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Science

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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.
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  1. GALILEI, Galileo.

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

    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

  2. PANTHEO, Giovanni Agostino.

    Voarchadumia contra alchimiam: ars distincta ab archimia, et sophia: cum additionibus, proportionibus,...

    Venice, [Giovanni Tacuino], 1530.

    First edition, first issue, of this rare alchemical work, highly unusual for its early use of four-colour printing.

    £18000

  3. GALILEI, Galileo. 

    Dialogo … sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano. 

    Florence, G.B. Landini, 1632. 

    First edition of one of the most famous works in the history of scientific thought, Galileo’s defence of Copernican heliocentrism, which led to his trial and imprisonment for heresy. 

    £160000

  4. BISSON, Louis-Auguste. 

    ‘Wildfire’. 

    Paris, c. 1844. 

    An extraordinary equine portrait, testimony to the improvements made in the daguerreotype process made by Louis-August Bisson which allowed greater spontaneity through shorter exposure times. 

    £14500

  5. [ANDREAE, Johann Valentin.] 

    Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio ... 

    Strasburg, heirs of Lazarus Zetzner, 1619. 

    A rare and influential Renaissance political utopia, in a fine sammelband of four first editions by the Lutheran humanist Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654). 

    £12500

  6. MARKHAM, Gervase.

    Cavalarice, or the English Horseman: Contayning all the Art of Horse-manship, asmuch as is necessary for any...

    London, Edward Allde for Edward White, [1616–] 1617.

    A beautiful copy of the second edition, ‘corrected and augmented’, of Markham’s Cavalarice, exceptionally well-preserved in a contemporary binding, from the library of the antiquary Sir John Marsham.

    £12000

  7. [LOO, Pieter van, (attributed).] 

    156 watercolours of flowers, plants, and fruits. 

    [Holland, c. 1760–80]. 

    A truly stunning collection of over 150 original eighteenth-century botanical watercolours, attributed to the noted Dutch botanical artist Pieter van Loo (1731–1784). 

    £110000

  8. POCOCKE, Richard.

    A Description of the East, and some other Countries.

    London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and P. Knapton, W. Innys, W. Meadows, G. Hawkins, S. Birt, T. Longman, C. Hitch, R. Dodsley,...

    First edition, demy folio issue. The traveller and cleric Pococke (1704-1765), was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and graduated BA in 1725, BCL in 1731, and DCL in 1733. His family’s ecclesiastical connexions and his facility at navigating the complexities of clerical patronage enabled...

    £8000

  9. BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.

    Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de Pièces Académiques, concernant la Médicine, l’Anatomie...

    Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes, F. Fournier, et al., 1754-86.

    The scarce first collected edition of these scientific papers from all over Europe (lacking only the last five volumes of the Partie Française), including among its contributors such famous names as Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, Hevelius, De La Hire, Mariotte, Réaumur, La Condamine, Haller, Maupertuis, Boyle,...

    £6000

  10. 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). There are five treatises: Richardus Anglicus’ Correctorium and Reformierte Alchimei; Lull’s Apertorium et accuratio vegetabilium, and Vom philosophischen Stein, and Geber’s Secretum. The thirteenth-century Richardus Anglicus or Richard of...

    £6000

  11. RUINI, Carlo.

    Anatomia del cavallo, infermità, et suoi rimedii: opera nuova, degna di qualsivoglia prencipe, & cavaliere, & molto...

    Venice, Fioravante Prati, 1618.

    Fourth edition of the first detailed study in veterinary anatomy and an extremely important work in the history of anatomy as a discipline.

    £6000

  12. DONOVAN, Edward. 

    An epitome of the natural history of the insects of China: comprising figures and descriptions of upwards of...

    London, Printed for the Author by T. Bensley, 1798[–99].

    First edition of this splendid work devoted to the insects of China by the great natural historian and artist Edward Donovan (1768–1837), including some of the most beautiful of all his plates. 

    £5750

  13. DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.

    Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...

    Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.

    A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for males and females. ‘The first French work in the actuarial...

    £5500

  14. DESCARTES, René.

    Meditationes de prima philosophia, in quibus Dei existentia, & animae humanae a corpore distinctio, demonstrantur.

    Amsterdam, Blaeu, 1644.

    Remarkable sammelband gathering two important Descartes editions and two notable contemporary responses, by Descartes’ critic Gassendi and his admirer de La Forge; annotated in two early hands: an eloquent witness to seventeenth-century Dutch philosophical debate about certainty of knowledge, mind...

    £5500

  15. BULLEIN, William. 

    [Bulleins Bullwarke of Defe[n]ce against all Sicknes, Sornes, and Woundes, that dooe daily assaulte Mankind...

    [1562.  Imprinted at London: by Jhon Kingston]. 

    First edition, very scarce, of an important work of medical humanism written in prison by William Bullein (c. 1515–1576), this copy imperfect (though with minimal loss to the main text) but heavily annotated in a near-contemporary hand.  Bullein and Sir Thomas Smith were ‘the most...

    £5250

  16. GASPAROLI, Carlo Maria.

    Dialectica sive manuductio ad logicam dictata a R. P. Bar. De Somere. Scripta a me Car. Mar. Gasparoli....

    Antwerp, 1753.

    A handsome manuscript comprising a thorough course in logic and dialectic, executed by a student at the Jesuit college in Antwerp, and illustrated with an extraordinary decorative programme inspired by printed emblems.

    £4750

  17. BUCKNILL, Charles.

    Notes from medical lectures.

    London, February – April 1798.

    A most interesting medical manuscript by one Charles Bucknill recording lectures given in 1798 by the Scottish anatomist Matthew Baillie (1761–1823) and the English obstetrician John Clarke (1758–1815). Bucknill – likely a forebear of the psychiatrist and mental health reformer Sir John...

    £4500

  18. KUNCKEL VON LÖWENSTERN, Johann.

    Collegium physico-chemicum experimentale, Oder Laboratorium Chymicum, In welchem Deutlich und...

    Hamburg and Leipzig, Samuel Heyl, 1716.

    the rare first edition of a famous chemical handbook, the most important work of the leading german chemist of the second half of the seventeenth century. Partington, devoting pp. 361-77 of vol. II to Kunckel, gives ‘a nearly complete bibliographical account with comment’ (Marie Boas Hall in DSB),...

    £4000

  19. 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.

    £3750

  20. VISSCHER, Nicolaes [I].

    Avium vivae et artificiosissimae delineationes.

    Amsterdam, Nicolaus [I] Visscher, 1659.

    First and only edition of this rare set of ornithological prints by the famed cartographer Nicolaes Visscher I.

    £3750