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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.
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  1. 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

  2. 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

  3. RAIMONDI, Eugenio.

    Delle caccie … libri Quattro, aggiuntovi’n questa nuova ’mpressione il quinto libro della villa.

    [Naples, Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1626].

    Second edition, expanded and extended, with a new series of striking venatic plates. The series of plates (attributable to Nicolas Perrey, who signs the title), showing composite scenes of hunters pursuing animals from birds and fish to lions and elephants, is wholly new, replacing the woodcut...

    £2500

  4. FRANZ, Wolfgang.

    Animalium historia sacra, in qua plerorumque animalium praecipuae proprietates in gratiam studiosorum theologiae...

    Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1643.

    First Jansson edition (fifth overall). First published in Wittenberg in 1612, the Animalium historia sacra is the most successful work of the Lutheran theologian Wolfgang Franz (1564 – 1628), providing a careful study of the creatures appearing in the Bible, both real and mythical.

    £75

  5. 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

  6. BARTHOLIN, Thomas, and Caspar BARTHOLIN the younger (editor).

    De unicornu observationes novae. Secunda editione auctiores...

    Amsterdam, Henricus Wetstein, 1678.

    First illustrated edition (second overall) of Bartholin’s scarce treatise. The second of his family in a distinguished line of physicians at the University of Copenhagen, Thomas Bartholin (1616 - 1680) is remembered more for his medical discoveries than for the present work discussing single-horned...

    £1500

  7. [NOBBES, Robert.]

    The compleat Troller, or, the Art of Trolling, with a Description of all the Utensils, Instruments, Tackling,...

    London, T. James for Thomas Helder, 1682.

    First edition of ‘the earliest major work devoted to pike fishing’ (ODNB). Nobbes’s anonymous Compleat Troller is the first English book substantially on ‘trolling’, or angling for deep-freshwater fish, especially pike, with live bait or artificial lures. Though ‘trolling’...

    £1450

  8. [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

  9. 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

  10. SAUNIER, Jean de, and Gaspard de SAUNIER.

    La parfaite connoissance des chevaux, leur anatomie, leurs bonnes & mauvaises...

    The Hague, for the Author and sold by Adrien Moetjens, 1734.

    First edition of Gaspard de Saunier’s most important work, the only one published during his lifetime. Gaspard de Saunier (1663 - 1748) established his reputation with the foundation of his equestrian academy at Leiden in 1707 and as riding master to the university there, having previously served...

    £1950

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. [BERKENHOUT, John].

    Clavis anglica Linguæ botanicæ; or, a botanical Lexicon; in which the Terms of Botany, particularly those...

    London: Printed for the Author. Sold by T. Becket, and A. de Hondt … and Mess. Hawes, Clarke, and Collins … 1764.

    First edition, dedicated to John Hope of the University of Edinburgh, and written with the assistance of Arthur Lee of Virginia, winner of the Hope Medal in 1763.

    £325

  14. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert]. BODDAERT, Pieter.

    Epistola ad virum celeberrimum Johannem Burmannum … De Chaetodonte Argo descripto...

    Amsterdam, apud Cornelium van Tongerlo, 1770

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of this Indo-West Pacific fish species found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet. This is the first monograph on this particular fish species. Boddaert substantially redescribes and for the first time illustrates the species. In his description...

    £675

  15. GARSAULT, François-Alexandre de.

    Le nouveau parfait maréchal, ou la connoissance générale et universelle du cheval, divisé...

    Paris, Moreau for Hochereau, 1770.

    Fourth edition of one of the most popular French horsemanship manuals. First published in 1741 as a successor to Solleysel’s famous Parfait maréchal and reprinted in at least sixteen editions over the following century, Le nouveau parfait maréchal ‘is considered to be the best...

    £650

  16. BODDAERT, Pieter.

    Epistola ad … Hier. Dav. Gaubium … De chaetodonte diacantho, descripto atque accuratissima icone illustrata...

    Amsterdam, apud M. Magerum, 1772.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of the Royal Angelfish found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet. This is the first monograph on the Royal Angelfish (and its first illustration), a now common species of coral fish in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.

    £350

  17. WALCOTT, John.

    The Figures, Description, and History of exotic Animals, comprised under the Classes Amphibia and Pisces of Linnaeus.

    London, W. Justins for the Author, and sold by White & son, Robson & Clarke, and J. Mathews, 1788.

    First and only edition, very rare, published in parts. The engraved figures and their descriptions comprise a variety of turtles, snakes, frogs, and fish, including several notable species from America. Though Walcott writes in his preface of the prospect of ‘a Second Part, which will contain...

    £3500

  18. JUSSIEU, Antoine Laurent de.

    Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita, juxta methodum in horto region parisiensi exaratam,...

    Paris, widow Herissant, and Theophile Barrois, 1789.

    An extensively annotated copy of the first natural classification of flowering plants, derived by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836) from the unpublished work of his uncle, Bernard de Jussieu (1699–1777). Though de Jussieu’s associate Michel Adanson had introduced the concept of natural...

    £350

  19. 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

  20. LINNAEUS, Carl (or von LINNÉ), and James JENKINSON (translator). 

    A generic and specific Description of...

    Ashburner, and Lancaster, A. Ashburner, 1775. 

    First edition of this provincially printed partial translation of Linnaeus’s Genera plantarum.  It precedes both William Withering’s The Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain (1776), the first such work to be based on Linnaean taxonomy,...

    £225