Paris: Duprat, 1802. A fine copy of this influential text, which according to Babbage was "so perfect that any comment was unnecassary". "In discussing with a friend the formation of a section of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a society which had the distribution of Bibles as its mission..... More
Item #2252

Paris: H. Estienne & W. Hopyl, 27 June 1503. First edition of this very rare collection of works, in an attractive Roger Payne binding. The individual works are all first editions with the exception of Lefèvre’s Epitome of Boethius’ De arithmetica (first, 1496) and an unattributed Opusculum de p[r]axi numerorum..... More
Item #3866

Paris: Boudot, 1705. First edition, first issue, of Leibniz’s invention of binary arithmetic, the foundation of the electronic computer industry. This is the second of Leibniz’s great trilogy of works on mathematics and computation, following Nova methodus pro maximis et minimis (1684), his independent invention of calculus, and preceding Brevis..... More
Item #4824

Lyons: Jacob Marechal for Simon Vincent, 5 May 1517. Third edition, the first edited by the Lullist Bernard de Lavinheta (d. ca. 1530), of the Ars Magna, his greatest work, now recognised as perhaps the first work in computer science. “Lull invented an ‘art of finding truth’ which inspired Leibniz's..... More
Item #4363

Edinburgh: 5 February. Important autograph letter from the great Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin (1698-1746) discussing his most important work, Treatise of Fluxions (1742), “the earliest logical and systematic publication of the Newtonian methods. It stood as a model of rigor until the appearance of Cauchy’s Cours d’analyse in 1821” (DSB)..... More
Item #3411

Florence: Giuseppe Cocchini, 1666 (dedication dated 14 July, 1667). First edition, first issue, a magnificent copy bound in contemporary Italian red morocco gilt, probably for presentation, of the only publication of the Accademia del Cimento, the first organisation founded for the sole purpose of making scientific experiments (the more common..... More
Item #4707

Messina: Pietro Spira, 1558. First edition, ‘excessively rare’ (Sotheran, 1917), of Maurolico’s Latin translations of works on ‘sphaerics’ by four ancient Greek writers, Autolycus, Menelaus, Euclid and Theodosius, those of the first two authors constituting the first printed editions. Maurolico, one of the most original mathematicians of the 16th century..... More
Item #2881

Edinburgh; Padua: Andrew Hart; Giacomo Cadorino, 1619; [1667]. First edition, extremely rare, of this complement to Napier’s epoch-making Mirifici logorithmorum canonis descriptio (1614) – while the Descriptio gave the first ever table of logarithms, it was in the Constructio that Napier explained the method of their construction. It is here..... More
Item #4638

Cambridge / London: Typis Academicus / Benjamin Tooke, 1707. First edition of Newton’s treatise on algebra, or ‘universal arithmetic,’ his “most often read and republished mathematical work” (Whiteside). “Included are ‘Newton’s identities’ providing expressions for the sums of the ith powers of the roots of any polynomial equation, for any..... More
Item #4064

London: E. Allde, for H. Astley, 1562 [i.e., 1592]. Third edition (first, 1581) of one of the greatest rarities in the entire literature of navigation and magnetism, and “one of the first truly scientific books published in England” (Waters, The Art of Navigation, p. 153). “It is usual to ascribe..... More
Item #4986

[Colophon:] Venice: Paganinus de Paganinis, 10-20 November 1494. First edition, first issue (see below), very rare, this is a remarkable copy in entirely original condition and with a distinguished provenance, having been in the famous Giustiniani family from publication to the present day. The Summa is a work of enormous..... More
Item #4844

Cologne [Paris]: Pierre de la Vallée, [1656-]1657. A beautiful copy of Pascal’s 18 Provincial letters, bound in fine red morocco in 1865 by Chambolle-Duru, from the collection of Benzon (his sales catalogue no. 42, 1875) with two further rare works relating to Pascal. Provenance: inscription to title ‘Ex libris Congregationis..... More
Item #3426

Turin: Bocca Brothers, 1888. First edition, rare. “Calcolo Geometrico, G. Peano’s first publication in mathematical logic, is a model of expository writing, with a significant impact on 20th century mathematics” (Kannenberg). It may be regarded (in part) as a preliminary version of his more famous work Arithmetices Principia, published in..... More
Item #4029