De magnete, seu rota perpetui motus, libellus.
Augsburg: [Philipp Ulhart the Elder], 1558. First edition, of the greatest rarity, of “one of the most impressive scientific treatises of the Middle Ages … the first extant treatise on the properties and applications of magnets” (DSB), containing the earliest description of the pivoted compass – this work was published more than four decades before William Gilbert’s De magnete(1600), and written centuries earlier. The work also shows Peregrinus to have been a pioneer of the experimental method. This is a wonderful copy, in an exquisite strictly contemporary dated binding, bound with three rare 16thcentury works on astronomy and astrology (see below). Couched as a letter to a friend in Picardy, dated 8 August 1269, this is “considered the earliest known European work of experimental science, and the foundation of the study of electricity and magnetism” (Norman). “The thirteen chapters into which the letter is divided form the most original, extensive and important treatise on the magnet prior to Gilbert’s [in 1600]” (Wheeler Gift). This work was edited by the Lindau physician Achilles Gasser, famous for contributing the preface to Rheticus’sNarratio Prima(1540), the first published account of heliocentrism. In his introduction to the present work, which he dedicates to Emperor Ferdinand I, Gasser discusses Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world, the history of Arab and Western seafarers, and the benefits of the marine compass for navigation and future exploration, which are described here for the first time. Peregrinus’s latter is divided into two parts: the first is theoretical, presenting the laws of magnetic attraction, the polarity of the lodestone and every magnet (called ‘polus’ for the first time), experiments with separate lodestones, the attraction and magnetization of iron, and more. Part two applies these theories, presenting various devices that use magnetic attraction – the compass floating on water common at the time, an alternative compass without the use of water, as well as perpetual motion devices for clock and wheel, all four here pictured in woodcuts commissioned by Gasser. “Not only did Peregrinus bring together virtually all the relevant, contemporary knowledge on magnetism, but he obviously added to it and, of the greatest importance, organized the whole into a science of magnetism. He formulated rules for the determination of magnetic polarity, which then enabled him to enunciate rules for attraction and repulsion, all of which would today form the basis of an introductory lesson on magnetism. As the two magnetic compasses and perpetual motion devices for clock and wheel testify, Peregrines was also seriously concerned with the practical application of magnetic force. The subsequent influence of his treatise was considerable. The existence of at least thirty-one manuscript versions of it bears witness to its popularity during the Middle Ages. Of greater significance, however, was its eventual impact on Gilbert, who, in his famousDe magnete(1600), not only mentioned Peregrinus by name, but also drew upon the Epistolato build upon and add to the solid empirical rules on magnetic polarity and induction formulated by Peregrinus more than three centuries earlier” (DSB). This is a superb copy of a book that collectors will probably have at most one opportunity to acquire. Bern Dibner wrote in his Heralds of Science, in which Peregrinus is no. 52, that “Twenty copies of this book are known”. RBH lists no copy since Honeyman, and none before that since Quaritch offered a copy in 1934. The Honeyman copy made £11,000 in 1978 (to Quaritch) – for comparison, Honeyman’s three copies of the first editionPrincipiamade £12,500, £8,000 & £7,000. Provenance: 1) Johannes Delicasius (Theilenkäs) (1513-63) (blindstamp ‘Joann. Delicasii LL. Doct. Origine Posonien. Sive Prespurgensis MDLXI’ to upper cover, full page of annotations probably in his hand). Johannes Delicasius came from Poszony near Pressburg (Pezinok near Bratislava/Slovak Republic). He enrolled at the University of Vienna in the summer semester of 1513, obtained the title of Baccalaureus Artium on October 13, 1515 and four years later, on February 22, 1519, that of Licentiatus Artium. In the winter semester of 1529 he enrolled at the University of Ingolstadt, where he acquired the title of Doctor of Civil Law in 1549. From 1528 to 1537 he was procurator general and from 1549 to 1562 vicar general. Before he came to Regensburg, he was the first town clerk and mayor in Straubing, was ordained a priest and accepted into the Straubing Priestly Fraternity. Appointed to the Regensburg episcopal court, he familiarized himself with ecclesiastical law and fought with all means possible the introduction of the new doctrine in the city. He opened the Regensburg Synod of 1548 as commissioner of the vicariate. On March 18, 1549 he was admitted to the Regensburg Cathedral Chapter. At the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1547/48 he represented the two women's monasteries of Obermünster and Niedermünster. In 1557, the abbess of Obermünster, Barbara von Sandizell, sent him as a representative to the Reichstag in Augsburg. Johann Delicasius was a close friend of the famous historian Aventinus and in 1534 donated his tombstone on the west wall of the vestibule of St. Emmeram. 2) Manó Wagner (1857-1929), city councillor in Pest and Hungarian Royal Chief Advisor, with his library stamp on the title-page and on p. 121 of Al-Qabisi'sLibellus Isagogicusand his library label with shelfmark to inside upper cover. 3) Dr. Eszter Tóth (1948-2022), Hungarian physicist and educator who worked with the Hungarian Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner in the 1980s and was in close contact with Edwin Teller in the 1990s (cf. Register to the ET papers, Hoover Institution Library and Archives). Her textbooks on nuclear physics were widely published and saw numerous Chinese and Japanese editions. Acquired by the previous owner directly from her descendants. “Seven hundred years ago, Europe produced a scientific document of unusual originality, the most important advance in the knowledge of magnetic properties to emerge from Europe since the discovery of lodestone by the Greeks. On August 8, 1269, in a manuscript which bears remarkable resemblance to a modern scientific paper, Petrus Peregrinus, a French soldier, extolled the virtues of experiment several centuries before the better-known propaganda of Francis Bacon, described experiments with a lodestones sphere 331 years before William Gilbert published the results of his own inDe magnate, and in designing a perpetual motion machine began the long trail towards the unattainable. In a single short treatise Peregrinus achieved a contribution to magnetic knowledge which had eluded the classical cultures of Europe for a millennium. “Although the Greek, Thales, had known of lodestone by about 600 BC, the magnetic ‘climate’ in Europe around the middle of the 13th century was still extremely rarefied. At the end of a whole millennium of science and philosophy (600 BC to 400 AD), Europeans knew that lodestone would attract pieces of iron, and that the attractive power carried across some distance, but not that the strength of the attraction depended upon the degree of separation of lodestone and iron. They knew, further, that the attracted iron would adhere to the lodestone magnet, that the magnet induced attractive power in the iron, and that the influence of this induced power became progressively smaller as more pieces of iron were added at greater distances from the lodestone, but not that lodestone could be used to make the iron permanently magnetic. The phenomenon of magnetic repulsion had been discovered, probably in Egypt, and magnetic power of either sign was known to act through magnetically inert substances, such as brass, silver, and water. However, the most significant failure was that classical Europe had been quite unable to make the conceptual leap from a knowledge of attraction and repulsion to the idea of polarity, and thus never perceived the magnet’s directional property, which alone could have led to the development of the magnetic compass. “The reasons for the Greek failure to progress in magnetic discovery were two-fold. Firstly, magnetism was the only example of ‘action at a distance’ known to them (apart from electrostatic attraction, which was attributed to the same cause), and even at this late date, it is not difficult to visualise the conceptual problems involved here. But more important, perhaps, classical culture had an inbuilt bias in favour of speculation at the expense of experiment. Although Thales and his school had sought to break away from the completely mythical tradition to formulate objective explanations for material phenomena, little tradition of experiment developed. The interaction between theory and observation, which we now regard as essential for true scientific advance, was almost completely lacking … In this light, therefore, it is surprising to find a 13th century Peregrinus in no doubt at all as to the value of the experimental method. Although there are certain situations in which theoretical considerations are useful and certain subjects which are amenable to the realm of reason, the study of magnetism is one which requires, above all, the experimental approach … Peregrinus aimed to use his experimental data from which to draw conclusions. In this sense, the significance of theEpistola transcends the new knowledge contained therein” (Smith, pp. A11-A12). “Of the early years of Peregrinus nothing is known save that he studied probably at the University of Paris, and that he graduated with the highest scholastic honors. He owes his surname to the village of Maricourt, in Picardy, and the appellation Peregrinus, or Pilgrim, to his having visited the Holy Land as a member of one of the crusading expeditions of the time.In 1269 we find him in the engineering corps of the French army then besieging Lucera, in Southern Italy, which had revolted from the authority of its French master, Charles of Anjou. To Peregrinus was assigned the work of fortifying the camp and laying mines as well as of constructing engines for projecting stones and fire-balls into the beleaguered city. It was in the midst of such warlike preoccupations that the idea seems to have occurred to him of devising a piece of mechanism to keep the astronomical sphere of Archimedes in uniform rotation for a definite time. In the course of his work over the new motor, Peregrinus was gradually led to consider the more fascinating problem of perpetual motion itself with the result that he showed, at least diagrammatically, and to his own evident satisfaction, how a wheel might be driven round forever by the power of magnetic attraction. “Elated over his imaginary success, Peregrinus hastened to inform a friend of his at home; and that his friend might the more readily comprehend the mechanism of the motor and the functions of its parts, he proceeds to set forth in a methodical manner all the properties of the lodestone, most of which he himself had discovered. It is a fortunate circumstance that this Picard friend of his was not a man learned in the sciences, otherwise we would probably never have had the remarkable exposition which Peregrinus gives of the phenomena and laws of magnetism. This letter of 3,500 words is the first great landmark in the domain of magnetic philosophy, the next being Gilbert’s De Magnete in 1600. “The letter was addressed from the trenches at Lucera, Southern Italy, in August 1269, to Sigerus de Foucaucourt, his ‘amicorum intimus,’ the dearest of friends. A more enlightened friend, however, than the knight of Foucaucourt was Roger Bacon, who held Peregrinus in the very highest esteem, as the following glowing testimony shows: ‘There are but two perfect mathematicians,’ wrote the English monk, ‘John of London and Petrus de Maharne-Curia, a Picard.’ Further on in his Opus Tertium, Bacon thus appraises the merits of the Picard: ‘I know of only one person who deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy, for he does not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore, what others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man contemplates in all their brilliancy because he is a master of experiment. Hence, he knows all natural science, whether pertaining to medicine and alchemy, or to matters celestial and terrestrial. He has worked diligently in the smelting of ores as also in the working of minerals; he is thoroughly acquainted with all sorts of arms and implements used in military service and in hunting, besides which he is skilled in agriculture and in the measurement of lands. It is impossible to write a useful or correct treatise in experimental philosophy without mentioning this man’s name’ … “For nearly three centuries, [the Epistola] lay unnoticed among the libraries of Europe, but it did not escape Gilbert, who makes frequent mention of it in his De Magnete; nor the illustrious Jesuit writer, Cabeus, who refers to it in his Philosophia Magnetica (1629), and Kircher, who quotes from it in his De Arte Magnetica (1641); it was well known to Jean Taisnier, the Belgian plagiarist, who transferred a great part of it verbatim to the pages of his De Natura Magnetis (1562), without a word of acknowledgment. By this piece of fraud, Taisnier acquired considerable celebrity, a fact that goes to show the meritorious character of the work which he unscrupulously copied” (Potamian, Introduction to the English translation). “The Epistola is a brief treatise in two parts; the first, in ten chapters, describes the properties and effects of the lodestone, while the second, in three chapters, is devoted to the construction of three instruments utilizing the special properties powers of the magnet. “The scope of the work and the essential prerequisites for conducting an investigation into magnetism are outlined in the first two chapters. Since the Epistola was to constitute part of a larger treatise on the construction of instruments, Peregrinus explicitly confined his attention to the manifest properties of the magnet, leaving aside all consideration of its occult powers … “In distinguishing north and south poles (pt. 1, chap. 5), Peregrinus presented a qualitative description of the fundamental law of magnetic polarity. If a lodestone is laid in a plate or cup, which in turn is placed in a vessel filled with water so that ‘the stone may be like a sailor in a ship’ – that is, free to turn in any direction without colliding into the sides of the vessel – then the north pole of the lodestone (polus septentrinalis lapidis) will face toward the north celestial pole and the south pole of the stone will face to the south celestial pole. Peregrinus observed that whenever the lodestone is forcibly turned away from its north-south orientation, it will always return to that orientation upon removal of the constraint. “The effect that a hand-held magnet will have upon a floating magnet serves as a paradigm for the general effect that one magnet has upon another (pt. 1, chap. 6). If the north pole of a hand-held magnet is brought in close proximity to the south pole of a floating magnet, the latter will seek to adhere to the former, an effect that will be repeated when the south pole of the hand-held magnet is brought near the north pole of the floating magnet. After formalizing this behavior in a general rule, Peregrinus observed that when the like poles of these magnets are brought close together, ‘the stone which you hold in your hand will appear to flee the floating stone.’ To explain attraction and repulsion between the poles of magnets, Peregrinus resorted (pt. 1, chap. 9) to the agent-patient relationship so popular in medieval natural philosophy. He observed that if a magnet is broken in two each part will function as a magnet with north and south poles. If the opposite poles of the parts are then brought together, they will seek to unite and rejoin into a single magnet, since ‘an active agent strives not only to join its patient to itself but to unite with it, so that out of the agent and the patient there may be made one.’ Indeed, if the two parts were cemented at the point of contact, the opposite poles would become unified and the resulting magnet would have a north and south pole and be identical in every way with the original magnet … “The ability of a magnet to orient itself with the celestial poles in a north-south direction is transmissible to iron upon contact (pt. 1, chap. 7). Let a magnetized iron needle be placed upon a piece of wood or straw that floats upon water. The end of the needle that had been touched by the region around the north pole of the magnet will turn toward the southern part of the heavens; and, conversely, the end touched by the area around the south pole of the magnet will orient itself toward the north celestial pole (but not the pole star). Since the magnetized needle takes on the polar properties of a magnet, it will behave like a magnet. Consequently, the south pole of the needle will be attracted to the north pole of the magnet and repelled by its north pole (pt. 1, chap. 8). The polarity of a magnetized needle is reversible, however, when, as Peregrinus observed, similar poles of a magnet and magnetized needle are brought into contact. When the north pole of a magnet is made to touch the north pole of a needle, it converts the latter to a south pole. ‘And the cause of this,’ Peregrinus explained, ‘is the impression of the last agent, confounding and changing the virtue of the first’ … “It was almost inevitable that Peregrinus should have inquired about the source of magnetic force (pt. 1, chap. 10). First, he disposed of the popular view that mines of magnetic stone in northern regions were the cause of the north-south orientation of a magnet. To support his position, Peregrinus stated that (1) magnetic stone is found in many parts of the world; (2) the polar regions are uninhabitable and thus could not be the source of magnetic stone; and (3) a magnet, or magnetized iron, orients to the south as well as the north. In rightly rejecting this notion, however, Peregrinus overlooked the fruitful concept, developed later by Gilbert, that the earth itself is a large spherical magnet. Instead, Peregrines looked to the heavens in the belief that the poles of a magnet receive their virtue from the celestial poles. “Although knowledge of magnetic declination (apparently already known in China in the eleventh century) might have dissuaded Peregrinus from his opinion, there was reasonable evidence in its favor. Peregrinus was convinced that the poles of a magnet orient themselves in the meridian and that all meridians converge at the celestial poles; he was also aware that Polaris, the pole star, does not rest at the celestial north pole, but revolves around it – a fact virtually unknown to astronomers or seamen, which Columbus discovered for himself. From this knowledge Peregrinus concluded that the poles of a magnet, or magnetized needle, always point directly to the celestial poles rather than to the pole star, as commonly believed. From this conclusion it was an easy and perhaps irresistible inference that the poles of a magnet received their power to attract and repel directly from the celestial poles. Indeed, Peregrinus thought that every part of a spherical magnet received its power from the corresponding part of the celestial sphere. “As a test for this claim, he suggested the construction of a spherical magnet with fixed pivots at its poles, which would leave the magnet free to rotate. The sphere should be positioned on the meridian circle ‘so that it moved in the manner of armillaries in such a way that the elevation and depression of its poles may correspond with the elevation and depression of the poles of the heavens in the region where you may be.’ If these instructions are followed faithfully, the spherical magnet, receiving magnetic virtue from every part of the celestial sphere, should commence to turn on its axis round the pivots, thus simulating the daily celestial motion and functioning as a perfect clock … “Magnetic power as a source of perpetual motion is taken up again at the conclusion of the Epistola (pt. 2, chap. 3), where Peregrinus described construction of a continually moving toothed wheel powered by an oval magnet. The latter is so positioned that each tooth of the wheel will, in turn, be attracted to the north pole of the magnet. Under the influence of the attraction, the tooth acquires sufficient momentum to move beyond the north pole and into the vicinity of the south pole, by which it is repelled toward the north pole. As each tooth is alternately attracted and repelled, the wheel maintains a perpetual motion … “If Peregrinus’ attempt to apply magnetic force to perpetual motion was misconceived, his use of it in the improvement of the compass was surely not. He described two compasses, one wet and one dry. The first (pt. 2, chap. 1), a floating compass, represents a considerable improvement over those that had been in use; an oval magnet is encapsulated in a wooden case and floated on water in a large, rounded vessel. The rim of the vessel is divided into four quadrants according to the cardinal points of the compass. Each quadrant is then subdivided into ninety equal parts. A rule with sighting pins, positioned perpendicularly at each end, is placed on the encapsulated magnet. This rule extends to diametrically opposed points on the graduated rim. With this instrument, perhaps the first mariner ’s compass with divisions, not only could the direction of a ship be determined, but also the azimuth of the sun, moon, and stars … “The second compass (pt. 2, chap. 2), dry and pivoted, was deemed by Peregrinus an improvement over the floating compass. A vessel in the shape of a jar (which may be made from any solid material, preferably transparent) is constructed with a transparent lid of glass of crystal on which are market the cardinal points. After subdividing each quadrant into ninety parts or degrees, a movable rule with perpendicular sights is fastened to the top of the lid. An axis of brass or silver is positioned at the center of the vessel between the bottom side of the lid and the bottom of the vessel. In the center of the axis, and at right angles to it, two needles – one of iron, the other of brass or silver – are inserted perpendicular to each other. Upon magnetizing the iron needle, the vessel, with its lid, is turned until the north-south points of the lid are aligned with the magnetized needle (as an obvious consequence, the silver or brass needle becomes aligned in an east-west direction). Azimuthal readings of the sun and stars may now be taken by rotating the movable rule on the lid. Peregrinus appears to have been the first to describe such a compass” (DSB). Peregrinus’ Epistola is here bound after the following three rare works of astronomy/astrology: AL-QABISI (ALCHABITIUS) [Valentinus NAIBOD]. [Libellus Isagogicus – Al-madkhal].Enarratio elementorum astrologiae. Cologne: Heirs of Arnold Birckmann, 1560. Pp. [32], 171 (i.e., 471), [1], withprinter's woodcut device to title page, two initials and 19 woodcut diagrams in the text. First edition of this important commentary by Naibod on al-Qabisi's most influential work, ‘al-Madkhal’, the text of which is included in the Latin translation of Joannes Hispalensis prepared in 1144. It is an introductory exposition of some of the fundamental principles of genethlialogy, the astrological science of casting nativities, or divination as to the destinies of newborns. First published in 1473, it was the main book used in universities in the medieval Latin world where astrology was taught as part of the curriculum in medicine.The author, known as ‘Alchabitius’ in the Latin tradition, flourished in Aleppo, Syria, in the middle of the 10th century. “Although al-Qabisi's education was primarily in geometry and astronomy, his principal surviving treatise, Al-madkhal ila sina'at ahkam al-nujum (Introduction into the Art of Astrology) in five sections …, is on astrology. The book, as the title indicates, is an introductory exposition of some of the fundamental principles of genethlialogy; its present usefulness lies primarily in its quotations from the Sassanian Andarzghar literature and from al-Kindi, the Indians, Ptolemy, Dorotheus of Sidon, Masha’allah, Hermes Trismegistus, and Valens. Although completely lacking in originality, it was highly valued as a textbook” (DSB). “Together with the writings of Abu Ma’shar and Sacrobosco’s Sphaera mundi, al-Madkhal became Europe's authoritative introduction to astrology between the 13th and the 16th century … In 1560 the commentary of Naibod (also known as Nabod or Naiboda) appeared in Cologne. This professor of mathematics had previously published the first book of Euclid’s Elements and his own treatise on arithmetic. For his commentary he relies mainly on Ptolemy, Bonatti and Regiomontanus. Its wide circulation bears evidence to the vivid interest which al-Qabisi’s astrology engendered as late as the early 17th century” (Arnzen, ‘Vergessene Pflichtlektüre: Al-Qabisis astrologische Lehrschrift im europäischen Mittelalter’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften13 (2000) – see pp. 96 & 106). Naibod (1523-93) taught at the universities of Cologne and Erfurt, adhering to the Ptolemaic principles. His commentary on al-Qabisi was banned by the Catholic church. RBH lists three copies. MASHA’ALLAH IBN-ATHARI. De elementis et orbibus coelestibus. Nuremberg: Johann Montanus (Vom Berg) & Ulrich Neuber, 1549. Pp. [200],with several woodcut astronomical diagrams in text. The most complete edition of this “introduction to astronomy as well as a study of Aristotle’s Physics, both based on Syriac sources. Ptolemy and Theon of Alexandria are mentioned, but the planetary models are pre-Ptolemaic Greek and similar to those found in 5th-century Sanskrit texts” (Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, p. 741). Masha’allah postulated a ten-orb universe rather than the eight-orb model offered by Aristotle and the nine-orb model that was popular in his time. Of the ten orbs, the first seven contain the planets and the eighth contain the fixed stars. Masha’allah aimed at the lay reader and illustrated his main ideas with comprehensible diagrams. Two versions of the manuscript were printed: a short version (27 chapters), De scientia motus orbis, published at Nuremberg in 1504, and the expanded version (40 chapters) offered here. The 8th-century Persian Jewish astrologer and astronomer Masha'allah ibn Athari (‘that which God intends’) “wrote on virtually every aspect of astrology … His brief and rather primitive De scientia motus orbis [or De elementis et orbibus coelestibus] combines Peripatetic physics, Ptolemaic planetary theory, and astrology in such a way that, in conjunction with its use of the Syrian names of the months, one strongly suspects that it is based on the peculiar doctrines of Harran, to which al-Kindi and Abu Masar were also attracted … This important Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona of the lost Arabic original of this exposition was published by J. Stabius (Nuremberg, 1504) and by J. Heller (Nuremberg, 1549)” (DSB). Although very little of Masha’allah’s extensive output has survived in its original language except in quotations included in later compilations, the DSB lists twenty-eight works attributed to Masha’allah several of which contain horoscopes cast between 762 and 809. RBH lists two copies of this edition in the last half-century (and only one copy of the first edition, 1938). ABU ALI AL-KHAYYAT (ALBOHALI) [Joachim HELLER, ed.]. [Kitab al-Mawalid].De Iudiciis Nati'vitatum liber unus. Nuremberg: Johann Montanus (Vom Berg) & Ulrich Neuber, 1549. Pp. [128], woodcut initials, woodcut device on final leaf, diagrams on d2v-d4r, probably printed from rules and type rather than woodcuts. First edition, second issue (first, 1546), of the book on nativities by the Arabian astrologer Abu Ali al-Khayyat (c. 770-835), a pupil of Masha’allah. It was translated into Latin by Plato of Tivoli in 1136 and again by John of Seville in 1153; it is the second of these translations that is offered here, edited by Joachim Heller, Nuremberg's official calendar writer in the 1550s, whose dedicatory letter to Melanchthon precedes the text (on a2-a4). “His book on nativities is in the mainstream of the Arabian tradition. It is, therefore, very different from the Tetrabiblos. The principal differences are the use of the Lord of the Time, triplicity rulers, houses as primary sources of signification, house rulers, depositors, special rules for strength and weakness of planetary rulers, and concurrent use of special parts for judgement of specific matters. There is emphasis on reinforcement of indications by two or more horoscopic indications … It is not a beginner’s book. Abu Ali had written an Introduction to astrology, and he would have presumed that those who took up his Judgement of Nativities would have already mastered the fundamentals. Consequently, he does not usually define the technical terms he uses, nor does he think it necessary to explain how to calculate the parts he mentions … Abu Ali seems to have used what we call the Equal House method of house division. In this system. the degree of the Ascendant is the cusp of the first house and the cusps of the other houses are found by successively adding 30° to it … But underlying this system of houses is another more ancient system. In this method, which is still in use to some extent in India, the rising sign is determined. Then it is considered to be the first house, the next sign is the second house, etc. … In both of these systems, each house consists of exactly 30°. There are no intercepted signs as with the various systems of unequal house division, nor does the same sign appear on more than one cusp. This point as especially noted by Joachim Heller in the Introduction to the Latin edition” (The Judgement of Nativities. Abu’ Ali Al-Khayyat (Holden, tr.), 2008, pp. xix-xx). This second issue is identical to the first except for the title page. RBH lists three copies of the first issue, none of the second. [Epistola:] Wheeler Gift 46. Dibner 52. Sarton II. 1030-32. Mottelay 45-53. Stillwell (Science) 787 (note). Honeyman 2447. VD 16, P 1885. BM-STC German 682. Not in Adams.The Letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A.D. 1269, Arnold (tr.), 1904. Smith, ‘Petrus Peregrinus’ Epistola. The beginning of experimental studies of magnetism in Europe,’Earth-Science Reviews6 (1970), pp. A11-A18. [Libellus Isagogicus:] VD 16, N 14. BM-STC German 642. Houzeau/Lancaster 4882. [De elementis:] VD 16, ZV 10470. BM-STC German 599. Houzeau/Lancaster 1121 (“Très rare”). [De iudiciis:] VD 16, A 58. BM-STC German 1.
4to (199 x 152 mm), pp. [56], with armorial woodcut border to title-page and four half- to full-page woodcuts in the text, showing instruments and mechanical devices (insignificant dampstain to the fore-edge margin, the three works bound before the Peregrinus with occasional browning due to paper stock, the Libellus Isagocicus with professional restoration of some old worming at the top of the gutter to about 20 leaves). Contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards with stamped ownership: ‘Joann. Delicasii LL. Doct. Origine Posonien. Sive Prespurgensis MDLXI’ (lacking the clasps; extremities only slightly rubbed). A wonderful copy of an extremely rare and important book.
Item #6212
Price: $400,000.00
