
Milan, 1600-1601.
An interesting manuscript comprising disputations on the first four works of Aristotle’s Organon, covering logical analysis and dialectic, compiled by a Milanese student at the turn of the seventeenth century.
£1250