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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. 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

  2. TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana. 

    Quesiti, et inventioni diverse. 

    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

  3. 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

  4. GALILEI, Galileo, and Carlo MANOLESSI (editor). 

    Opere. 

    Bologna, heirs Dozza, [1655–] 1656. 

    A substantial volume of Galileo’s works, comprising most of the first volume of the first collected edition, edited by Carlo Manolessi.  The edition contained nineteen separate treatises, each with its own title, in two volumes, but is rarely found complete; present here are all but two of...

    £2500

  5. [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

  6. BOSE, Johann Andreas.

    Io. Andr. Bosii introductio generalis in notitiam rerumpublicarum orbis universi. Accedunt eiusdem dissertationes...

    Jenae, Johann Bielke, 1676.

    First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624-1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’ marshalls...

    £1500

  7. KOCH, Manfred (pr.), Primo SCHLECHTEN and Feliciano SCHARRER (resp.).

    Philosophia rationalis sive logica centum assertionibus comprehensa...

    Augsburg, Afra Sturmin, 1695.

    A good copy of this rare dissertation from the Augustinian college at Rottenbuch in Bavaria, attempting to reduce logic (the science of reasoning) to one hundred numbered paragraphs. Describing the function and limits of logic, the authors, both Austin canons at Rottenbuch, explain the use of syllogisms,...

    £275

  8. KRUMP, Epiphanius.

    Analysis syllogistica seu theses Scoto-logicae de syllogismo in communi, ac resolutione eiusdem in ea, ex quibus...

    Ingolstadt, Thomas Grass, 1695.

    Very rare thesis on the syllogism, by the Scotist Franciscan philosopher and theologian Epiphanius Krump, with students including Massaeus Kresslinger (1672-1742), who went on to publish a number of works on canon law and moral theology. Here, Krump discusses predicates, the basic rules of syllogisms,...

    £175

  9. [ROYAL PRUSSIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES.] 

    Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, ex scriptis societati regiae scientiarum...

    Berlin, Johann Christoph Papen, 1723. 

    First continuation of Leibniz’s Miscellanea berolinensia.  First appearing in 1710, the publication of the Miscellanea was revived in 1723 as the official journal of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences after the death of Leibniz, its founding President.  The Continuatio comprises...

    £575

  10. WELLS, Edward.

    The young Gentleman’s Astronomy, Chronology, and Dialling, containing such Elements of the said Arts or Sciences,...

    London, James & John Knapton, 1725.

    Third edition of Wells’s successful mathematical handbook.

    £350

  11. FISHER, George.

    The instructor: or, young man’s best companion … to which is added the family’s best companion.

    London, for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch et al. [not before 1735].

    Second edition (the first appeared in 1727). ‘Volumes entitled “The Young Man’s companion” exist in many versions and go back to the 1680s when William Mather produced the first of them. They are compendiums of useful information, intended for self-improvement. They concentrate on English, Mathematics,...

    £350

  12. MARTIN, Benjamin.

    The Young Student’s Memorial Book, or pocket Library.

    London: Printed for J. Noon … 1736.

    First and only edition. A self-taught schoolmaster in Chichester, Benjamin Martin (1705-1782) ‘began to write, with the avowed intention of bringing down the price of books, especially for the benefit of those who were trying to educate themselves as he had done’ (Oxford DNB). ‘One of the great...

    £650

  13. [MABBUT, George].

    Sir Isaac Newton’s tables for renewing and purchasing the leases of cathedral-churches and colleges, according...

    London, printed for Thomas Astley, 1742

    Sixth edition, first published in 1686, this issue was sometimes also published with a separate title page and imprint reading, ‘The money’d man’s pocket-book’, London, 1742’ immediately preceding the title-page of the second part. A series of tables calculating the amounts owed on leases based...

    £125

  14. 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 men and women.

    £3000

  15. 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

  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. SACCHI, Giovenale. 

    Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze.  Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...

    Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761. 

    First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics. 

    £850

  18. 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

  19. FENNING, Daniel.

    The Ready Reckoner; or Trader’s most useful Assistant, in buying and selling all sorts of Commodities either...

    London: Printed for S. Crowder … and B. C. Collins … in Salisbury. 1785.

    First edition thus, edited by the mathematician and almanac-maker Joseph Moon of Salisbury.

    £250

  20. HURRY, Thomas.

    Tables of interest, from one pound to five hundred millions, for one day; by which the interest for any sum of money...

    [Yarmouth], Printed for the author, and sold by Messrs. Robinson, London; and Downes and March, Yarmouth, 1786.

    One of two editions published in 1786, the other one undated, ESTC does not give any precedence. Tables for calculating interest at a quarter, half, three-quarters, three, four, and five percent; intended as a quick reference for bankers and merchants. Hurry precedes his tables with four pages of example...

    £150