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. AELIANUS, Claudius, Conrad GESSNER (translator), and Pierre GILLES (editor).

    Περι ζωων ιδιοτητος...

    Cologny, Philippe Albert, 1616.

    Uncommon Geneva edition of Aelianus’s De animalium natura, the Greek printed in parallel with Gessner’s Latin translation. A third-century work on natural history, Aelianus’s text offers accounts and anecdotes of animals, ‘an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal...

    £300

  3. ALLEN, John.

    Principles of modern Riding for Gentlemen, in which the late Improvements of the Manege and military Systems are applied...

    London, C. & C. Whittingham for Thomas Tegg, Glasgow, for R. Griffin & Co., and Dublin, for J. Cumming, 1825.

    First and only edition of an uncommon riding manual. A riding master teaching near Bryanstone Square, John Allen ‘flatters himself that, at a time when riding has become so fashionable an exercise, his work will more than any preceding one ensure the security, ease, and grace of the rider, both...

    £350

  4. [ANATOMY.]

    ‘Breve compendio anatomico’.

    [Italy, c. 1720.]

    A handsome set of apparently unpublished notes on orthopaedics by an anonymous medical student, compiled in Italy in the early eighteenth century, covering bones, cartilage, ligaments and muscles. The manuscript opens with a detailed analysis of the human skeleton, its bones and articulation,...

    £1750

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. [ANON.]

    The Gentleman’s compleat Jockey, with the perfect Horse-Man and experienc’d Farrier, containing: I. the Nature of Horses,...

    London, Peter Parker, 1711.

    Fifth edition, very scarce, of an anonymous early farriery manual. Among the first popular guides to farriery, a form which would be much copied throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Gentleman’s compleat Jockey (formerly attributed to Adolphus Speed) was first published...

    £1750

  8. [ANON].

    Elogio del corno. Dell‘ autore della felice produzione italiana intitolata Della Necessità ed Utilità dei Debiti.

    Venice, Stamperia Graziosi, 1796.

    Only edition, as far as we can tell unrecorded, of this anonymously published poem in praise of the horn. Although ostensibly a chaste work extolling the virtues of the instrument, there is enough to suggest that the poet may have been thinking along less musical lines; the horn, we are repeatedly told,...

    £275

  9. 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

  10. [APPERLEY, Charles James.] ‘NIMROD’, and Henry ALKEN (illustrator).

    The Chace, the Turf, and the Road.

    London, A. Spottiswoode for John Murray, 1837.

    First edition of a series of articles first published in the Quarterly Review, illustrated by Henry Alken. A sporting writer who ‘may even be said to have created the role of gentleman hunting correspondent’ (ODNB), Charles James Apperley (1778–1843) published widely on hunting and...

    £350

  11. [ARISTOTLE – ELIAS.]

    Biblioteca Armeno-Georgica. I. Commentarii in Aristotelis Categorias Eliae commentatori adscripti versio...

    St Petersburg, Academiae Imperialis Scientarum, 1911.

    Uncommon edition, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, of the Armenian translation of the commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories by the sixth-century Christian philosopher and commentator Elias.

    £250

  12. ARM’S OF TILLY (The).

    The Virtues and Effects, of the Remedy, named Medicamentum gratia probatum, id ist: the Remedy approved...

    [Colophon:] Printe [sic] by John Enschedé, Printer of the City of Haarlem in Holland, [c. 1764–73].

    Unrecorded printing of an advertising broadside for Haarlem Oil, a panacea containing ingredients such as sulphur and terebinth oil which is still sold today as a dietary supplement. The oil was first marketed in 1696 by Claes Tilly, a Haarlem schoolmaster, who was succeeded by his step grandchild...

    £1500

  13. ARNALDUS DE VILLANOVA. 

    Computus ecclesiasticus et astronomicus ... noviter impressum. 

    Venice, Bernardino Vitali, 17 February 1501. 

    Rare first edition, the Erwin Tomash copy, with numerous early marginalia showing a close analysis by a near-contemporary reader. 

    £4500

  14. [ARNAULD, Antoine, and Pierre NICOLE.]

    La logique ou l’art de penser, contenant, outre les regles communes, plusieurs observations...

    Paris, Jean Guignart, Charles Savreaux, and Jean de Launay, 1662.

    Scarce first edition of the work known as the Port Royal Logic. The authors were leaders of the Port Royal movement, and the book displays the distinctive tone of earnest piety for which the movement became famous. La Logique was the most famous logic text of the seventeenth century and set the form...

    £1750

  15. ASTRUC, Jean. 

    Tractatus de motus fermentativi causa novam et mechanicam hypothesim conteniens, authore Joanne Astruc artium liberalium...

    Montpellier, Honoratus Pech, 1702. 

    A dissertation on fermentation published by the physician Jean Astruc (1684–1766), aged eighteen; he later taught anatomy at Toulouse and the Collège Royal in Paris, and served as consultant to Louis XV and as chief physician of August II of Poland. 

    £500

  16. AUGIER DU FOT, Anne Amable.

    Catechismo d’ostetricia per istruzione delle mammane di campagna composto per odine e a spese del...

    Venice, Stamperia Graziosi, 1787.

    Uncommon first Italian edition of this handbook of obstetrics, initially published in France at the behest of Turgot in 1775 and distributed gratis to French midwives.

    £550

  17. BACON, Francis. 

    Francisci Baconi, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, operum moralium et civilium tomus … cura...

    London, Edward Griffin [and John Haviland] for Richard Whitaker [and John Norton], 1638. 

    First edition, first issue, a copy from the celebrated Albani library: tangible witness to the early and fecund reception of Bacon’s thought in the circles of Galilean science in Italy. 

    £3500

  18. [BALLANTINE, E.]

    Natural History of Quadrupeds, for Children, combined with an Attempt to engraft on the youthful Mind the Principles...

    London, Harvey & Darton, 1824.

    A scarce work, second edition, the first edition to be attributed to ‘a lady’. An attractive natural history for children, the work was first published in 1813 ‘by the Author of The Decoy’, an educational work on English grammar; this second edition is the first to credit ‘a lady’...

    £400

  19. BALLARIN, Vincenzo. 

    Dimostrazione sintetica della quadratura del circolo di Don Vincenzo Ballarin, piovano di S. Pietro della...

    Venice, Fracasso, 1828. 

    First and only edition of this confident but mistaken attempt at squaring the circle – drawing a square with the same area as a given circle using a compass and straightedge – later proven to be impossible. 

    £900

  20. BARBIERI, Lodovico.

    Trattato di psicologia nel quale si ragiona della natura dell’anime umane, e degli altri spiriti, della loro...

    Venice, Pietro Valvasense, 1756.

    First edition of the polymath Barbieri’s treatise in which he argues that the soul is an ‘active power’. Barbieri’s text tackles the interrelation of the body and soul, the nature of space, will and freedom, argues for the superiority of the spiritual over the corporeal and against the...

    £350