Paris: Bachelier, 1835. First edition, presentation copy inscribed by Poisson to Marie Jean Pierre Flourens, of this classic work on the mathematical theory of heat conduction. “Poisson scored a point in this work by demonstrating how the conductibility of heat in the interior of bodies, far from being contained in..... More
Item #5242

Paris: Bachelier, 1835. First edition of Quetelet's principal work in which he presented his conception of the homme moyen (“average man”) as the central value about which measurements of a human trait are grouped according to the normal distribution. “With Quetelet's work of 1835 a new era in statistics began..... More
Item #4841

Paris: for the author, 1588. First edition, in a beautiful contemporary binding, of one of the most famous illustrated books of the sixteenth century and a landmark in book design. “The military engineer Agostino Ramelli produced a remarkable illustrated book in 1588 describing a large number of machines that he..... More
Item #5502

Venice: Bernhard [Maler] Pictor, Peter Löslein and Erhard Ratdolt, 1476. Second edition, an extraordinary and absolutely complete copy, of Regiomontanus’ Calendarium, the first printed in Italy; it was first issued in Latin in 1474 from Regiomontanus’ own press at Nuremberg. Printed calendars and almanacs became extremely popular in the fifteenth..... More
Item #5633

Göttingen: E. A. Huth, 1851. First edition, very rare, and an extraordinary association copy from the library of Carl Friedrich Gauss, of Riemann’s Dissertation, “one of the most important achievements of 19th century mathematics” (Laugwitz), “which marked a new era in the development of the theory of analytic functions” (Kolmogorov &..... More
Item #5632

Paris: Didot jeune and Knapen & Delaguette, 1772. First edition, a magnificent and very rare large paper copy (both larger and printed on thicker paper than the octavo issue), of one of the fundamental works of modern crystallography; it appeared 12 years before Haüy’s Essai d’une Théorie sur la Structure..... More
Item #5371

Nuremberg: Johann Joseph Fleischmann, [1753]-1758. First edition of one of the most beautiful works devoted to frogs and toads, with a strikingly beautiful frontispiece after the author, preface by Alfred von Haller and plates depicting all the then known species of frogs and toads indigenous to the locality of Nuremberg..... More
Item #5376

Bologna: Heirs of Giovanni Rossi, 1598. First edition, first issue, of this sumptuous work, presented by the author in its year of publication and of his own death. This is “one of the great rarities of early zootomical literature” (Cole, p. 90), with illustrations considered comparable to those in Vesalius’..... More
Item #5395

Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 1482. First printing, rare, of this assembly of basic texts of pre-Copernican astronomy, an exceptional copy in an untouched contemporary binding (this book, and its several fifteenth-century reprints, are almost always found in 19th or 20th century bindings). Sacrobosco’s De sphaera mundi (editio princeps 1472) was the..... More
Item #3949

Rome: L. Grignani, 1631. First edition, rare, the Macclesfield copy, of the first description of the construction and use of the pantograph, a linkage mechanism that allows the duplication or scale-altering of a given diagram or drawing, which Scheiner invented about 1603. “This was probably the first copying device” (historyofinformation.com)..... More
Item #5305

Ingolstadt: Eder for Elisabeth Angermaria, 1614 & 1615. First edition, in a beautiful contemporary binding, of Scheiner’s very rare work containing the second earliest map of the moon – but the first to give topographical details – as well as the first illustrations of a telescope. It builds upon Scheiner’s..... More
Item #4126

Leiden: Ex officina Plantiniana apud Christophorum Raphelengium. Academiae Lugduno-Batavae Typographum, 1599. First Latin edition, extremely rare, of Stevin’s highly important work on the determination of position at sea using the magnetic variation (or declination) of the compass needle, the angle between magnetic north and true north; since latitude was simply..... More
Item #5421

Oppenheim: Jakob Köbel, 1513 [colophon: 1512]. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy, of the most influential Renaissance work on astrolabes, and also the first German work on astrolabes, by leading astronomer and mathematician Johannes Stoeffler. This work, “the first book of original astronomy published in the 16th century” (mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/the-renaissance-in-astronomy/panels/3-stoeffler-astrolabe/), is..... More
Item #5236