Science
Contact Andrea Mazzocchi
Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.
An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.-
ARCHIMEDES, BOETHIUS, and CAMPANO da Novara; Luca GAURICO, editor.
Tetragonismus id est circuli quadratura per Campanum...
Venice, [Giacomo Penzio for] Giovanni Battista Sessa, 28 August 1503.
The first appearance in print of any complete work by Archimedes, ‘generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians the world has ever known’ (PMM), including one of the earliest approximations of the value of π.
£18000
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[ARISTOTLE – ELIAS.]
Biblioteca Armeno-Georgica. I. Commentarii in Aristotelis Categorias Eliae commentatori adscripti versio...
St Petersburg, Academiae Imperialis Scientarum, 1911.
Uncommon edition, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, of the Armenian translation of the commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories by the sixth-century Christian philosopher and commentator Elias.
£250
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BAKER, Humfrey.
The Well Sprynge of Sciences which teacheth the perfect Worke and Practise of Arithmeticke bothe in whole Numbers...
London, Roland Hall for James Rowbotham, 1562.
The extremely rare first edition (one of two copies in ESTC) of a very popular guide to arithmetic by the London schoolteacher and almanack-maker Humfrey Baker (fl. 1557–87).
£35000
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BALLARIN, Vincenzo.
Dimostrazione sintetica della quadratura del circolo di Don Vincenzo Ballarin, piovano di S. Pietro della...
Venice, Fracasso, 1828.
First and only edition of this confident but mistaken attempt at squaring the circle – drawing a square with the same area as a given circle using a compass and straightedge – later proven to be impossible.
£900
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BERRYAT, Jean, et al., editors.
Receuil de Mémoires, ou Collection de Pièces Académiques, concernant la Médicine, l’Anatomie...
Dijon, Auxerre, Paris and Liège, F. Desventes, F. Fournier, et al., 1754-86.
The scarce first collected edition of these scientific papers from all over Europe (lacking only the last five volumes of the Partie Française), including among its contributors such famous names as Huygens, Leeuwenhoek, Hevelius, De La Hire, Mariotte, Réaumur, La Condamine, Haller, Maupertuis, Boyle,...
£6000
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BOSE, Johann Andreas.
Io. Andr. Bosii introductio generalis in notitiam rerumpublicarum orbis universi. Accedunt eiusdem dissertationes...
Jenae, Johann Bielke, 1676.
First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624–1674).
£1500
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BROGGI, Ugo.
Die Axiome der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung.
Göttingen, Dieterischen Universitäts-Buchdruckerei, 1907.
Rare first edition of this doctoral dissertation on the solution of Hilbert’s sixth problem, written under the supervision of David Hilbert.
£200
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DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.
Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...
Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.
A large, crisp, and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.
£3000
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EUCLID.
Στοιχειων βιβλ. ιε εκ των θεωνος συνουσιων. Εις του αυτου του πρωτον,...
Basel, Johannes Herwagen, September 1533.
Editio princeps of Euclid, the ‘oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today’ (PMM), a work which ‘has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible’ (DSB).
£18000
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EUCLID; Jean MAGNIEN and Stephanus GRACILIS, editors.
Euclidis elementorum libri XV Graece et Latine, quibus, cum...
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat, 1557.
First edition of Euclid’s Elements as edited by Jean Magnien and Stephanus Gracilis, with woodcut diagrams throughout, this copy extensively annotated by a contemporary student.
£5500
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FENNING, Daniel.
The Ready Reckoner; or Trader’s most useful Assistant, in buying and selling all sorts of Commodities either...
London, printed for S. Crowder … and B.C. Collins … in Salisbury, 1785.
First edition thus, edited by the mathematician and almanack-maker Joseph Moon of Salisbury.
£250
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FINÉ, Oronce.
Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da Cosimo...
Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587.
First edition in Italian of the works of Oronce Finé, including the translations of his Protomathesis (1532) on arithmetic, geometry, cosmography, and sundials, and De speculo ustorio (1551) on burning mirrors, the only time all five texts appear together in any vernacular language.
£2750
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GOSSELIN, Charles-Robert.
Plan d’éducation, en réponse aux académies de Marseille et de Châlons, dont l’une a proposé...
Amsterdam, 1785.
A most interesting sammelband of three rare French works on education from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, promoting, inter alia, the appointment of more women teachers, better education for girls, and the use of visual aids in teaching mathematics.
£875
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HODSON, Thomas.
The Accomplished Tutor; or, complete System of liberal Education … Embellished with twenty Copper-plates and...
London, H. D. Symonds, and Vernor and Hood, 1802.
Second edition, revised, of a voluminous catch-all schoolbook (first published 1800), by Thomas Hodson, of the Middle Temple.
£300
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HOPKINS, William.
Address delivered at the Hull Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, September...
London, Taylor & Francis, 1853.
First edition, an 1853 Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science by its President William Hopkins (1793–1866), inscribed by the author and given to his erstwhile student Francis Galton (1822–1911). A mathematician and geologist, Hopkins became President of the British Association...
£350
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HURRY, Thomas.
Tables of interest, from one pound to five hundred millions, for one day; by which the interest for any sum of money...
[Yarmouth], Printed for the author, and sold by Messrs. Robinson, London; and Downes and March, Yarmouth, 1786.
One of two editions published in 1786, the other one undated, ESTC does not give any precedence. Tables for calculating interest at a quarter, half, three-quarters, three, four, and five percent; intended as a quick reference for bankers and merchants. Hurry precedes his tables with four pages of example...
£150
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JEVONS, William Stanley.
Studies in deductive logic. A manual for students.
London, Macmillan and Co., 1880.
First edition. Jevons had been preoccupied with speculations into the science of logic from the early 1860s. In his work Elementary lessons in logic (1870), he had sought to give a clear notion of the results to which the discoveries of Boole and his predecessors necessarily led. The present work consists...
£175
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KNAPP, Georg Friedrich.
Die neuern Ansichten über Moralstatistik …
Jena, Friedrich Mauke, 1871.
First edition of a lecture given on 29 April 1871 at the University of Leipzig, presentation copy, the title-page inscribed ‘Herrn Dr Adolf Mayer, freundschaftlich G.F. Knapp’.
£250
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KOCH, Manfred (pr.), Primo SCHLECHTEN and Feliciano SCHARRER (resp.).
Philosophia rationalis sive logica centum assertionibus comprehensa...
Augsburg, Afra Sturmin, 1695.
A good copy of this rare dissertation from the Augustinian college at Rottenbuch in Bavaria, attempting to reduce logic (the science of reasoning) to one hundred numbered paragraphs. Describing the function and limits of logic, the authors, both Austin canons at Rottenbuch, explain the use of syllogisms,...
£275
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LAEMMEL, Rudolf.
Untersuchungen über die Ermittlung von Wahrscheinlichkeiten.
Zurich, Jean Frey, 1904.
The doctoral dissertation of Rudolf Laemmel, produced under the auspices of Burkhardt of Zurich, and the first attempt at founding probability theory on set theory and measure theory (the axiomatization of probability). The work discusses the rules of total and compound probability as axioms. The rule...
£250