A RARE COLLECTION OF LETTERS ON ALCHEMY

Francesco Onofrio di Marsciano, 'Clavis arcis Hermetis' ([Cologne] [c.1743]).

WORKING COPY OF A 16th-CENTURY SCHOLAR

A copy of Aristophanes' plays, printed in Florence, 1525, owned and annotated by the Greek scholar Johann Hartung (1505-1579).

[Duhan, Laurent:] Brevis Introductio ad phisicam

Illustrated lecture notes from the university of Paris, 1701, covering classes on physics by Laurent Duhan (1656-1726), the author of the popular textbook 'Philosophus in utramque partem'. 

After Antonio Tempesta, 'Twelve Emperors on Horseback'

An unlocated set of twelve prints (five featured in this photograph), of the first twelve Caesars on horseback, after the famous and influential series by Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630).

“The ‘Twelve Emperors on Horseback’ issued in 1596 are among the most successful and influential prints that Tempesta ever produced. The impact of the series can be gathered not only from numerous engraved copies, but also from pictures of rulers and noblemen on horseback by Rubens, Van Dyck, Zurbarán, Velazquez and many others that were produced throughout the Baroque age. Even Jacques-Louis David’s painting ‘Napoleon at St. Bernard’ is indebted to the visual standards of representing supreme rulership which Tempesta created and diffused in these etchings [...]” (Eckhard Leuschner, Introduction to the series in The Illustrated Bartsch 35/2, p. 153).

IMPORTANT TEXT IN SPANISH BOOK TRADE HISTORY

[Spain. Book trade] [Gonzalez de Ribero, Blas:]

 
Señor. Los libreros de los reynos de Castilla y Leon, por si, en nombre de los hombres doctos della, professores de todas ciencias, curiosos de saber, y de tener en varia leccion, y erudicion entretenido el tiempo, postrados à los Reales pies, con humildad debida, valiendose de las leyes Reales [...]
[n.pl.] [n.pr.] [c. 1636].

Folio, fols. 4. Woodcut first initial. Some spotting and soiling, especially to first page, a good copy, stab holes but no evidence of glue at spine, in modern vellum boards, MS note to p. 1, “No. 138”.

  
Lawyer’s plea on behalf of the booksellers of Castile and Leon, against the extension of a sales tax (‘alcabala’) to books. An interesting economic text, the author carefully sets out the parlous state of the contemporary trade.

ACCOUNT OF ALGIERS - ESCAPE ATTEMPT OF CERVANTES

[Cervantes, Miguel de] Haëdo, Diego de, O.S.B. [Sosa, Antonio de]: Topographia, e historia general de Argel, repartida en cinco tratados, do se veran casos estraños, muertes espantosas, y tormentos exquisitos, que conviene se entiendan en la Christiandad: con mucho doctrina, y elegancia curiosa.  En Valladolid, por Diego Fernandez de Cordova y Oviedo, Impressor de libros [...] acosta de Antonio Coello mercador de libros. 1612.

Extraordinary and important first-hand account of sixteenth-century Algiers, its government, society, and its Christian captives, this book also contains the first biography of Cervantes in Algiers, with a detailed description of his second escape attempt. Captured by pirates in the Mediterranean, the writer was kept as a slave in the city between 1575 and 1580, before a ransom was paid. Cervantes’s experiences in Algiers informed writings including ‘Don Quixote’, and he wrote two plays on the subject (’El trato de Argel’ and ‘Los baños de Argel’). In England, the present book, and its account of Cervantes, were used by John Morgan in his ‘History of Algiers’ (1731).