{"title":"Science \u0026 Technology","description":"\u003cp\u003eScientific discovery, advances, and technological development.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"reisch-gregorius","title":"REISCH, Gregorius","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Gallucci s translation of Gregorius Reich s celebrated and beautifully illustrated encyclopedia with additional material in this edition by Gallucci and including the revisions by the mathematician Oronce Fine from 1535, and some of the additions of the 1512 Strasbourg edition, such as Martin Waldseemüller's treatises on architecture and perspective, and Masha'allah's composition of the astrolabe. The Margarita philosophica (the Philosophic pearl) is a beautifully illustrated encyclopedia which was widely used as a university textbook in the early sixteenth century, particularly in Germany; it takes the form of a dialogue between master and pupil - the pupil asks elementary questions and the master answers them in depth. It gives us an intriguing insight into the university curriculum and state of learning and scientific knowledge at the start of the C16th and here in a much revised form in the late C16th. Its author, Gregor Reisch (c.1467-1525), a Carthusian monk and a friend of many of the most celebrated Humanists of his era including, Erasmus, Beatus and Rheananus, was prior of the Charterhouse of St John the Baptist near Freiburg-im-Breisgau from 1503 to 1525 and was confessor and counsellor to the Emperor Maximilian I. He was educated at the University of Freiburg where he received the degree of magister in 1489 and also taught there. The Margarita was conceived as a textbook for his students at Freiburg, among whom were many influential figures of the German Renaissance, notably the theologian Johann Eck. Reisch's text is divided into twelve chapters. The traditional subjects of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy) each have a chapter devoted to them. Four of the five remaining chapters are concerned with natural philosophy and cover such things as the elements, meteorology, alchemy, the plant and animal kingdoms, optics and memory as well as heaven, hell and purgatory. The final chapter concerns moral philosophy. The additions in this edition are added at the end, a further 300 odd pages, each supplementing a chapter of the main work. The usefulness of the book as an educational tool is much enhanced by a detailed index and the liberal use of marvelous woodcut illustrations. There are two issues of this edition, with apparently no priority, one with Barezzi's imprint, and another with Somascho's which is more common institutionally. A very good copy of this wonderful and beautifully illustrated educational encyclopedia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REISCH, Gregorius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816068096335,"sku":"L1138","price":7250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1138-1.jpg?v=1781795327"},{"product_id":"briggs-henry","title":"BRIGGS, Henry","description":"\u003cp\u003e1st edn. of the first complete set of trigonometrical tables, \"containing the natural sines, tangents and secants to the one hundredth part of a degree and to 15 places, which have never been superseded by any subsequent calculations\". The work arose out of discussions between Briggs, professor of geometry at Gresham College, and the great Scots mathematician John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, who in 1614 had published his 'Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio'. Napier agreed to suggestions by Briggs for adapting his invention more readily to the construction of tables, and the result, entailing prodigious labour, was Briggs's 'Arithmetica Logarithmica' (1624) and the present work. It is clear that the scale of logarithms now in use, in which 1 is the logarithm of the ratio 10 to 1; 2 that of 100 to 1, etc., is due to Briggs, and that Napier's role consisted simply in advising him to commence at 1 and make the logarithms increase, rather than decrease, with the natural numbers. Briggs is certainly the originator of the principle of logarithms having 10 for their base. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n On his death in 1630 the 'Trigonometria' was still unfinished, but was completed by his friend Henry Gellibrand, professor of astronomy at the same college, who added a preface explaining the application of logarithms to plane and spherical trigonometry. They also proved highly useful in the advance of systematic geography and navigation, and among the pioneers in this field who benefited from Briggs's friendship and special knowledge were Samuel Purchas, Capt. Luke Fox and Edward Wright. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n \"He [Briggs] was a man of the first importance in the intellectual history of his age  He published many books on arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry, as well as tables for navigation . But, significant though Briggs was as a mathematician in his own right, his greatest importance was as a contact and public relations man\". He was at the center of a group that included William Gilbert, Edward Wright, Thomas Blundeville, Aaron Rathborne, Mark Ridley, Robert Hues, Hackluyt, and John Pell amongst many. \"Briggs seems to have been the first person to appreciate the significance of Napier's invention of logarithms  and from his interview with Napier onwards Briggs used all Gresham College's resources to popularise this discovery  It has recently been claimed that in calculating his logarithms Briggs used results equivalent to the Binomial Expansion, whose discovery is normally attributed to Newton.\" ..\"Gellibrand (1597-1637) another friend and prot ég é of Brigg's, completed his master's work on logarithmic trigonometry tables: wrote on navigation; and demonstrated the secular variation of magnetic declination. His work was known to Mersenne. \" C. Hill. Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy with excellent provenance; Lord Arundell of Wardour (1606- 1694) commanded gallantly for Charles I in the civil war, was employed by Charles II in arranging the negotiations for the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV, was imprisoned for five years in the Tower during the Titus Oates hysteria, appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal under James II and remarkably died in his bed at the age of 88.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRIGGS, Henry","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816077599055,"sku":"L1000","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1000-Briggs-3.jpg?v=1781795323"},{"product_id":"danti-egnatio","title":"DANTI, Egnatio","description":"First edition of Egnatio Danti s translation of Proclus   Sfera  and his companion treatise on the use of the sphere, and second edition of Piccolomini s treatise on the proportions respectively of water and dry land of the Earth. According to Graesse there was a 1540 edition of the latter, but from Ziletti s dedication a Venetian senator, it is clear that the book was first published in 1558. Houzeau \u0026amp; Lancaster lists a  very rare  1571 first edition of Danti s translation and treatise, but it is probably confusing the latter with Danti s commentary upon the translation of Sacrobosco s  Tractatus de Spaera  made by his grandfather Pier Vincenzo Rainaldi (called  Dante  after the author of the  Divine Comedy ) and first published in 1571. Egnatio Danti (1536-86), referred to as  Cosmographer of the Grand Duke of Tuscany  on these title-pages, was an outstanding scientist who taught at Pisa and Bologna, drew maps for Cosimo de  Medici, designed a number of astronomical instruments (two of which were set up in Santa Maria Novella, Florence), brought about the reformation of the Gregorian calendar after having detected a 11-day error, wrote the first book to be published in Italy on the astrolabe (1569), and was appointed Papal Cosmographer and Mathematician by Gregory XIII (1580). His translation of Proclus   Sfera , dedicated to Isabella de  Medici, opens with a two-page life of Proclus and contains long and detailed annotations, often flanked by diagrams, for each of the fifteen chapters of the book. It ends with a five-page essay on how to study the stars without using scientific instruments. Proclus (412-485), illustrious Neo-Platonic philosopher from Constantinople, was also a fine astronomer who expounded the division of the celestial sphere with modern accuracy. Danti s treatise on the use of the sphere is divided into thirty short chapters dealing with, i.a., how to make a sphere, determine the various positions of the sun and stars and the corresponding times of day and night, and study the Zodiac.\r The proportions of water and dry land was a much debated topic of the time. Like Aristotle, Leonardo was convinced that the quantity of water exceeded that of the land, and that a great quantity of water was collected in caverns underneath the surface of the Earth. Piccolomini was one of the first scientists to maintain the opposite. In his fifteen-chapter essay he provides detailed explanations of why, from the antiquity, the amount of water on the Earth had been thought to exceed that of the land, followed by the exposition of his own revolutionary theory. Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1578), a typical Renaissance polymath, wrote poems along with scientific, philosophical and legal works. An important scientific collection in a very attractive contemporary Spanish binding - a charming example of 'encuadernaci√≥n plateresca', most widespread in university town in the C16. Both the Danti and the Piccolomini are also of interest as early Americana.","brand":"DANTI, Egnatio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816078287183,"sku":"L48","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L48-8.jpg?v=1781795322"},{"product_id":"meursius-johannes","title":"MEURSIUS, Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this neo-pythagorian treatise on numbers by the renowned classicist Johannes Meursius in a lovely contemporary armorial binding from the extraordinary collection of Jacques Auguste de Thou. De Thou (1553-1617), scholar and historian, the greatest French book collector of his day, of whom it was long said that a man had not seen Paris who had not seen the library of de Thou. He of course died before 1631, but his son frequently added to his father s collection and continued to use the final form of his father s arms on the bindings of his acquisitions. Johanne Meurius (Van Meurs) was a Dutch classical scholar and antiquary. In 1610 he was appointed professor of Greek and history at Leiden, and in the following year historiographer to the States-General of the Netherlands. As a result of the upheavals caused by the eighty years war he accepted the offer, in 1625, of Christian IV of Denmark to become professor of history and politics at Soro, in Zealand, combined with the office of historiographer royal, in which role he produced a Latin history of Denmark (1630 38), Historia Danica. This rare and unusual neo-pythagorian work is a short treatise on the significance of numbers.  Photius, in his Bibliotheca, has preserved to us part of a valuable work, written by Nicomachus the Pythagorean, entitled Theological Arithmetic; in which he ascribes particular epithets, and the names of various divinities to numbers, as far as to ten. There is likewise a curious work of the same title, by an anonymous writer, which is extant only in manuscript. From these two, and from occasional passages respecting numbers according to Pythagoras, found in the Platonic writers, Meursius has composed a book, which he calls Denarius Pythagoricus; and which is an invaluable treatise to such as are studious of the ancient philosophy.  Thomas Taylor.  The hymns of Orpheus.  George J Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover, (1797-1833) was a British politician and man of letters. He was elected a Fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society in 1816. In 1824 Agar-Ellis was the leading promoter of the grant of ¬£57,000 for the purchase of John Angerstein s collection of pictures, which formed the foundation of the National Gallery. A very good copy with most distinguished provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MEURSIUS, Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816083628367,"sku":"L1529","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.30.22PM.png?v=1782581507"},{"product_id":"valerianus-joannes-pierius","title":"VALERIANUS, Joannes Pierius","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe first book printed by Blado in his signature Italic (its one or two predecessors were in old fashioned Gothic) and the first edition of this uncommon cosmographical\/astrological text. Valerianus (1477-1558) from a poor noble family studied at Venice under Valla and Lascarius before being taken up by Pope Leo X and entrusted with the education of his nephews. He continued in the service of the Medici until the late 1530 s when he returned to study and write. This is Valerianus  first published work. Dedicated to Giulio de' Medici, the present work  on the meaning of storms , discusses both their scientific causes and their influence as portents on human affairs, including a particularly interesting account of the cosmography of the Etruscans, as well as Roman soothsayers whose purpose was to interpret thunder and lightning as omens. For example he tells the story of the lightning which struck the gates of Florence, interpreted as auguring the election of one of its citizens to the Pontificate. Valerianus also produced a popular and successful edition of the Sphaera of Sacrobosco. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Antonio Blado, official printer to the Papacy from 1535 to 1567, and one of the greatest printers of 16th century Italy, acquired in 1537 the celebrated Italic type of the calligrapher Lodovico Arrighi, used here by him 10 years earlier. It is one of the most elegant and famous typefaces of all time and interesting to compare with the Aldine developed in Venice at roughly the same time. Apart from its beauty it is clear, simple and easy to read. All 16th century printing on vellum is rare, and in the field of science, almost unknown. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Sir John Heyford Thorold (1773-1831) was a truly great collector. From 1828 until his death, he built up in an incredibly short time a beautiful collection of incunables and Aldines , deRicci p 160. Thence to the incomparable scientific library of Robert B. Honeyman (sale May 1981).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VALERIANUS, Joannes Pierius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816090640719,"sku":"L1563","price":45000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1563-2.jpg?v=1781795316"},{"product_id":"boodt-anselmus","title":"BOODT, Anselmus","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond corrected and improved edition (including new illustration) by Adrianus Toll, of this important work on gemstones and minerals, first published in 1609, the definitive work of the Belgian mineralogist, alchemist and physician, Anselmus Boodt. \"In his Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, Boodt made the first attempt at a systematic description of minerals, dividing the minerals into great and small, rare and common, hard and soft, combustible and incombustible, transparent and opaque. He uses a scale of hardness expressed in three degrees and notes the crystalline forms of some minerals (triangular, quadratic, and hexangular). Boodt criticizes some of the views of Aristotle, Pliny, Paracelsus, and others. He also mentions atoms. He enumerates about 600 minerals that he knows from personal observation, and describes their properties, values, imitations, and medical applications. There are also tables of values of diamonds according to their size and a short description of the polishing of precious stones. Boodt cites nineteen authors and, besides the minerals known to him, gives a list of 233 minerals whose names he knows from Pliny and Bartholomeus Anglicus, among others.\" D.S.B., II, p. 293. From 1583 Boodt lived Bohemia as physician to Wilhelm Rosenberg, the burgrave of Prague. In 1584 he was nominated physician in ordinary to Rudolf II (with a considerable salary) and retained this position until 1612. There is no evidence however that he ever seriously practiced as a physician; Rudolf clearly saw him as one of his alchemists. Boodt was placed in charge of Rudolf's collection of gems in his  Kunstkammer . The  Naturalia  (minerals and gemstones) were in a 37 cabinet display with the gems and minerals systematically arranged, the large uncut gemstones held in strong boxes. De Boodt was an avid mineral collector and travelled widely on collecting trips to the mining regions of Germany, Bohemia and Silesia, often accompanied by his Bohemian naturalist friend, Thaddaeus Hagecius. This work also gives us our most important source of knowledge of Renaissance gem cutting, the carving of precious stones, the making of jewelry, forgery and trade of precious stones.  De Boodt assembled virtually all of the knowledge then extant  by far the most thorough and complete up to date  [his work] is further distinguished by its intimate knowledge of the art of the lapidary and must therefore be regarded as the first treatise to offer more than the briefest views of gem cutting  Sinkankas. The woodcuts include illustrations of corals, geodes, fossils, gems, minerals, along with tools and methods of working them. A very good copy of this seminal work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOODT, Anselmus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816105189711,"sku":"L1023b","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1023B_6.png?v=1781795311"},{"product_id":"moleti-giuseppe","title":"MOLETI, Giuseppe","description":"\u003cp\u003eMoleti (1531 - 1588) studied mathematics at the Jesuit college in Messina where he was a pupil of Maurolico, and published several works on geography and astronomy prior to his appointment as scientific tutor to the young prince of Mantua, Vincenzo Gonzaga. His important Dialogue on Mechanics discusses the problem of the speed of falling bodies of different weights and anticipates the famous Tower of Pisa experiment of Galileo. In 1577 he took up the chair of mathematics at Padua and that year was asked his opinion by the Roman Congregation appointed  by Pope Gergory XIII to reform the Calendar: His response was the second work comprised here, composed to provide technical arguments in support of the exact correction of the calendar and its astronomical tables he named the 'Tabulae Gregorianae' in deference to the Pope. This treatise was then published as an appendix to the astronomical tables of the motions of the fixed stars, the sun and the moon, accompanied by an explanation of the rules of astronomical calculation of the Canons for the Gregorian Tables' proper use. Moleti rejected the traditional computation cycles, rebasing the calendar on the real motions of the stars. Moleti's work did not find favour with his scientific peers but was much appreciated in Rome (to the tune of 300 Ducats) where the Pope asked him to continue his computations with the motions of the other planets. Moleti's tables were calculated on the basis of the Copernican system which, he was the first to realise, Copernicus had based on the exact movements of the heavenly bodies, which was not the case with the earlier Alphonsine tables. This was the earliest practical use by an Italian astronomer of Copernican theory. The resulting Gregorian calendar of course, remains standard to this day. A most attractive copy of an important and very handsome book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MOLETI, Giuseppe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816113611087,"sku":"L1734","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0078.jpg?v=1781795309"},{"product_id":"zuchetta-giovanni-battista","title":"ZUCHETTA, Giovanni Battista","description":"Rare first and only early edition of this handsomely produced, important, arithmetical textbook devoted to practical and commercial arithmetic and a leader in its field. Although described as 'Prima Parte' it is in fact the only part ever printed.\r \r Zuchetta was a mathematician from Genoa; in his preface he apologizes to the reader for writing in his provincial 'Genoese' rather than the by now general Tuscan. \"The 'Prologo' is a curious dissertation on the 'Arti Scienze, \u0026amp; altro,' with some ninety-eight arguments to show the need for arithmetic on the part of all classes of humanity. The farmer, the musician, the thief, the cook, the prelate, all are shown to have need of number; and Nature, Intelligence and even God himself make use of it. The book presupposes a knowledge of the arithmetic of integers, and opens with a treatment of fractions. The rule of three, in all of its forms, and with the most unbusinesslike numbers, is then discussed at great length and this is followed by various complications of the Regoladel Cattaino, 'cosi detta da gli Arabi inventori di quello, ch'in lingua nostra significa falso posizione'. The latter part of the book [everything after p. 175] treats of such topics as partnership, barter and alligation.\"(Smith, cit. infra) Much of the text deals with mercantile transactions, especially those involving more than one currency and tables of exchange rates are given for all the major trading centres likely to be of interest to Italian merchants - a full page is given of the currency rates in London, 'sterlini' against the principal Italian currencies. Apart from its obvious mathematical interest (though it produced or developed no new theories) the work is obviously of considerable interest to the social, economic and legal historian.\r \r Antonio Orsetti evidently had a significant library, particularly of scientific and mathematical works, as an appreciable number can still be traced. He was clearly acquiring quite systematically in the first part of the 17th C, regrettably however we have discovered nothing more about him.\r \r Scevolini Domenico, mathematician of XVI century was one of the last and most thoughtful proponents of judicial astrology in Italy before the suppression of the art by the index and the inquisition.","brand":"ZUCHETTA, Giovanni Battista","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816116429135,"sku":"L946","price":4750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L946-1.jpg?v=1781795307"},{"product_id":"de-lorme-philibert","title":"DE L'ORME, Philibert","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe third edition, using all the woodcuts of the first (1561), of this important and beautifully printed and illustrated treatise. De L Orme (c.1510-1570),was one of the great Renaissance architects of the 16th century, the first French architect to possess the universal outlook of the Italian masters without merely imitating them. Mindful that French architectural requirements differed from the Italian, and respectful of native materials, he founded his designs on sound engineering principles, fusing the orders with a delicacy of invention, restraint, and harmony characteristic of purest French classicism. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  the simple woodcuts are excellent examples of perfectly understood and clearly presented structural details and show De Lorme s system of built up timber roofs, requiring no ties or heavy timbers, which was successfully used as late as the end of the eighteenth century in the Halle-aux-Bles in Paris. Indeed, De Lorme is unique among the early writers on architecture for the emphasis he placed upon construction. ..A copy of the 1576 edition was in the library of Thomas Jefferson (Sowerby, No. 4183).  Fowler (on the first edition). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Of the leading early French architectural writers, De Lorme is the most interesting and original, but is less distinguished an artist than Jean Bullant and is less versatile as a draughtsman than Du Cerceau. De Lorme has been called the first modern architect because of his original contributions to construction and his skill as an organizer, but Blomfield says that  It was by his strong individuality rather than by his art that De Lorme won, and has maintained, his place among the great Frenchmen of the sixteenth century  (Blomfeld French Arch. I Vol. I p. 92)  Fowler. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  First published in 1561 the  Nouvelles inventions (the treatise on roofs) describes ingenious techniques which replace the use of large rectilinear pieces of square section, with small flat and curved elements assembled like keystones. This new invention appears to comply with a rational approach in industrial terms, in that it keeps costs down, standardises construction and means that a relatively unqualified workforce can be employed. These innovative ideas, which were too revolutionary to achieve much success despite the persuasive force of the author, were not put into practice properly until after 1750, the date when the modern science of building properly emerged.  Vaughan Hart  Paper Palaces   The treatise  Le nouvelles inventions  .... is a milestone in the history of wood inventions as it contains different conceptions of how wood can be used. Anyone who wishes to study wooden roofing has to consider the theories of this French architect.  Maria Rita Campa.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DE L'ORME, Philibert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816117543247,"sku":"L1511","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_fd11f9cf-817b-46f8-b4ec-4ea1f92e5ab8.png?v=1781795304"},{"product_id":"pontano-giovanni-gioviano","title":"PONTANO, Giovanni Gioviano","description":"First Aldine edition of the astrological writings of Johannes Jovianus Pontanus (Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, 1429-1503), humanist, diplomat, scholar and poet who became the driving force behind the Neapolitan Academy and its official leader after 1471, as well as Naples' Secretary of State. His was considered by contemporaries as good as, or superior to, his Classical models. Pontanus' career provides an excellent illustration of the power and prestige which might be attained by men of letters in fifteenth-century Italy.\r \r The present volume consists of Pontanos' scientific (or proto-scientific and astrological) works: a translation and commentary on the Centum Ptolemaei sententiae, and other, briefer treatises, including De luna and De rebus coelestibus.\r \r The pseudo-Ptolemaic Centum Sententiae, or Centiloquy, is a collection of astrological aphorisms, once thought to have been the work of Claudius Ptolemaeus - from whose work it differs in many key respects. Seventeenth-century English scholars such as Joseph Moxon and William Lilly noted that some ascribed it to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus. More recent speculation has centred around the figure of Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Yusuf Ibn Daya (d. c.941), who wrote extensive glosses to the work, and translated it into Hebrew and Latin. While some of the sententiae demonstrate typical astrological vagueness (III: a person skilled in a particular field will have been born under the relevant star; VI, XI: the day and time for a particular activity should be chosen carefully, with reference to one's horoscope), others are extremely specific (XX: 'Do not pierce not with iron that part of the body which may be governed by the sign occupied by the Moon'; XXII: 'Do not either put on or lay aside any garment for the first time, when the Moon is located in Leo'). Pontanus' commentary is notable for its concern with proving the superiority of astrology over much contemporary 'science', and for the socio-psychological rather than theological nature of its speculations. It was immensely influential in contemporary and later astrological and prophetic writing: Nostradamus quotes with approval his first proposition 'Soli numine divino afflati praesagiunt \u0026amp; spiritu prophetico particularia' ('Only those inspired by the divine godhead can prophesy, and only those inspired by the spirit of prophecy can prophesy detailed events').","brand":"PONTANO, Giovanni Gioviano","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816117707087,"sku":"L593","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/frontcover_6d949577-4acb-4edf-a998-12eee4563161.png?v=1781795303"},{"product_id":"alfonso-x-king-of-castile-and-leon","title":"ALFONSO X, King of Castile and Leon","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn attractive copy, beautifully printed by Lucantonio Giunta, of the work which underpins Alfonso X's \"lasting scientific fame\" (DSB); the first edition with an additional table by the astronomer and mathematician Luca Gaurico, perhaps best known for the first published Latin translations of Archimedes  works  De Mensura Circuli  and  De Quadratura Parabolae . Astrologer and mathematician, Luca Gaurico was appointed professor of mathematics at Ferrara, in 1531 where Scaliger was one of his pupils. Gaurico may have met Copernicus at Padua, as they were both at the university in the early years of the 16th century, and would have shared a common interest in Ptolemy and Archimedes. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Alfonso X ('The Wise', 1221 - 1284), was an enthusiastic sponsor of the translation of Arabic works, especially, astronomy, into Latin and Castilian. The commission of the present work was his most enduring achievement, it became known as the Tablas alfonsinas and was widely popular throughout the Middle Ages, the Spanish text from which it was translated having been lost. The tables were not widely known, however, until a Latin version was prepared in Paris in the 1320s. Copies rapidly spread throughout Europe, and for more than two centuries they were the best astronomical tables available. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n First printed in 1483, the Alfonsine Tables were an important source of information for the young Nicolaus Copernicus before his own work superseded them in the 1550s. A theoretical text for astronomers, the tables were used to predict the motions of the planets and stars (cf. Kenney, no. 3). By following the rules of calculation, in principle the user could derive the positions of the planets for any given time or place. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Astronomical tables were also used to determine lunar phases, eclipses and calendrical information. Essentially, the work was a translation of the Toledan Tablets of the Cordoban astronomer al-Zarqali (Archazel, c. 1029 - c. 1087), with some new observations made in the years 1262-1272. It followed the general format of al-Zarqali's earlier compilation and, with only minor qualifications, retained the Ptolemaic system for explaining celestial motion. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The first printed edition was Ratdolt's in Venice, in 1483, and there were nine subsequent editions (the last one in 1649). The Alphonsine Tables, as they became known, were a standard work of reference for astronomers, cosmographers, astrologers and navigators for nearly five hundred years. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good unsophisticated copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ALFONSO X, King of Castile and Leon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120361295,"sku":"L1712","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1712-4.jpg?v=1781795294"},{"product_id":"capobianco-alessandro","title":"CAPOBIANCO, Alessandro","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine copy of the first edition of this important, rare and profusely illustrated work by Capobianco, Captain of the Bombardiers of the city of Crema, that brings together all the technical advances in artillery in the C16, dedicated to Antonio Prioli (future Doge of Venice) and Lunardo Rossetti. By the middle of the 16th century Italian theorists and military architects had perfected the bastioned system of fortification and the Italian method was an admired standard throughout Europe. \"during the sixteenth century the emphasis shifts south of the Alps. And after 1550 Italian military writers dominate the field to the point of monopoly.\" (Horst de la Croix, 'The Literature on Fortification in Renaissance Italy'.) The use of cannons against these new bastioned fortresses required new tactical thinking, which Capobianco elaborates in this work. A veteran of many campaigns in both Italy and the Low Countries he was an expert gunner, though like many of his colleagues he was not a literary man, and his versatility and inventiveness are best shown by his plans and designs. A skilled bombardier, he presents the reader with a sweeping survey of the aims and techniques of artillery around the turn of the C16, starting with the technical use of cannon, their various types and specific purposes, the comparison of modern and 'antique' cannon, their manufacture, sighting etc. He then moves on to the tactics of artillery in defence and attack, the placement of cannons, their transportation, storage and the storage of munitions, the use of rockets and fireworks, and finishes with a brief but insightful description of 'modern' fortification, and bastion techniques. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding of this copy is identical in style, with the same central arabesque tool, to a book bound for Thomas Knyvett c. 1610, see David Pearson, English book binding styles 1450-1800, page 9, fig. 1.3. Sir Thomas Knyvett (1539-1618), barrister, of a leading Norfolk family with estates in Lincolnshire, Suffolk, Staffordshire and Yorkshire started to build his splendid collection after the first flood of books and manuscripts from the monastic libraries. At his death his library numbered approximately 1,400 titles and 70 manuscripts on various subjects, as recorded in his library catalogue now in Cambridge University Library, which also received much of his collection in 1715. Favouring original texts, he became proficient in many languages, nurturing a particular love of Italian, owning at least 80 Italian books. Never a very rich man, the size of his library is extraordinary for the period, and it is likely that many of his books were obtained second hand. This binding is typical of those bound for his collection. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Sutton Place, built in 1530 for Sir Richard Weston, is celebrated as a pioneer of the Renaissance style in England, an early Tudor House, innovative for the symmetry of its design and its Italianate terracotta decoration. It was later the home of J. Paul Getty.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAPOBIANCO, Alessandro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120426831,"sku":"L680","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0080.jpg?v=1781795296"},{"product_id":"agricola-georgius-bauer-georg-1","title":"AGRICOLA, Georgius (BAUER, Georg)","description":"\u003cp\u003eSECOND EDITION of the \"first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times\" (PMM), the earliest and pre-eminent early work on metallurgy and mining. It is remarkably richly illustrated with technical woodcuts of the highest quality, largely by Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (after Blasius Weffring). All of them are based on Agricola's own drawings of processes and phenomena he personally observed. The work \"embraces everything connected with the mining industry and metallurgical processes, including administration, prospecting, the duties of officials and companies and the manufacture of glass, sulphur and alum. The magnificent series of two hundred and seventy three large woodcut illustrations add to its value. Some of the most important sections are those on mechanical engineering and the use of water power, hauling pumps, ventilation, blowing of furnaces, transport of ores etc., showing a very elaborate technique\" (PMM). It is \"one of the great monuments of technology by reason of the comprehensiveness of its text and the detail and intelligibility of its numerous illustrations\" (Singer, vol II, p. 27), and became \"the early standard treatise\" on the subject (Horblit, 2b). It is also one of the important contributions to physical geology, in particular the influence of wind and water erosion on landscape and its clear account of the order of strata exposed by mines. The work concludes with a 20 page glossary of technical terms and names in Latin and German which contains a new scientific classification of minerals based on their physical properties; the mode of occurrence and mutual relation of some 80 minerals and ores are discussed, no less than 21 of them for the first time. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Written over two decades, the work illustrates Bauer's familiarity both with the technical and financial aspects of mining as well as his concern for the health of the miners. Bauer had studied medicine in Leipzig before moving to the important mining centre of Joachimstal (in latter-day Czechoslovakia) as the town physician. There, Bauer observed both by day and by night the unceasing activities of the mines, \"and his interests were aroused by the metallurgical, mineralogical and chemical problems of the trade. He published several books relating to these, the above is outstanding in the field of all science and technology; it was published posthumously. Many large woodcuts present vivid pictures of men at work, machines pumping, ventilating, smelting, assaying, transportation, and hoisting equipment and methods of his time\" (Dibner, Heralds of Science, 88). The work was translated into English in 1912 by Herbert Hoover, afterwards president of the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"AGRICOLA, Georgius (BAUER, Georg)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816121114959,"sku":"L1730","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.37.22PM.png?v=1782581902"},{"product_id":"lemnius-levin-translated-by-j-gohory","title":"LEMNIUS, Levin (translated by J. Gohory)","description":"\u003cp\u003eLemnius (1505-1568) studied medicine at Louvain under Dodoens, Gessner, and Vesalius and practised for over forty years in his home town of Zelande with great success. This work, translated by Jacques Gohory, was designed as much for the amusement of the reader as for his education, and contains a mass of information, partly real, partly fantastic, taken from ancient Greek, Hebrew, Arab, and Latin sources, and presented and commented on in rather haphazard fashion.  Bits of medical and natural lore are thrown together hit-or-miss,  but not without importance  since it was often cited by subsequent learned authors, and since the numerous editions and translations of it show that it was well suited to the tastes of the time.  (Thorndike). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Despite his interest in the occult and belief in the importance of the influence that the stars and moon exert on the person, Lemnius remained pragmatic, always insisting on the importance of treating the patient with what remedies were available rather than relying on astronomy. Of the many diverse and interesting subjects the book deals with, such as the effects of human saliva, or whether it is better to sleep with one s mouth open or closed, one most referred to is the subject of vines, wine and drunks. White wine should be drunk before red, vinegar is useful in times of plague, the wines of the Poitou make you quarrelsome whereas the wines of the Rhine make you amorous, and when inebriated, you must not sleep in the moon rays. Translations of books dealing with the occult sciences are rare (an English translation of this work did not appear until 1650).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LEMNIUS, Levin (translated by J. Gohory)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816125473103,"sku":"L0","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8421.jpg?v=1781795278"},{"product_id":"ramelli-agostino","title":"RAMELLI, Agostino","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the most important and most impressive  book of machines  of the C16th, an outstanding example of French book production; illustrated with 195 full-page engravings, it is one of the earliest and most elaborate pictorial technical works to be printed.  This volume is dedicated to the King and special care was taken to make it appropriate as an expression of gratitude for Royal favor and protection. There is also a second factor governing the circumstances of publication. In his address to the reader, Ramelli complains of piracy of his designs which resulted in their publication in corrupt and mutilated forms destroying the original accuracy of his inventions. As a result of this experience, Ramelli planned this work as a particularly handsome volume, difficult to counterfeit, strictly supervised by the author himself and published with the imprint, 'in casa del' autore'\"   Mortimer. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Ramelli machines are concerned especially with hydraulics or mechanisms of warfare. The superb illustrations show the machines in use with their parts indicated by letters explained in the accompanying text. They are extremely finely worked and detailed, with great care taken to present the machine in landscape settings with figures employed in demonstrating them. Ramelli s designs cover water-raising devices, wells, mills, mobile bridges, machines for breaking through doors and metal bars, cranes, excavating equipment, fountains, and projectile devices. He described and illustrated for the first time the rotary pump, mechanical details of windmills, and a coffer-dam of interlocking piles, and like other writers of the period he designed biological automata in the form of hydraulically operated singing birds. including one notable departure into the world of domestic gadgetry, a revolving bookcase designed to enable a reader to peruse multiple volumes without having to leave his seat. Ramelli was greatly influenced by the increasing importance placed on mathematics and geometry as an important tool for engineers and artists, and particularly by the writings of Guidobaldo del Monte (1545-1607) and Petrus Ramus (1515-1572). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Ramelli's interest in mathematics is demonstrated in the preface,  On the excellence of mathematics in which is shown how necessary mathematics are for learning all the liberal arts.   Ramelli also wanted to make his book accessible to many engineers so, as an Italian living in France, he produced both Italian and French descriptions of the machines. Ramelli's bilingual descriptions are much more detailed than those found in previous illustrated books of machines by Jacques Besson and Jean Errard de Bar-le-Duc. Ramelli's book had a great influence on future mechanical engineering; Georg Andreas Böckler's, Theatrum machinarum novum, 1662, copied eighteen of Ramelli's plates.  Ramelli's influence can also be seen in the well-known works of Grollier de Servière (Recueil d'ouvrages curieux de mathematique et de mecanique, 1719) and Jacob Leupold (the multi-volume set Theatrum machinarum, 1724-1739). Leupold's work helped pass along Ramelli's ideas to a large population of eighteenth-century engineers. Only the one edition of the book was issued during Ramelli's lifetime. In 1620, a German translation appeared in Leipzig as Schatzkammer, mechanischer Künste..., published by Henning Grossen den Jüngern with the illustrations re-engraved by Andreas Bretschneider.  Ronald Brashear, Smithsonian libraries.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RAMELLI, Agostino","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816125768015,"sku":"L1572","price":27500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_dfe78da6-346e-4a37-98ce-4900a28da997.png?v=1781795279"},{"product_id":"sfortunati-giovanni","title":"SFORTUNATI, Giovanni","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of this influential arithmetic. Sfortunati  was a popular writer, as the seven editions of his book go to prove. His work is fairly complete as to the operations with integers and fractions, and is satisfactory as to the examples illustrating the Italian business life of the 16th century. The treatise closes with some work in practical mensuration and some mercantile tables  Smith.  The elaborate introduction to Giovanni Sfortunati's 1534 New Beacon, a Book of Arithmetic pointed to these new linguistic and market conditions. Sfortunati (b. ca. 1500) introduced himself as a Sienese schoolmaster who had taught arithmetic all over Italy and Sicily. He was a native speaker of Tuscan, then, but one with broad experience of other Italian students. This self-advertisement quickly turned into a claim that he was uniquely qualified to review the older arithmetic books on the market by way of recommending his own. He praised Luca Pacioli's Summa but noted that it contained too much that was not useful for merchants. Similarly Filippo Calandri's book was very learned but did not explain elementary notions well enough to be truly useful for beginners.   Sfortunati then turned to Borghi's Libro de abacho. Fifty years old and well established in the market, Borghi's manual was the principal competition for any new elementary arithmetic book in 1534. Sfortunati claimed to have read it many times, implying perhaps that he had been constrained to teach from it. He rejected it because it was written in rough Venetian dialect and described Venetian business practices that were of little use to Tuscans or other Italians. Despite his claims, however, Sfortunati's arithmetic book was also highly traditional. There was little to differentiate it from Borghi's treatment except his good Tuscan.  Humanism for Sale. Making and Marketing Schoolbooks in Italy, 1450-1650. A lovely copy bound in a beautiful early vellum leaf.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SFORTUNATI, Giovanni","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816126456143,"sku":"L1827","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.44.06PM.png?v=1782582292"},{"product_id":"stoffler-johannes-and-pitati-pietro","title":"ST√ñFFLER, Johannes and PITATI, Pietro","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn expanded and beautiful edition of the almanac by Johannes Stöffler. As with all books of this kind, it had a wide circulation, but complete copies are rare and sought after. The volume provides the positions of stars at regular intervals of date and time, through detailed tables of value. It includes five introductive treatises on astronomic rules and phenomena, along with the celestial calculations from 1551 up to 1555, all by Pietro Pitati. Stöffler (1452-1531) was a German mathematician, astronomer and priest. He invented some astronomical instruments and taught at the University of Tübingen. Embracing the timespan 1499-1551, his celestial calculations continued those by Regiomontanus (1436-1476) and exerted a paramount influence over contemporary astronomical and astrological knowledge. The sixteenth-century Italian scholar Pietro Pitati was a professor of astronomy in Verona. The book is dedicated to the city bishop and prominent cardinal Gian Matteo Giberti. Pitati s ephemerides published in Venice in 1542 are regarded as the earliest Italian publication of this genre. He kept publishing his calculation up to the year 1562. In his Compendium super annua solaris (1560), he put forward for the first time the idea of omitting the Julian leap day in three out of four centennial years, so to keep the calendar in line with the solar year. Rare.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ST√ñFFLER, Johannes and PITATI, Pietro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816126619983,"sku":"L1860","price":4850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_397e283d-7929-4ac0-881a-e92ef0e8e901.png?v=1781795275"},{"product_id":"kepler-johannes-1","title":"KEPLER, Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Kepler's detailed essays describing the supernova which appeared at the foot of the costellation Ophiucus in 1604. Johann Kepler (1571-1630) is one of the most important modern astronomers and mathematicians, along with his teacher Tycho Brahe and Galileo Galileo. Working at the court of the Emperor Rudolph II in Prague, he was able to improve the refracting telescope and formulate the fundamental laws of planetary motion correcting Copernicus. This invaluable account provides information on the supernova's colour, brightness, distance to the earth as well as other events related to this still unsolved astronomical phenomenon announcing the death of a star. The supernova was the last to be seen in the Milky Way and was named after Kepler in the 1940s. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Its appearance revived the debate among scholars on whether the incorruptibility of the cosmos established by Aristotle was valid or not. For instance, Galileo delivered a lecture on the supernova, considering it as a disproof of the Aristotelian theory. In 1604, Kepler was observing the conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn, an event which he calculated to happen exactly every 800 years. On October 10, Kepler witnessed the supernova and assumed the two phenomena were related. While working on his scientific description, he came across the essay of the Polish astronomer Laurence Suslyga, who had argued that Christ had been born in 4 BC on the basis of other celestial calculations. On this account, Kepler concluded that 1600 years earlier (i.e. 4 BC) the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction had provoked another supernova, which had been recorded in the Gospel and it is known as the Christmas Star or Star of Bethlehem. Such a theory is set out in the fouth part of this remarkable collection of treatises. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This editio princeps has two variants, depending on the presence of the imprint  impensis Authoris  in the main title. Although a definitive priority has not been established, Kepler s letters seem to suggest that the present title page is the second version, which is rarer and more correct. Kepler was probably unsatisfied with the quality of the first print-run and paid for another smaller one. This is confirmed by the fact that the presentation copy to James I in BL was from the second print-run.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"KEPLER, Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127734095,"sku":"K25","price":69500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K25-6.jpg?v=1781795272"},{"product_id":"piccolomini-alessandro","title":"PICCOLOMINI, Alessandro","description":"\u003cp\u003eSixth edition of this very influential Italian cosmography paired with a much important illustration of the Ptolemaic constellations, originally published together in 1540. The same years as this edition, another more common reprint by Varisco appeared in Venice. The scion of a papal family in Siena, Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1578) was a leading Renaissance humanist, philosopher, dramatist and astronomer. He was a founding member of many Italian academies, notably the Intronati and Infiammati. After teaching philosophy in Padua, he moved to Rome and Siena to started an ecclesiastical career, which eventually led him to being appointed archbishop of Patras. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A partisan of the Italian vernacular, he intentionally avoided Latin in his numerous works. These comprise a couple of moral comedies and collections of his letters and sonnets, several philosophical treatises and translations of classical authors, as well as his famous astronomical essays. Among them, La Sfera and Le Stelle fisse stand out for accuracy and success. The first describes the universe following the traditional Ptolemaic-Aristotelian geocentric cosmography, while the second contains the one of the earliest star atlases to be published in the Western World. All Ptolemy s 48 constellations, save Equuleus, were displayed without the traditional depiction of the related animals. Piccolomini introduced here the practice of identification of stars by Latin letters, which would be adopted using the Greek alphabet by Johann Bayer some seventy years later. The lunar crater Piccolomini is named after him.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PICCOLOMINI, Alessandro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816129700175,"sku":"L1976","price":2500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1976-Piccolomini-4.jpg?v=1781795266"},{"product_id":"tagliacozzi-gaspare","title":"TAGLIACOZZI, Gaspare","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost complete issue of the first edition of this curious medical work, devoted entirely to plastic surgery and providing the first instruction for reconstructing nose, lips and ears. Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1545-1599) was a pioneering Italian physician and pupil of Girolamo Cardano, Ulisse Aldrovandi and Giulio Cesare Avanzi. Upon his graduation, he was appointed lecturer of surgery at the University of Bologna; later, he became one of the most acclaimed professors of the athenaeum, demonstrating his techniques of dissection on recently-dead bodies. A pious man, he was charged by the cardinals  Congregation over the Index of Forbidden Books with the emendation of the works of the Lutheran botanist Leonhardt Fuchs. In Bologna, he also offered his service to the hospital of the Brotherhood of the Death; this local religious fellowship engaged with comforting the prisoners condemned to die. Through this privileged hannel, Tagliacozzi had always plenty of corpses for his anatomical and surgical studies. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n De curtorum chirurgia was Tagliacozzi s most renowned achievement. In the work, he improved and described for the first time the so-called metodo italiano, a technique of facial reconstruction via a skin graft taken from the left forearm. The well-known twenty-two plates depict surgical instruments and document every step of the process of rhinoplasty. Following the operation, the patient was immobilised in a complex vest devised by Tagliacozzi himself, waiting for the complete adherence of the graft to his nose. The process was supposed to take from two to three weeks. Tagliacozzi was aware of some aesthetic imperfection of the result, but was more concerned with the relieving benefits he wished to give to his patients  mind and spirit. His fame as  the first plastic surgeon  was so wide that several Italian noblemen sought his service. Among them, the Duke of Mantua Vincenzo Gonzaga, to whom De curtorum chirurgia is dedicated.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TAGLIACOZZI, Gaspare","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816130060623,"sku":"K33","price":39500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K33-2.jpg?v=1781795265"},{"product_id":"kepler-johannes-2","title":"KEPLER, Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Kepler's detailed essays describing the supernova which appeared at the foot of the costellation Ophiucus in 1604. Johann Kepler (1571-1630) is one of the most important modern astronomers and mathematicians, along with his teacher Tycho Brahe and Galileo Galileo. Working at the court of the Emperor Rudolph II in Prague, he was able to improve the refracting telescope and formulate the fundamental laws of planetary motion correcting Copernicus. This invaluable account provides information on the supernova's colour, brightness, distance to the earth as well as other events related to this still unsolved astronomical phenomenon announcing the death of a star. The supernova was the last to be seen in the Milky Way and was named after Kepler in the 1940s. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Its appearance revived the debate among scholars on whether the incorruptibility of the cosmos established by Aristotle was valid or not. For instance, Galileo delivered a lecture on the supernova, considering it as disproof of the Aristotelian theory. In 1604, Kepler was observing the conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn, an event which he calculated to happen exactly every 800 years. On October 10, Kepler witnessed the supernova and assumed the two phenomena were related. While working on his scientific description, he came across the essay of the Polish astronomer Laurence Suslyga, who had argued that Christ had been born in 4 BC on the basis of other celestial calculations. On this account, Kepler concluded that 1600 years earlier (i.e. 4 BC) the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction had provoked another supernova, which had been recorded in the Gospel and it is known as the Christmas Star or Star of Bethlehem. Such a theory is set out in the fourth part of this remarkable collection of treatises. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This editio princeps has two variants, depending on the presence of the imprint  impensis Authoris  in the main title. Although a definitive priority has not been established, Kepler s letters seem to suggest that the present title page is the earlier. Kepler was probably dissatisfied with the quality of this first print-run and paid for another. The presentation copy to James I in BL was from the second printing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"KEPLER, Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816131797327,"sku":"K26","price":40000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K25-Kepler-1.jpg?v=1781795259"},{"product_id":"tornamira-francisco-vicente-de","title":"TORNAMIRA, Francisco Vicente de","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of a wide-ranging astronomical, cosmographical and historical book, one of the first of its kind to be directly written in Spanish. Little is known of the life of Francisco Vicente de Tornamira (1534   1597), born in Tudela, Navarre. Chronographia was the most influential work of this prominent Spanish astronomer, illustrating in 162 chapters the creation of the universe, the various branches of philosophy, the movement of planets, the constellations and the Zodiac, the universal chronology realm by realm, a series of calendars, almanacs and weather forecasts. All the subjects were elucidated further with a large number of illustrations, including, most notably, a traditional depiction of the Armillary Sphere and other globes, the Astronomical Man and the Roman gods on their chariots representing the planets named after them. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A fervent supporter of Ptolemaic vision of the universe against the heliocentric theory, Tornamira comes up with convoluted explanations to bridge the gap between mathematical calculation and the traditional model of planetary movement. A most interesting part is devoted to the solar calendar and the recent reform introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, discussing the exact days of the year in which Lent, Corpus Domini and Easter should be celebrated. Tornamira expanded on this topic in his subsequent work, the Spanish translation of the new Gregorian calendar (1591). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  On p. 40 there is a reference to the Magellan circumnavigation; on p. 497 a list of the midsummer s days of the New World; on p. 538-539 locations of New World cities.  Alden 585\/67.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TORNAMIRA, Francisco Vicente de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816133173583,"sku":"L2100","price":5250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_58d321ef-f136-42e3-94ac-f02255bd5756.png?v=1781795254"},{"product_id":"barbaro-daniello","title":"BARBARO, Daniello","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition, first issue ,of Barbaro s important treatise on perspective; it can also be composed of titles and colophons dated 1568 and 1569 in any combination, another variant has an elaborate woodcut title with no date. The Venetian Daniel Barbaro (1514-1570) advocated the use of the camera obscura as an aid to drawing and perspective, and this work contains one of the earliest descriptions of the use of a biconvex lens to assist artists in the representation of scenes from nature, bringing the device one step closer to the modern-day camera. The improvement in the image obtained with the device, as well as by adjusting the distance upon which the image is to be projected, was described by Barbaro. This work was one of the most respected texts on perspective in the sixteenth century, comparable to Durer s Manual. Designed for an audience of artists, architects, stage designers, etc., Barbaro's work is more mathematical than artistic. Its influence derived from the separation of perspective, used in the design of stage sets, from the graphic representation of buildings. It is partly based on the methods and writings of Piero della Francesca, but written in a more readable and humanistic style. The work is illustrated in part with a range of polyhedra, and it includes the earliest drawing of the truncated icosidodecahedron and it ties Jamnitzer for the earliest rhombicosidodecahedron. The work opens with a preparatory text on the principles of geometrical optics, the division of surfaces, the properties of triangles and the distinction between point at the level of the eye and the distance point. The sixth part is the account and the reduction of the diagram of Ptolomy's planisphere. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The treatise on practical perspective by the Venetian humanist Daniele Barbaro was the first work of its type published in Italy. .. In his annotations on Vitruvius' treatise (1567), Barbaro had already devoted a long passage to the question. ... He learned perspective with the mathematician Giovanni Zamberti, the brother of Bartolomeo, the celebrated translator of Euclid. From contact with him, he became initiated into the questions of geometric optics which make up the starting point of his treatise. But he extends the universe of scientific reference considerably for problems of figurative standardization. The questions raised by Ptolemy's planisphere entered into debates on perspective in the second half of the 16th century, thanks to Federico Commandino's annotations (1558). ... Barbaro's treatise on perspective is the first text which attempted to bring together in a single book subject matter which until then had been dispersed in works from numerous, sometimes unrelated, disciplines, and of very different status. He expresses remarkable skill in reformulating speculations and giving them a function clearly and briefly. Thus Barbaro's treatise constitutes the first reduction in the art of perspective, a model which was to be traditional until the 19th century.  Pascal Dubourg-Glatigny. A crisp copy of this important and beautifully illustrated work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BARBARO, Daniello","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816136450383,"sku":"L2580","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4099-copy.jpg?v=1781795207"},{"product_id":"caus-salomon-de","title":"CAUS, Salomon de","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition, enlarged with extra plates, of this beautiful and extravagantly illustrated volume of ingenious hydraulic solutions to engineering problems produced by the Huguenot architect, inventor, garden designer and engineer, Salomon de Caus. The work deals with the physics of movement, with a range of technical applications, encompassing fields as diverse as energy, gardening and music. Book I describes the first machines to be operated by solar power, powered by sunlight striking closed air reservoirs, and one of the earliest uses of steam power. Scholars have proposed that De Caus as an early re-discoverer, or post-Classical inventor, of the principle of steam being used as a propelling force. He was deeply interested in garden design, mechanical fountains and speaking statues, and worked in the service of several great Renaissance princes. His masterpiece was the spectacular garden known as the  Hortus Palatinus  at Frederick s palace at Heidelberg.  He applied himself at an early age to the study of the mathematical sciences, his favourite writers being Archimedes, Euclid, and Vitruvius. After a visit to Italy he came to England as mathematical tutor to Henry, prince of Wales, and in 1612 published a work entitled  La Perspective avec la raison des ombres et Miroirs ; in the dedication of this work to that prince, dated at Richmond, 1 Oct. 1611, he states that he has been two or three years in the service of his royal highness. He seems also to have been employed as drawing-master to the Princess Elizabeth. After the death of the young Prince of Wales, De Caus was, in 1613, employed by the elector palatine, Frederick V, then recently married to the Princess Elizabeth, to lay out the gardens at the castle of Heidelberg . While at Heidelberg De Caus published in 1615  Institution Harmonique, ..  In the dedication of this work to Anne, queen of Great Britain, dated 15 Sept. 1614, he says that his experiments in the mechanical powers of water were commenced while in the service of the late Prince of Wales. In the same year, 1615, he published his most important work,  Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes avec diverses Machines.  This work is divided into three parts, all copiously illustrated: I.  Les Th éorèmes et Problèmes des Forces Mouvantes;  II.  Des Grotes et Fontaines pour l ornement des Maisons de Plaisance et Jardins;  III.  De la Fabrique des Orgues.  The second part contains, as he himself says in the dedication to Princess Elizabeth, many designs formerly made at Richmond for the adornment of the palace, or the entertainment of his master, the Prince of Wales. In the first part occur his enunciations of the theorems of the expansion and condensation of steam, and of the elevation of water by the application of heat, which have gained for him in some quarters the honour of being the first inventor of the steam engine, though De Caus seems only to have utilised them for fountains and other waterworks and claims no originality. It is almost certain that Edward Somerset, second marquis of Worcester, to whom this honour has also been ascribed, and later engineers, knew and developed the principles enunciated by De Caus.  DNB. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy in a handsome and well preserved contemporary English binding from the famous Hopetoun library, sold in 1889 by the 7th Earl of Hopetoun (see De Ricci, English Collectors, p. 164).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAUS, Salomon de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816137236815,"sku":"K108","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_0c16b018-e0db-4ee3-8d7a-2c85b7fb1d51.png?v=1781795202"},{"product_id":"gunter-edmund","title":"GUNTER, Edmund","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine copy, remarkably complete with all parts as issued, including the volvelle in an uncut state, of this important scientific work, in a contemporary binding. This is effectively the first edition of the collected works of Gunter.  Gunter was a firm advocate of the use of instruments in mathematics for easing the work of various mathematical practitioners, notably surveyors and navigators. His instruments were designed with these aims in mind. In particular his work on logarithms, their applications to trigonometry, and their inclusion on instruments greatly simplified the processes of mathematical calculation. His books were popular for many years after his death: an edition of all his works was produced by Samuel Foster in 1636 and this had three more editions, the last in 1680 .  DNB.  Gunter's works, written in English, reflected the practical nature of his teaching and linked the more scholarly work of his time with everyday needs; the tools he provided were of immense value long afterward.  DSB. As an undergraduate, Gunter developed a strong interest in mathematics and in mathematical instruments. He wrote a manuscript  New Projection of the Sphere  in his final year and this brought him to the attention of a number of leading mathematicians of the time including Henry Briggs. Gunter published seven figure tables of logarithms of sines and tangents in 1620; an English translation was published in the same year. Although the words sine and tangent were already in use, Gunter invented the words cosine and cotangent. This was the first ever publication of logarithms of trigonometric functions and Gunter deserves much credit for this innovation. He also made a mechanical device, Gunter's rule, to multiply numbers based on the logs using a single scale and a pair of dividers. It was called the 'gunter' by seamen and was an important step in the development of the slide rule. Gunter published his description in 1623 in the  Description and Use of the Sector, the Crosse-staffe and other Instruments . This book must be reckoned, by every standard, to be the most important work on the science of navigation to be published in the seventeenth century. It opened the whole subject of mathematical application to navigation and nautical astronomy to every mariner who was sufficiently interested in devoting time to the perfecting of his art.  C H Cotter,  Edmund Gunter (1581-1626), Journal of Navigation .  What Briggs did for logarithms of numbers, Gunter did for logarithms of trigonometrical functions. In fact, he introduced the terms cosine, cotangent and cosectant for the sine, tangent and secant of complementary angles. Gunter's most important book was his Description and use of the Sector. .. A sector is a mathematical instrument which consists of two hinged rulers on which there are engraved scales. The scales allow various questions in trigonometry to be resolved by using the property that two similar(equiangular) triangles have sides in a constant ratio. The issue of who first invented by the sector is not without controversy. ... What singles out Gunter's sector is that it is the first mathematical instrument to be inscribed with a logarithmic scale to facilitate the resolution of numerical problems. This is not a slide rule in any sense of the term; the single logarithmic scale is used in conjunction with a pair of compasses. Such a rule is frequently referred to as a Gunter line. A two foot long boxwood ruler inscribed with a variety of scales was a standard navigator's tool up until the end of the nineteenth century. \" C J Sangwin; Edmund Gunter and the Sector. ; The English Experience. Isaac Newton owned a copy of this 1636 edn. purchased for 5 shillings in 1667 now in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. A fine copy of this most important work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GUNTER, Edmund","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816140972367,"sku":"L2518","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2518.jpg?v=1781795179"},{"product_id":"branca-giovanni","title":"BRANCA, Giovanni","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good, crisp copy of the first edition of Giovanni Branca s finely illustrated work on machines. An Italian architect and engineer, Branca (1571-1645) worked for many years for the Basilica of Loreto, where he supervised restoration, repairs and the construction of funeral monuments. Following the textual genre of the  theatres of machines  which had developed in the C16,  Le machine  showcases his knowledge of mechanical instruments, some of which he also built himself. In the preface, Branca explains that the work features the physical principles discussed by Aristotle, which, when applied to machines, can generate all possible kinds of mechanical movement. The handsome, realistic illustrations of the 63 machines are introduced by brief commentaries which combine the abstraction of physics and geometrical description with potential practical purposes for each. These include grinding wheat or gunpowder, flattening metals, making coins and medals, and drawing water from a well. Whilst most of Branca s machines were propelled by human, animal or hydraulic force, Plate 25 famously illustrates a machine which, like several others, was designed to grind materials, but  with a wondrous engine  an iron head on top of a metal bust filled with water and resting on burning coals; this would generate from the mouth a hot,  violent breath  strong enough to spin a paddled wheel. Although the machine remained closer to the principles of the classical  aeolipile , a steam turbine described by Hero of Alexandria c.1AD and later reprised by Vitruvius, this was the first modern reference in print to potential practical applications of a steam-driven engine. With Leonardo da Vinci, the Turkish engineer Taqi Al-Din and the Englishman John Wilkins, Branca contributed to the theoretical promulgation of the idea of a steam machine in the early C18, when Thomas Newcomen reconceptualised it into the model for the functional steam engine which changed history. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy belonged to Charles L. Clarke (1853-1941), a close colleague of Thomas Edison and first president of the Edison Electric Company. His collage of notes on this work include passages from technical books like  The Descriptive History of the Steam Engine  (1831).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRANCA, Giovanni","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816141824335,"sku":"L2728","price":8500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2728-4.jpg?v=1781795173"},{"product_id":"zonca-vittorio","title":"ZONCA, Vittorio","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of Vittorio Zonca's wonderful, inventive and most influential work, one of the classic books on machinery of the late Italian Renaissance, beautifully illustrated with forty two engraved plates depicting machines for use in paper making, printing, flour mills, silk spinning, and a speculative machine using 'perpetual motion', amongst many others. The dedication is by the printer Bertelli to Rainuccio Gambara. Little is known about Zonca (1568-1602) beyond this his major publication which describes him as 'Architect of the Commune of Padua'; it is evident from this work that he was practically involved with a wide range of disciplines, from hydraulics, to textiles, to printing. Zonca clearly takes his place along with Ramelli, Vrani, and Branca as one of the pre-eminent engineers of late C16 Italy, all of whom share a debt to Leonardo. The work is simply conceived with a detailed plate of each machine, a table of its parts, and a lengthy practical description detailing its function. Nearly all the machines from the  Novo Teatro  focus on water power, though some use humans or animals. Of particular interest are those relating to the manufacture of silk and other fabrics, to the printing press and the manufacture of paper and the operation of canals. He describes the application of the rolling mill to precious and other metals and Zonca appears to be the first engineer to remark that when running against steel any sort of metal other than brass is consumed. He depicts for the first time a set of water driven stampers used in the fabrication of paper pulp, a full description of a printing press with all its parts, and a press for printing engravings, such as in this work. He also describes various 'filotoio' or silk weaving machines that were very much ahead of their time. It was not for another hundred years that such machines made their way to England through the auspices of the eighteenth-century industrial spy John Lombe. There are also two interesting machines used for cooking or roasting meat that harness the power of the upward draft of air in the chimney to power a spit. One that stands out is a water pump in which Zonca shows a huge pipe for raising water working as a siphon that  would effectively create a machine working in perpetual motion driving a mill-wheel for grinding grain. The idea of a continuous power supply for operating machines was clearly a significant part of Zonca's research. Some of the engravings, monogramed FV, are by Francis Valesio, others monogramed, Ben W sc, are by Benjamin Wright, some still unidentified have the monogram AH or AHI or AI. The work enjoyed great success, even being translated into Chinese in 1627 by Johannes Schreck to show off the wonderful machines of the west. A very good copy of a beautifully illustrated work, with an intriguing early British provenance. Unfortunately we have not been able to identify the Buchan of the title but the work was undoubtedly bound in Britain, perhaps Scotland, at an early date. This copy has a slightly different collation to others in that it has an extra two leaves in quire L, though it has the same number of plates.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ZONCA, Vittorio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816145330511,"sku":"L2276","price":11500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_1880.jpg?v=1781794949"},{"product_id":"albrecht-lorenz","title":"ALBRECHT, Lorenz","description":"\u003cp\u003eA remarkably clean copy of this German astrological almanac a rare survival of C16 ephemera. A former Lutheran preacher, Lorenz Albrecht (1540-1606) was the author of German and Latin religious works and re-converted to the Catholic faith in 1567.  Evangelisch Prognosticon  testifies to his disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation  the Gospel of Luther  and his intent to oppose this heresy through the popular genre of the almanac, imitating Johannes Nas s  Practica Practicarum . As usual in astrological almanacs, it discusses planets, constellations, zodiacal signs and the seasons and their influx on humans with references to ancient authorities like Pliny and Manilius; but the tone is grim and planets are seen as harbingers of vices. The ominous statement by which the seat of the devil is at the centre of the earth and heresy is at the centre of the universe shows how Albrecht s almanac presented the influence of the cosmos as something that Catholics should resist through will and spiritual exercise so as not to succumb to the Protestant heresy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ALBRECHT, Lorenz","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816155816271,"sku":"L2915","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage-1_3248c45c-1777-4f47-b490-5a18443dd348.png?v=1781794913"},{"product_id":"doglioni-giovanni-nicolo-1","title":"DOGLIONI, Giovanni Nicol√≤","description":"\u003cp\u003eScarce copy of this important didactic almanac including the prediction of weather conditions, planetary influence and a perpetual calendar  one of the earliest if not the earliest almanack according to the Gregorian Calendar unknown to Poggendorff  ( Bibliotheca Chemico-Mathematica  1076). Giovanni Nicol√≤ Doglioni (1548-1629) was a Venetian notary appointed to several public offices in the city, and the author of works on chronology, cosmography and the calculation of time.  L anno  contextualised for a broader audience the reform of the Julian calendar introduced by Gregory XIII in 1582 a revision which led to major scholarly debates on  gnomonica  or the computation of the portions of the solar day. The first section of the work discusses the four elements that constitute the world, the subdivisions of the earth into continents, countries and provinces, the meteorological phenomena resulting from the mixture of the elements as well as a table tracing the movements of the planets. In the second section Doglioni explains the subdivisions of time according to conventional units. The fundamental unit the day can be natural (following the planetary course of the sun in relation to the earth as a whole) or artificial (according to the specific place in which the onlooker is situated). This distinction is used as the basis to explain the correct construction of sundials on buildings. There follows an examination of the subdivision of historical time the discipline of chronology so dear to the medieval and Renaissance periods and the meaning of  century ,  age ,  age of man  and  age of the world , with a perpetual calendar and a long table recording universal dates and events from the creation to the year 5545 [1586AD]. Later owners annotated the perpetual calendar counting the days for the years 1646, 1668 and 1709. The last section provides perpetual calendars to identify Feasts of the Saints and moveable liturgical feasts. It was reprinted as  L anno riformato  in 1599 and its tables accordingly updated. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Giovanni Battista Lambruschini S.J. (1755-1827) was professor at the Jesuit seminary in Genoa, a great opponent of the French Revolution and the centre of a Jesuit circle including the renowned philologist Cardinal Angelo Mai.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DOGLIONI, Giovanni Nicol√≤","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156078415,"sku":"L2885","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_e03e142e-f040-46f2-84c1-4d818e74ac66.png?v=1781794912"},{"product_id":"peverone-giovan-francesco","title":"PEVERONE, Giovan Francesco","description":"\u003cp\u003eScarce treatises on practical arithmetic and geometry, with important discussions of mathematical probability and geodetic triangulation. Born in Cuneo from a noble family, Giovan Francesco Peverone (1509-59) held numerous public offices including expert counsellor for the construction of hydraulic structures and fortifications. For his services to the city he was awarded the medal decorating the t-p of all editions of this work.  Arithmetica e geometria  is a reprint of  Due breui e facili trattati, il primo d arithmetica: l altro di geometria , first published by de Tournes in 1558. Whilst it reprised the structure and content of other such manuals produced on the Continent, it was the most influential which issued from the Piedmontese scholarly world an unusual and original background surfacing in many mathematical demonstrations referring to operations with  fiorini di Piemonte  or mathematical calculations of the area and physical shape of the Cuneo territory. The first part deals with practical arithmetic, i.e., basic operations, fractions ( broken numbers ) and roots applied to everyday situations, such as games. Peverone was among the first to examine the question of mathematical probability concerning the subdivision of money during a game of cards. Had he reached the correct conclusion one of the  great near misses of probability mathematics  he would have anticipated the results of Fermat and Pascal by over a century (Kendall,  Studies in the History of Probability , 1956). The second part is devoted to geometry and accompanied by handsome illustrations explaining how to measure towers, ditches and aqueducts. It is important for the description of contemporary instruments employed for measuring the land (e.g., the  planispherio geometrico  of Peverone s own invention) and the discussion of geodetic triangulation using Cuneo and other surrounding cities as reference points (Riccardi I\/1, 266). A scarce, unusual and original fruit of Renaissance mathematical culture in the North-Italian provinces.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PEVERONE, Giovan Francesco","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156176719,"sku":"L2886","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5085-copy.jpg?v=1781794910"},{"product_id":"jean-alexandre","title":"JEAN, Alexandre","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare and charmingly executed didactic manual of commercial arithmetic in three parts; in this second edition Jean added a printed explanation of the working of the tables. The engraved title of the second part still bears the date of 1636 as it was probably made using sheets left over from the first edition, or the plates were reprinted from the original, without changing the dates. Alexandre Jean was a master writer and master of French arithmetic, born in about 1580, he was accepted, in 1609, in the  Communaut é des ma√Ætres  écrivains jur és  or the Company of master writers or calligraphers. He was renowned for making use of the the feather pen, with which he used to execute ornaments with thick lines in his calligraphy. He was a very good the example of those master writers who were also active in teaching and accounting, and he published several methods of arithmetic. He died in 1670 at Paris. This work is very finely executed, in the manner of a calligraphic work by a master writer.  In this second edition of the ready reckoner, a letterpress title page and introduction have been added to the engraved tables. The original engraved title page remains bound in after the introductory material. The work is a ready reckoner for the price of goods in multiples (from 1 to 20,000), and the second is a similar table for fractional amounts (if one unit costs 8 francs, then a half will cost 4 francs, etc.). Part 1 has an engraved title page bearing the date 1636, with the colophon dated 1637. There are also a few small tables of other items (squares etc.). All the tables are beautifully engraved, and many show the figures in what appear to be apothecary jars, palm leaves, etc. It is possible that the tables in part 2 actually represent the value of various measures of cloth as their heading (Fractions de Laune) can be interpreted as La une (one) or L aune (ells of cloth).  A rare work. USTC locates four copies of this enlarged edition. A very good copy from the exceptional mathematical library of Erwin Tomash.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JEAN, Alexandre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156471631,"sku":"L3016\/2","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190406_155950.jpg?v=1781794909"},{"product_id":"jean-alexandre-1","title":"JEAN, Alexandre","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare and charmingly executed didactic manual of commercial arithmetic in two parts all finely engraved. In this first edition the engraved title bears the date of 1636 but has the date 1637 on the colophon of the first part. Alexandre Jean was a master writer and master of French arithmetic, born in about 1580, he was accepted, in 1609, in the  Communaut é des ma√Ætres  écrivains jur és  or the Company of master writers or calligraphers. He was renowned for making use of the the feather pen, with which he used to execute ornaments with thick lines in his calligraphy. He was a very good the example of those master writers who were also active in teaching and accounting, and he published several methods of arithmetic, and a writing book. He died in 1670 at Paris. This work is very finely executed, in the manner of a calligraphic work  by a master writer.  This completely engraved work is in two parts. The first part is a ready reckoner for the price of goods in multiples (from 1 to 20,000), and the second is a similar table for fractional amounts (if one unit costs 8 francs, then a half will cost 4 francs, etc.). Part 1 has an engraved title page bearing the date 1636, with the colophon dated 1637. There are also a few small tables of other items (squares etc.). All the tables are beautifully engraved, and many show the figures in what appear to be apothecary jars, palm leaves, etc. It is possible that the tables in part 2 actually represent the value of various measures of cloth as their heading (Fractions de Laune) can be interpreted as La une (one) or L aune (ells of cloth).  An extremely rare work. USTC locates only one copy of this first edition at the BNF. A very good copy from the exceptional mathematical library of Erwin Tomash.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JEAN, Alexandre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156569935,"sku":"L3016\/1","price":2000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190406_160523.jpg?v=1781794909"},{"product_id":"cataneo-pietro","title":"CATANEO, Pietro","description":"\u003cp\u003eA most appealing copy of the first edition of this influential treatise on arithmetic and geometry  fairly practical and in many respects in advance of its time  (Smith,  Rara , 242). Pietro Cataneo (1510-74) was a mathematician from Siena with a side interest in architecture.  Le pratiche  provides fundamental knowledge of arithmetic and geometry for accounting. The first part discusses the four mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) including their applications in the counting of currency of different value and weight as well as applied problems based on real life e.g., the three jealous husbands who want to cross a river with their wives on a boat which can only hold two people at a time. The second is concerned with basic geometry, with a thorough examination of geometrical triangulation applied to measuring and subdividing allotments. The Florentine influence of his background surfaces in the choice of the word  biricuocolo  to mean multiplication (Smith,  Rara , 242). The slightly later annotator of this copy wrote on the final blank the procedure to extract the square and cube root of specific numbers. He also highlighted sections concerning gold and silver e.g., calculating the number of carats before and after refinery, and the proportion of precious metals in alloys. He was probably a teacher. For a couple of sections on the calculation of the quantity of wool as compared to the bags to transport it, the quantity of silver in coins and the payment of house rents he added his own alternative method, calling it  better  or  clearer for beginners . In another, on fractional subtraction, he said it seemed to him that  the author had not considered  the issue of what are known today as  continued fractions , a study of which did not appear in print until 1579.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATANEO, Pietro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156864847,"sku":"L3011","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/wholebook_053fb059-23f4-4394-aa8b-bd4bcb010789.png?v=1781794907"},{"product_id":"recorde-robert","title":"RECORDE, Robert.","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery rare early edition of this most important mathematical work of the sixteenth century in England, with Record s dedication to King Edward, edited and augmented after the author s death by John Dee. It was the standard arithmetic textbook of the period, passing through numerous editions until 1673, long after the work should have been obsolete. Dee s contributions were of a practical nature, being sections on foreign exchange and on foreign weights and measures. Dee also added a long poem  I.D. to the earnest Arithmetician  in which he promoted his  Mathematical Praeface  to Billingsley s English translation of Euclid (1570). Robert Recorde s Arithmetic: or, The Ground of Arts was one of the first printed English textbooks on arithmetic and the most popular of its time. The first edition of 1543 was preceded only by two other anonymous mathematical texts in 1537 and 1539. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Robert Recorde was born in Wales and attended both Oxford and Cambridge. Little is known of his early life, but records show him graduating Oxford in 1531 and elected a Fellow of All Souls College shortly thereafter. He disappears until 1545, when he graduated in medicine from Cambridge. Early in his career, he seems to have been physician to King Edward VI and Queen Mary. Two years later he had moved to London, and by 1549 he had been given the job of comptroller of the Bristol Mint. He undertook a position supervising the mint s silver mines in Ireland from 1551 to 1553. Evidently this enterprise was a failure in that the mines were unproductive and expenses high. By 1556, Recorde was attempting to reestablish himself in court life. Presumably because of circumstances in Ireland, he laid charges against the Earl of Pembroke. Doing this proved to be a strategic error because whatever the truth of the situation, Pembroke was a powerful nobleman. Recorde lost his case and in turn was sued for libel by Pembroke. Being unable to pay the judgment of ¬£1,000 against him, he was put into the King s Bench prison, where he died a year later. A summary of this sad tale was written by a former owner on a blank page just before the beginning of the text on arithmetic. Record is known to have published a number of textbooks on mathematical subjects and at least one on medicine. He is said, by others, to have had several more in manuscript that are now lost. He is most famous for his mathematical books and is usually considered as the founder of English mathematical writing. He was a scholar of Latin and Greek who attempted to find appropriate English terms for technical words in those languages. His books were always logically arranged, with the fundamental principles discussed before addressing more sophisticated questions. Recorde published his books in the order in which he considered their study to be most appropriate. First came The Ground of Artes, an arithmetic text, in 1543. The Pathway to Knowledge, a translation of the first four books of Euclid s Elements, followed in 1551. The Castle of Knowledge, an astronomy text, introduced the Copernican system to English readers in 1556. Last in the sequence, The Whetstone of Witte was the second, more sophisticated part of his arithmetic and introduced the subject of algebra and equations in 1557. This volume, first published in 1543 and enlarged for the edition of 1552, was written in the form of a dialogue between master and pupil, proved to be very popular.. The work was transitional in nature and considers arithmetic using Hindu-Arabic notation as well as the table abacus. The first edition covered the basic operations and the conversion of money (i.e., reduction of pounds, shillings and pence into pence, etc.) and the rule of three (here called the golden rule). The later editions included discussion of fractions, the rule of false position and similar refinements. There is also a small section on the use of finger numerals. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Extremely rare.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RECORDE, Robert.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816157258063,"sku":"K162","price":24000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K162-1.jpg?v=1781794907"},{"product_id":"tagliente-giovanni-antonio-and-girolamo","title":"[TAGLIENTE, Giovanni Antonio and Girolamo.]","description":"\u003cp\u003eRemarkably good copy of this very scarce edition of a most important treatise on arithmetic.  There were few textbooks as influential as this in shaping the subsequent teaching of arithmetic  (Smith,  Rara , p. 114). The brothers Giovanni Antonio (c.1460-1524) and Girolamo (fl. late C15-early C16) Tagliente were Venetian mathematicians; the former was also a printer known for the production of very successful manuals on calligraphy, embroidery patterns, methods for learning reading and accounting. First published in 1515 and reprinted at least twenty times in the course of the C16,  Libro  was addressed to Venetians wishing to learn the  virtu della Arithmetica  and the  arte de la Geometria  in order to practice the  arte de la mercantia . After a discussion of notation and the ancient practice of counting with finger symbols, illustrated with woodcut tables, it proceeds to the four mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, division, multiplication) discussing additionally the proof of seven, fractions and the rule of three. Specific applications to problems are presented in narrative form and illustrated with woodcuts of everyday life situations: e.g., a Jewish moneylender s interest for a given time and a given sum, the differing speed of a boat heading to Cyprus using 40 or 36 oars and gain from the sale of a variety of goods. A second section explains how to use geometry to measure allotments or buildings, whilst the final pages present a conversion table for Venetian ducats in relation to Italian and foreign currencies. A fascinating work illuminating arithmetical education for the Venetian mercantile classes at the commercial apex of the Serenissima.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[TAGLIENTE, Giovanni Antonio and Girolamo.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816157421903,"sku":"K164","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K164-8.jpg?v=1781794904"},{"product_id":"fabri-ottavio","title":"FABRI, Ottavio","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of the first edition of this important work on the application of triangulation. Ottavio Fabri (fl. late C16-early C17) was an Italian mathematician of whom little is known. His greatest contribution to the discipline, immortalized in this work, was the invention of the  squadra mobile , a brass geometrical instrument to  measure, level and transfer onto paper every distance, height and depth , with applications in astronomy, geometry and the measuring of terrain. The edition was printed in two issues with differing preliminaries, though no priority has been established. The first section is devoted to measurements and includes comparisons between units used in different cities (the  Braccio toscano  in Florence, the  Tornadure  in Cervia) or countries ( Piedi  in France and the Trevigian  Pertica  in Cologne). He proceeds to explain the construction of the instrument; this part was illustrated by an engraved plate portraying the  squadra mobile , absent in most copies. The best material for the instrument, he found, is copper, a piece of which  as thick as a knife s back  can be bought  from any ironmonger in town . He even advertised the best craftsman in Venice to assemble the instrument,  M. Battista degli Horologli  in his Spadaria shop, who made clocks and scales. The rest, illustrated with handsome engravings, explains the most common applications of the instruments in measuring from various positions the distance, depth and height, in relative and absolute terms, of buildings, hills, allotments, etc. The  squadra mobile  could even be used to map a city s area without a compass both from inside or outside its walls. Illustration XIII pasted on p. 37 appears to have been an editorial afterthought as it is also found in the NYPL copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FABRI, Ottavio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160207183,"sku":"L3013","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Fabri-L3013-1.jpg?v=1781794900"},{"product_id":"gellibrand-henry","title":"GELLIBRAND, Henry.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this important and influential work on trigonometry, with most interesting contemporary provenance. Gellibrand had been a student at Trinity College, Oxford, when he was introduced to mathematics and became acquainted with Henry Briggs. After graduation he was ordained and took a job as curate in a small town in Kent. When Edmund Gunter died in 1626, Gellibrand applied for his post as professor of astronomy at Gresham College and was elected in early 1627. One of his sponsors was Henry Briggs, and Gellibrand repaid the debt by completing the second volume of Briggs  Trigonometria Britannica and seeing it through the press after Briggs died in 1630.  He .. became a friend of Henry Briggs, on whose recommendation he was chosen professor of astronomy at Gresham College, 2 Jan. 1626 7. Briggs dying in 1630 he left his unfinished  Trigonometria Britannica  to Gellibrand. Gellibrand held puritan meetings in his rooms, and encouraged his servant, William Beale, to publish an almanack for 1631, in which the popish saints were superseded by those in Foxe s  Book of Martyrs.  Laud, then bishop of London, cited them both into the high commission court. They were acquitted on the ground that similar almanacks had been printed before, Laud alone dissenting, and this prosecution formed afterwards one of the articles exhibited against him at his own trial. In 1632 Gellibrand completed Briggs s manuscript, and published it in 1633 as  Trigonometria Britannica  According to Ward, an English translation of Gellibrand s book was published in 1658 by John Newton as the second part of a folio with the same title. During 1633 he also contributed  An Appendix concerning Longitude  to  The strange and dangerous Voyage of Captaine Thomas James,  4to, 1633, which has been frequently reprinted. Gellibrand died of fever 16 Feb. 1636, and was buried in the church of St. Peter the Poor, Broad Street, London.  DNB. Gellibrand is also known for his discovery of magnetic declination and for application of mathematics and astronomy to practical problems of navigation. This book contains two brief expositions on plane and spherical triangles followed by a major section consisting of trigonometric functions, logarithms and navigational and astronomical tables. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Sir Lewis Dyve (1599 1669) was an English Member of Parliament and a Royalist during the English Civil War; he was knighted in 1620 and was one of the attendants of Prince Charles at Madrid. He was elected MP for Bridport in the Parliaments of 1625 and 1626, and for Weymouth in that of 1628. Dyve fought for the Royalist cause and was captured at the siege of Sherborne, later imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1645 to 1647. Being moved to the King s Bench, he escaped, but was recaptured at Preston. Imprisoned in Whitehall he escaped once more, according to his own account on the very day he was to have been executed; John Evelyn records in his Diary on 6 September 1651 that Dyve dined with him and related the story of his  leaping down out of a jakes two stories high into the Thames at high water, in the coldest of winter, and at night; so as by swimming he got to a boat that attended for him, though he was guarded by six musketeers. Dyve then made his way to Ireland where he once more served with the Royal forces; in 1650 he published an account of events in that country during the previous two years. He lost much of his fortune through his loyalty to the Crown, but also in part due to heavy gambling: in 1668, the year before he died, Samuel Pepys called him disapprovingly  a great gamester . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy of this rare work. ESTC cites two copies recorded in the US only; at the Folger and Huntington.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GELLIBRAND, Henry.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160403791,"sku":"L3015","price":5950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3015-2.jpg?v=1781794899"},{"product_id":"euclid-2","title":"EUCLID","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis outstanding copy was printed on blue paper for presentation. No copies on blue paper of this edition are recorded in major bibliographies or at US libraries. Intended as a substitute for parchment, blue paper was first employed by Aldus, and perfected by Giolito, for  deluxe  copies prepared for important personalities. It became an increasingly widespread practice with selected copies of particularly scientific and architectural works in the course of the C16. The translator and commentator of this edition, Federico Commandino, had also overseen the printing on blue paper of a limited Latin edition of Euclid s  Elements  in 1572. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very rare copy, on blue paper, of the first Italian translation of Euclid s  Elements  edited by Federico Commandino. Commandino (1509-75) was a humanist from Urbino renowned for his translations of the works of ancient Greek mathematicians including Aristarchus of Samos and Pappus of Alexandria. Several of his Latin (and later vernacular) renditions of Greek mathematical terms, for which he relied on previous adaptations by Roman authors like Cicero and Vitruvius, became the standard. Euclid (4th century BC) was the first to reunite mathematical theories from the ancient world into a coherent, bi-dimensional system centred on simple axioms of plane geometry, based on angles and distance, from which further propositions (or theorems) could be deduced. His  Elements  began with the crucial definition of  point ,  that which has no part nor size  and which is only determined by two numbers defining its position in space the fundamental notion on which the Euclidean geometrical system is based. The fifteen books of the work, the last two of which are now considered spurious, discuss plane and solid geometry, the theory of proportion and the properties of rational and irrational numbers. Euclid s  Elements  was commonly used in schools for centuries and is  the oldest mathematical textbook in the world  (PMM 25). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy belonged to an early mathematician who wrote a long marginal re-phrasing of a corollary. Between the late C18 and early C19, it was in the collection of the bibliophile Count Remigio Filiberto Costa della Trinit√†.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EUCLID","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160862543,"sku":"K135","price":39500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K135-5.jpg?v=1781794897"},{"product_id":"digges-leonard-digges-thomas","title":"DIGGES, Leonard [DIGGES, Thomas]","description":"Second and best edition of Thomas Digges  fundamental mathematical work, revised and expanded from the edition of 1571, and the first description of many important theories and techniques in English. Digges (1546-1595) was the son of the mathematician and surveyor Leonard Digges (1520-1559), inventor of the theodolite and perhaps also of the telescope. Thomas produced revised or augmented editions of several of his father s works.\r \r  This edition is essentially identical to the first with two significant additions by Thomas Digges: the Mathematicall discourse of the five Platonicall solides  and the first treatment of the science of ballistics in English. Also added to Book I is a short chapter (three leaves) on surveying in mines. Leonard Digges published a small book on practical surveying in 1556, but this more ambitious work was still in manuscript when he died. Thomas, his son, further extended the work and had it published. The early material is essentially that to be found in the works of such authors as Gemma Frisius and Peter Apian (quadrants, astrolabes with shadow scales, etc.). However this book, and his earlier work Tectonicon, are the first descriptions of the application of these instruments written in English. All of the early instruments rely on the use of right-angle triangles in establishing a survey. Digges deals with a different type of survey instrument in a later part of this volume. This is the first description and illustration of the theodolite the name being coined by Digges in this work. This device consisted of a table with an angle- sighting device mounted above it. .  Another intriguing feature of this work is that Digges, in Chapter 21 of the first book, discusses the use of various optical devices and claims that:    ye may by applycation of glasses in due proportion cause any peculiare house, or roume thereof dilate and shew it selfe in as ample fourme as the whole towne firste appeared, so that ye shall descerne any trifle, or read any letter lying there open   Digges senior had obviously been experimenting with a magnifying lens, and it seems very likely that he invented the telescope about a half-century before it was unambiguously described in Holland in 1608. The first book, titled Longimetra, is a treatise on surveying using the quadrant, square and theodolite. The subsequent books, Planimetra and Stereometra, cover plane and solid geometry and their use in the calculation of area and volume particularly gauging.  Tomash \u0026amp; Williams\r \r The Pantometria provides a complete course in practical geometry, from the fundamentals ( A Line is a length without breadth or thicknesse ) to the most complex theorems. Digges provides numerous examples throughout, taking the reader through the steps of each calculation. The work concludes with the first appearance of Digges  work on ballistics, a new addition to the present edition.  He was able, on the basis of his own and his father s experiments, to disprove many commonly held erroneous ideas in ballistics but was not able to develop a mathematical theory of his own. These appendixes constitute the first serious ballistics studies in England  (DSB).\r \r A very fine copy of this most important work.","brand":"DIGGES, Leonard [DIGGES, Thomas]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816162107727,"sku":"K158","price":50000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K158-3.jpg?v=1781794892"},{"product_id":"pontano-giovanni","title":"PONTANO, Giovanni","description":"\u003cp\u003eHandsome clean copy of the second edition of this most influential astrological work. Giovanni Pontano (or Giovanni Gioviano, 1426-1503) was a poet, humanist and diplomat who, after studying at Perugia, moved to Naples. There he became an influential figure at the Accademia Antoniana (later Pontaniana) and the court of Aragon; he has been celebrated as the intellectual who introduced the Renaissance to Naples. His work spanned philosophy, natural science, astrology and poetry, and in 1512 his  opera omnia  in six parts of which  De rebus coelestibus  was the sixth was published by the Giunti in Florence. This is the second Giunti edition of the collected works and the fourth of  De rebus  as a separate work. Written in the course of twenty years, it was begun in 1475 just after Pico della Mirandola published his attack on judicial astrology. Pontanus sought to distance himself from the latter to pursue instead a kind of astrology which could benefit man, so that, through this knowledge,  astrologers could assess the nature of human beings, hence their inclinations and eventually the ultimate unfolding of their lives  (Cantamessa III, 6256). Presenting a cosmos based on Ptolemaic doctrines, the first section is a study of the nature,  houses , qualities and  fines  (degrees) which govern the interactions between planets and signs; this is mandatory knowledge for the real astronomer who should seek to identify the complexities of human nature. The second part analyses the  mapping  of the age and life of man onto the celestial system and changes in the qualities of planets according to their position. Parts three to eight focus on the effects of planetary interactions on individuals born under specific conjunctures. The last few sections are mostly devoted to medical conditions (e.g., sterility, skin illnesses, limping, epilepsy, kidney stones, baldness, nervous and mental issues). Despite his attempt to detach himself from judicial astrology, following the credo of Neo-Platonists like Pico and their scepticism against astral causation, Pontano remained greatly attracted to astrology and alchemy as appears from his  Letter on the Philosophical Fire . He was in time celebrated as a protagonist of the hermetic scene in Naples hence the intriguing Masonic provenance of this copy, from the library of the Supreme Council 33, one of two main governing bodies of the Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the USA.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PONTANO, Giovanni","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816162468175,"sku":"L3109","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190409_175207.jpg?v=1781794892"},{"product_id":"wingate-edmund","title":"WINGATE, Edmund","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of the third edition of this rare work on logarithms. In 1624, when Wingate was in France, he produced a short tract on logarithms in which he indicates:  I had the happinesse to be the first transporter of the use of these inventions into those parts.  In 1626, he translated his French work into English and it became the first edition of this book. In the preface he indicates that it is nothing more than a condensation of the work of Henry Briggs  Arithmetic logarithmica, which he must have acquired shortly before he left London as it was only published in 1624. This is the third edition (all of them edited by Wingate). It consists of a series of twenty-eight problems covering everything from simple multiplication to spherical geometry, followed by an appendix containing another forty-six problems in which he briefly discusses, usually in one sentence, the rule for finding the answer. The tables were apparently printed separately, perhaps for a French edition in 1635. They have French titles on both the tables and the column headings. The paper also has a different watermark from that used to print the text. Wingate s work on arithmetic  Of natural and artificial arithmetick  was used in many English schools and remained in print for more than a century. It established Wingate s name as a writer of texts and did more for his reputation than any of his more advanced works on logarithms or instruments. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Wingate was born in Yorkshire and studied law at Oxford. Although he remained a lawyer, he was an avid amateur mathematician and writer of mathematical texts. He spent twenty-six years in Paris, where, among other things, he was tutor to the French princess Henrietta Maria. It was during his early days in Paris that he published two works (Construction, description et usage de la règle de proportion, 1624, and Arithm étique logarithmique, 1626) that introduced logarithms to the French. He returned to England in 1650 and entered politics but continued to write on mathematical subjects. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  After groundbreaking publications by the British mathematicians John Napier and Henry Briggs, Edmund Wingate, an English mathematician who was temporally based in Paris, emphasised the power of the combination of decimal fractions and common logarithms   that is to say, logarithms to the base of 10   to assist practitioners, such as surveyors navigators and carpenters , to make the kind of calculations that they were likely to need to make in their daily workplace. On returning to England, Wingate wrote a text designed for use in schools, in which he advocated the application of decimal fractions and logarithms as a way of simplifying calculations. M.A. Clements  Thomas Jefferson and his Decimals 1775 1810.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WINGATE, Edmund","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816164139343,"sku":"L3024","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190622_175801.jpg?v=1781794880"},{"product_id":"ptolomaeus-claudius-bourdin-de-villennes-nicolas","title":"PTOLOMAEUS, Claudius. [Bourdin de Villennes, Nicolas.]","description":"\u003cp\u003eA remarkable authorial presentation copy of this rare first edition of the first French translation of Ptolemy s Tetrabiblos, finely bound with the authors arms and a long manuscript presentation letter to Monsieur de Saint L éger of Avignon. Little is known about Nicolas Bourdin, except that he was born around 1583 to a Berry family, was a prot ég é of Gaston d Orleans and died governor of Vitry-le-François in 1676. His controversies with Jean-Baptiste Morin (1583-1656), another Ptolemaic astrologer, probably derived from Morin s status as the prot ég é of Richelieu. The ms. dedication is most interesting as he refers to the nature of his translation and to the marginal notes he has made, stating that they are not made for the scholarly St. Andre, who already has a copy of the Basle edition in his collection, and who could have undoubtedly make better notes than the author. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Ptolemy (c.100-170AD) was a Roman geographer, mathematician and astronomer from Alexandria. His extant works, all written in Greek, influenced Western knowledge for centuries. Tetrabiblos  four books , also known in Latin as Quadripartitum  Four Parts , is a text on the philosophy and practice of astrology. Ptolemy s Almagest was an authoritative text on astronomy for more than a thousand years, and the Tetrabiblos, its companion volume, was equally influential in astrology, the study of the effects of astronomical cycles on earthly matters. But whilst the Almagest as an astronomical authority was superseded by acceptance of the heliocentric model of the Solar System, the Tetrabiblos remained an important theoretical work for astrologers. Besides outlining the techniques of astrological practice, Ptolemy s philosophical defence of the subject as a natural, beneficial study helped secure theological tolerance towards astrology in Western Europe during the Medieval era. This allowed Ptolemaic teachings on astrology to be included in universities during the Renaissance, which brought an associated impact upon medical studies and literary works.  Ptolemy regards the Tetrabilblos as the natural complement to the Almagest: as the latter enables one to predict the positions of the heavenly bodies, so the former expounds the theory of their influences on terrestrial things.   From the obvious terrestrial physical effects of the sun and moon, he infers that all heavenly bodies must produce physical effects  and  by careful observation of the terrestrial manifestations accompanying the various recurring combinations of celestial bodies, he believes it possible to erect a system which, although not mathematically certain, will enable one to make useful predictions.   Book I explains the technical concepts of astrology, book II deals with influences on the earth in general ( astrological geography  and weather predictions), and book III and IV with influences on human life.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A most interesting presentation copy of this very rare work. USTC locates four copies only; three in France and one at the BL.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PTOLOMAEUS, Claudius. [Bourdin de Villennes, Nicolas.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816164827471,"sku":"L3196","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190718_153803.jpg?v=1781794876"},{"product_id":"tunstall-cuthbert-1","title":"TUNSTALL, Cuthbert.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first English book wholly on arithmetic, by the great Catholic humanist, Cuthbert Tunstall (1474-1559). The work was Tunstall s farewell to secular scholarship as he was made Bishop of London a few days after its publication, and thereafter Lord Privy Seal. He wrote it so that his friends could make their own calculations and no longer be cheated by money changers. It is designed as a practical work on arithmetic with the emphasis on commercial transactions, undoubtedly based on models Tunstall encountered during his studies in Padua.  The book includes many business applications of the day, such as partnership, profit and loss and exchange. It also includes the rule of false, the rule of three and numerous applications of these and other rules. It is, however, the work of a scholar and a classicist rather than a businessman.  Smith p.134, It is dedicated to his particular friend Thomas More, who, the previous year had been appointed sub-Treasurer of England, because there was no more appropriate dedicatee than the man engaged in supervising the finances of the King This was also the return of the compliment which, six years earlier, More had paid Tunstall in the opening lines of the Utopia. The work was actually rather too scholarly for ordinary businessmen and it was not reprinted in England. However, it achieved some success on the continent and Rabelais (Oeuvres II 222) mentions it as required reading for the young Gargantua in Paris; it was also prescribed as an arithmetical study text in the Oxford statues of 1549, (together with Cardano). The dedicatory epistle to M[ore], gives an interesting picture of M[ore] and Tunstall  Gibson 157. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Cuthbert Tunstall began his studies in Oxford but soon moved to Cambridge because of the plague. He later studied Canon and Roman law at Padua. He held several appointments in Henry VIII s court and was made Bishop of London only a few days after this work was published. This is the first complete work on arithmetic to be published in England. It was preceded only by a chapter in Caxton s Myrrour of the World, published in 1481. .. In content and structure the work resembles that by Luca Pacioli and other Continental arithmetics, which Tunstall undoubtedly encountered in Padua or during his extensive travels for Henry VIII. An unusual feature in the book is the separate tables for addition and subtraction as well as those usually found for multiplication. .. Robert Recorde s English language arithmetic appeared fifteen years later in 1537 and seems to have eclipsed Tunstall s work, at least in England. The title page is a revised version of one by Hans Holbein, whose initials can be seen on the left border. The woodcut was first used by a printer in Basel in 1516.  Erwin Tomash. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Michael Wodhull studied at Winchester school when Joseph Warton was second master; he later attended Brasenose College Oxford. He was high sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1783. Wodhull wrote poetry, collected first editions of classics and incunabula, and contributed many items to the Gentleman s Magazine under the signature  L. L.  One of his Euripides translations appeared in an Everyman s Library edition. The character  Orlando  in Thomas Frognall Dibdin s Bibliomania is supposed to represent Wodhull. Dunn was a bibliophile who amassed a splendid library with particular strengths in early printing, law books and medieval manuscripts. His remarkable collection was sold in a number of sales between 1913 and 1917.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TUNSTALL, Cuthbert.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816166007119,"sku":"K165","price":32500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190718_150525.jpg?v=1781794874"},{"product_id":"ptolemy-claudius","title":"PTOLEMY, Claudius","description":"\u003cp\u003eExceptionally rare edition of this popular astronomical text, very charmingly illustrated with numerous woodcuts, the last of the early editions, the only edition printed in the seventeenth century. The rather rudimentary map is marked i.a. with Mexico, New England, the West indies, Peru, the Straits of Magelan, Brasil and Virginia. Below the two southmost capes is a the land mass described as the  South Continent . The work was originally translated from the French  Compost et kalendrier des bergiers , and appeared in two forms throughout the C16th; one as  The Kalender of Shepards  and the other with the title  The Compost of Ptholomeus . Although they are often described as containing nothing from Ptolemy, other than the falsification of authorial attribution, the work does have a general articulation of some of the astrological matters set forth in Ptolemy s Quadripartitum. The influence of astronomy over individuals is discussed, and this version has a chapter on palmistry added at the end.  In the  Kalendar of Shepherds , the putative source of the astrological and health information is initially an unnamed, ancient shepherd.   the authentication for the information in the text was a natural and pastoral figure of wisdom, the void of book learning. In the prologue, it is also stated that  this boke was made for them that be no Clerkes to brynge them to great understandynge  thus identifying itself as a text for a non-elite readership yet at the same time offering access to the very traditional classical learning skills and intimating a connection between the occult knowledge and active reading. .. In Notary s 1506 edition, Ptolemy is merely cited in the table of contents in relation to the twelve signs of the zodiac but not mentioned in the text. In Pynson s 1518 edition, Ptolemy is referenced both textually and visually, again in relation to the zodiac, but as a very minor reference in the text. .. Beginning in the 1530s, the strand of the multi-text breaks off; the text is condensed, new images are added, others are eliminated, and the title is changed to the  Compost of Ptolomeus, Prince of Astronomy  .. These editions, initially published by Robert Wyer, make a significant modification: the name of the Ptolemy is increasingly inserted into the verbal text, shifting the authentication from the ancient shepherd to Ptolemy. .. The Catholic feast day calendar is eliminated, along with much of the Christian moralising and, generally, a narrower focus on the astrological components. Neither the woodblock image of the shepherd nor that of the scholar carries over once the text is renamed  The compost of Ptolomeus;  instead, the symbolic function previously vested in the figure of the scholar shepherd is now conflated into the single figure of Claudius Ptolomy,  Prince of Astronomeye . ..In his editions of the Compost, Wyer not only strengthened the association of the verbal and visual text with Ptolemy, but also incorporated specifically geographical information; Wyer appends a  Rutter , a navigational chart of the distances between various port cities, consequently increasing the function of the text as a source of geographic information.. For English readers in the early print era the images of and attribution to Ptolemy thus narrate and mediate an encounter with emerging geographical thought. The textual and visual attribution to Ptolemy created a kind of aura for the text that mystified the diffuse authorship of the work, and that subsumed the fascination with the occult and Catholic ritual into a pseudo-scientific discourse.  Keith D. Lilley  Mapping Medieval Geographies: Geographical Encounters in the Latin West . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Unsurprisingly all editions of this ephemeral and popular work it are exceptionally rare; ESTC records no more than two copies of any of the five earlier editions of this text, and records this, the only seventeenth century edition, in three copies only, two at the BL and one at Birmingham University library. No copies recorded in the US.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PTOLEMY, Claudius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816166334799,"sku":"K153","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-1-1_9a584f5c-3067-4d95-ad05-137a9799d656.jpg?v=1781794869"},{"product_id":"peckham-john-gallucci-giovanni-paolo","title":"PECKHAM, John, GALLUCCI, Giovanni Paolo.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good copy of the first edition of the first Italian translation of this fundamental optics manual a  rare book  (Riccardi I\/1, 570),  rarer  according to Guglielmo Libri  than the original work  ( Catalogo , 1861, n.5656). Giovanni Paolo Gallucci (1538-c.1621) was a renowned mathematician and cosmographer, with interests in astrology; he was also a frequent translator of medical and scientific works, including  I tre libri . This was a major optics manual written by the English Franciscan John Peckham (c.1230-92), student at Paris under St Bonaventure, and later professor at Oxford and archbishop of Canterbury. Inspired by the theories of Francis Bacon, whom he met either in Paris or Oxford, his  Perspectiva communis  (1279) was said to be so named as it was widely used. In the following centuries it was  the most popular book on this subject  as well as  the text-book until as late as about 1600 , when Kepler published the first modern study of optics (ten Doesschate,  Oxford , 334). Gallucci s vernacular translation made this fundamental yet concise work available to a broader audience.  Perspectiva  was an explanation of the Arab mathematician Alhazen s theories in 100 propositions, most followed by Gallucci s brief commentary and illustrated with diagrams. Alhazen explored refraction, double vision and the physical circumstances that give rise to visual perception; he was the first recorded scientist to mention refraction by curved surfaces (ten Doesschate,  Oxford , 323). Gallucci s glosses feature examples taken from everyday life. For instance,  Propositio IX  illustrates why a fire appears bigger at night, and bigger from afar, when one cannot distinguish the individual flames. Gallucci compares this to what happens in church to a short-sighted person who looks at the many lit candles: without his spectacles on, the candles will appear like they are big, and touching one another; with his spectacles on, the individual flames will be discernible and the candles smaller. The long section on mirrors discusses the reflection of colours, the angles of incidence, transparency, the function of lead on glass mirrors, mirrors made of iron or diamond, spherical or plain or shaped like a column, and the appearance of images on broken mirrors. An outstanding, clear scientific milestone and the basis of key modern optics theories including Kepler s.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PECKHAM, John, GALLUCCI, Giovanni Paolo.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816167776591,"sku":"L3259","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8469.jpg?v=1781794863"},{"product_id":"regiomontanus-iohannes","title":"REGIOMONTANUS, Iohannes.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very handsome copy of the rare enlarged third edition; De triangulis was Regiomontanus s most important scientific contribution. Completed in 1464, it remained in manuscript for nearly seventy years before being published in 1533 in Nuremberg by Johann Petri. It contains the earliest statement of the cosine law for spherical triangles, stating the proportionality of the sides of a plane triangle to the sines of the opposite angle. This fundamental proposition of spherical trigonometry appears as theorem 2 in book V of the treatise. In the second part, Regiomontanus proves the errors of Nicolaus de Cusa s theory of squaring the circle, which had a profound effect on the history of navigation. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The first systematic treatise on plane and spheric trigonometry to be published in Europe. Although it drew heavily on Arabic sources, those earlier treatises had been either lost or forgotten by 1533 when Regiomontanuss work was first printed. Among the notable contents of this work are the sine law and perhaps the first European application of algebra to trigonometry. Indeed with De triangulis trigonometry was established as an independent discipline. Regiomontanus  original purpose, however, had been to furnish astronomers with a mathematical technique essential for their studies, and in this De triangulis had a success perhaps greater than its author could have dreamed of. For in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus presented a copy of the work s 1533 edition as a gift to Copernicus. The great astronomer had already written the trigonometrically-based portion of his De Revolutionibus without knowledge of his predecessor s treatise. After reading the new book, Copernicus modified the presentation of several of his own indispensable theorems by inserting two leaves in the manuscript of the De Revolutionibus. Hence, Rheticus  remark that Regiomontanus began the reconstruction of astronomy that Copernicus completed takes on a fuller meaning  Rose,  The Italian Renaissance of Mathematics,   This edition is enlarged with by two early complementary treatises the  Tabula sinuum ad 6000000 partes per I. de Regiomonte computata  and the  Tractatus super propositiones Ptolemaei de sinubus et chordis  by Peurbach. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The second work in this volume is the first appearance of an expanded treatise by Santbech on astronomy. It deals with instruments for astronomical observation, and details various methods of measurement using Regiomontanus  work on triangles, described in the first work. It is interesting for its post Copernican perspective, who is cited in the work. Thomas Digges also cites the work in his  An Arithmeticall Militarie Treatise ; see Military Books, p. 23. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy from the extraordinary scientific library of the Earls of Macclesfield.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REGIOMONTANUS, Iohannes.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816168989007,"sku":"L3088","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6668-scaled.jpg?v=1781794859"},{"product_id":"wells-john-with-briggs-henry","title":"WELLS, John [with] BRIGGS, Henry.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this important mathematical work, even rarer as the variant including the volume of Henry Briggs's Table of logarithms. Wells wrote this book on dialling in 1622, when it was read by his friends Briggs and Gunter, who urged him to publish. A preface \"To the Lover of the Mathematiques\" was contributed by Henry Gellibrand. According to ESTC, this is a \"variant\" of Wells's work \"issued with unsold sheets of logarithmic tables by H. Briggs and A. Vlacq, published at Gouda by P. Rammaseyn, 1626\", the title of which is, unusually, present here though slashed for cancellation. \u003cbr\u003e\n  John Wells was a London mathematician who specialized in the design of sundials. He was in close touch with the Gresham College mathematicians (Henry Briggs, Edmund Gunter and Henry Gellibrand) who worked with him on the more sophisticated issues that arose in designing accurate sundials, e.g., determining the correction needed due to variation of the compass, etc. In 1622, Wells wrote this book on dialing, which was so well regarded by Briggs and Gunter that they both urged him to publish it. Both men were particularly anxious to see it published because it represented a useful application of their newly calculated logarithmic tables (logs of numbers by Briggs and trigonometric logs by Gunter). Both Gresham professors died before this publication was accomplished, and it was at Henry Gellibrand s urging that Wells finally published this work. Of course it was necessary to have a set of logarithm tables bound in with the book. Adriaan Vlacq had worked with Ezechi‚àö¬¥l de Decker to produce logarithms of the integers. These had been published prior to Vlacq s famous 1628 tables. These tables had title pages in Dutch and French (and other languages). Unbound copies of these tables were obtained for binding with this volume. The plan was to bind them without their original title pages, and these were cut as a signal for the binder to discard them. This copy was accidentally bound with the cut title page (the French edition). Wells  intention that the title page be omitted is supported by the fact that it makes no reference to the logarithms of the trigonometric functions that follow the decimal logarithms. These latter are set in a different type and do not appear to be from de Decker or Vlacq. A likely attribution is to Edmund Gunter because the log sin of 0¬¨‚à´ 30 min. is correct in this table (as it is in Gunter s table of 1636 but is incorrect in Vlacq s table of 1628). Further information may be found in Tracts for Computer, No. XIII,  Bibliotheca Tabularum Mathematicarum (Part I Logarithmic Tables)  by James Henderson, Cambridge University Press, 1926.   Tomash, Williams,  The Erwin Tomash Library on the History of Computing. An Annotated and Illustrated Catalog  (This copy). \u003cbr\u003e\n An excellent copy of this rare work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WELLS, John [with] BRIGGS, Henry.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820343140687,"sku":"L3022","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_7083-scaled.jpg?v=1781794831"},{"product_id":"magini-giovanni-antonio-1","title":"MAGINI, Giovanni Antonio.","description":"\u003cp\u003eUncommon important ephemerides. Giovanni Antonio Magini (1555-1617) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and cartographer. A supporter of the geocentric system, in 1588 he was preferred to Galileo Galilei as professor of mathematics at Bologna. His copious production includes works on quadrants, commentaries on Ptolemy, Regiomontanus and Vi√®tes, and an atlas of Italy. In the 1580s, he began to publish  Ephemerides  numerical tables providing the trajectories and positions of celestial bodies at regular intervals, over the course of several years. He kept updating his calculations and they were reprinted seven times. The first, spanning the years 1611-30, was first published in 1612. The tables were created from the  Tabulae Prutenicae  first published by the astronomer Erasmus Reinhold in 1551, calculated from the position of Venice. This edition also includes a critique of J. Stadius s calculations, an introduction to judicial astrology, and treatises on the use of ephemerides, annual planetary movements, and fixed stars. The  Supplementum , here in its first edition, includes new tables based on Tycho Brahe s observations, including eclipses, and revised calculations of the previous  Ephemerides . For these, Magini relied on Kepler s  Tabulae Rudolphinae , making the  Supplementum   the first ephemerides calculated according to Kepler s principles  (Cantamessa 4747). A short epistolary exchange between him and Magini was also included in this work, and printed for the first time. He also followed a few Copernican theories using  the exentricities and different epicycles which Copernicus had substituted to those of Ptolemy  (Delambre,  Histoire , 508).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MAGINI, Giovanni Antonio.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820346417487,"sku":"L3293","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6363.webp?v=1781794813"},{"product_id":"euclid-with-archimedes","title":"EUCLID. [with] ARCHIMEDES.","description":"The superb binding bears the monogram and arms (a fess, two stars in chief, a crescent in point) of Louis Bizeau (fl. first half of C17), a prominent bibliophile of whom little is known (Olivier,  Manuel de l amateur de reliures , V, pl. 486). Some of his bindings c.1645-50 have been linked to the same workshop as worked for Dominique S éguier (Quaritch,  Examples of the Art of Book-Binding , 108-9). His books, like this, had ruled pages, gilt edges and marbled pastedowns.\r \r Excellent, well-margined copies, in fine impression, of Francesco Commandino s Latin translations of Euclid s  Elements  and Archimedes s  opera omnia , with Commandino s commentary, the last two issued together. These texts provided the foundations of modern mathematics and physics. Commandino (1509-75) was a humanist from Urbino renowned for his translations of the ancient Greek mathematicians including Aristarchus of Samos and Pappus of Alexandria. Several of his Latin renditions of Greek mathematical terms, for which he relied on previous adaptations by Roman authors like Cicero and Vitruvius, became the standard. Euclid (4 th century BC) was the first to reunite mathematical findings from the ancient world into a coherent, bi-dimensional system centred on simple axioms of plane geometry, based on angles and distance, from which further propositions (or theorems) could be deduced. His  Elements  began with the crucial definition of  point ,  that which has no part nor size  and which is only determined by two numbers defining its position in space the fundamental notion on which the Euclidean geometrical system is based. Archimedes (287-12BC) was a mathematician, inventor, astronomer and engineer from Syracuse. The  Opera non nulla  includes all his recorded writings, except for the treatise on floating bodies and that on the method of mechanical theorems, which was discovered later. This edition the sole Aldine of Archimedes s works illustrates superbly his theorems on the area of circles, parabolae, spirals, spheres and cones, concluding with the famous  De arenae numero , a calculation of the amount of sand grains needed to fill the universe. It is followed by Commandino s commentary on Archimedes s works, where geometrical diagrams are substituted by numerical calculations.\r \r Charles Bruce (1682-1747), Earl of Ailesbury, Viscount Bruce of Ampthill and Baron Bruce of Whorleton, was a keen book collector. A catalogue of his vast library, comprising over 8,000 volumes, at Tottenham in Wiltshire, was printed in 1733 the second earliest catalogue of an English private library ever published (Pollard \u0026amp; Ehrman, 274-75), this copy being n.17, p.83. The library was eventually sold at Sotheby s in 1919. His first-born, who died in 1738 before succeeding his father, is probably the Robert Bruce who signed the copy in 1729.","brand":"EUCLID. [with] ARCHIMEDES.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820347171151,"sku":"K124","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9470.jpg?v=1781794810"},{"product_id":"blagrave-john-1","title":"BLAGRAVE, John","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this absorbing manual of mensuration by renowned English scholar John Blagrave (c.1560-1611). Blagrave s mathematical studies at St John s College, Oxford resulted in his earliest and most celebrated work, the Mathematical Jewel (1585) which describes his design for a planispheric astrolabe. The present work explores the many uses of a mathematical  staffe  of Blagrave s invention which could be used to calculated distances and height in different circumstances. The work commences with a dedicatory letter to his patron Sir Frances Knollys (c.1511\/14-1596), a prominent English courtier who served Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Blagrave enjoyed the patronage of this important figure from 1589 and 1596. The enterprising device is described in detail beginning p. 7: it is composed of two rulers with pointed tips, attached with a rounded joint and designed to open and shut. A series of diagrams describe the varying uses of the instrument, where the two rulers are opened to differing degrees and employed to measure an immense variety of conditions including the flatness of ground, a gunner s quadrant, and how to safely scale a wall or a tower. Uses range from scholarly, to military, to naval, and each is described with charming clarity and accompanied by detailed woodcuts demonstrating geometrical calculations within differing landscapes. The device would have been particularly useful for artillerymen (Erwin Tomash p. 157). The invention and publication of such instruments was a fashionable practice during Blagrave s era, with other contemporary notable innovations including the flushing toilet, the revolver and the backstaff. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An ornate bookplate indicates the ownership of Sir Peter Thompson (1698-1770). Thompson was an English merchant, MP, antiquarian and collector. He was both a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Thompson was born in Poole, Dorset, and travelled to London to seek a fortune. Following his successes, he was made High Sheriff of Surrey in 1745-6 and received his knighthood the same year. He relocated to St Albans where he was MP from 1747-1754. In his later years he accumulated a significant collection of books and antiquities, which he kept in his impressive town house in Poole.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BLAGRAVE, John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820351201615,"sku":"L3376\/2","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-37.jpg?v=1781794795"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-20_at_3.11.59_PM.png?v=1781964734","url":"https:\/\/www.sokol.co.uk\/collections\/science-technology.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}