Rome: Sumptibus Hermanni Scheus, ex typographia Ludovici Grignani, 1646. First edition of Kircher’s principal contribution to optics, treating light, shadow, colour, refraction, projection, distortion and luminescence, and providing early descriptions of the camera obscura and magic lantern. The work also includes some of the earliest observations with a microscope, preceding..... More
Item #4288

Paris; Paris: Veuve Desaint; de l’Imprimerie de la République, 1788; An V [1797]. An exceptional volume, in a fine contemporary binding, containing the first edition of Lagrange’s masterpiece, the Méchanique, “one of the outstanding landmarks in the history of both mathematics and mechanics” (Sarton, p. 470) and “perhaps the most..... More
Item #4300

Augsburg: Christoph Peter Detleffsen for the widow of Eberhard Klett, 1760. First edition, and a remarkable fine copy, of this cornerstone of modern optics, with applications which touch on astronomy and photography; this is one of the rarest of modern science books of this stature. “It established a complete system..... More
Item #4778

London: Printed by John Baskett … And by the Assigns of Thomas Newcomb and Henry Hills, 1714. First edition, and a fine copy, of the Act of 1714 establishing a reward for the discovery of a method of determining longitude at sea. “An early example of a means adopted by a government for encouraging..... More
Item #4825

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

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873. First edition, first issue, of Maxwell’s presentation of his theory of electromagnetism, advancing ideas that would become essential for modern physics, including the landmark “hypothesis that light and electricity are the same in their ultimate nature” (Grolier/Horblit). “This treatise did for electromagnetism what Newton’s Principia had..... More
Item #4564

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1869. A fine copy, in original wrappers, of the first book explicitly devoted to solar energy, whose publication coincided with the unveiling of Mouchot’s largest solar steam engine, the so-called ‘Sun Engine’, in 1869, which caused a revolution in the development of solar thermal power. Auguste Mouchot was..... More
Item #3048

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

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 integer i...... More
Item #4639

Palermo: Reale Stamperia, 1792. A fine copy, uncut in the original boards, of Piazzi’s account of the Palermo Observatory, which he established, and where he made the observations that led to his discovery, on January 1, 1801, of the minor planet Ceres. Specola Astronomica includes Piazzi’s description of the astronomical..... More
Item #3288

Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1654. First edition (see below) of this rare and controversial work on physical, medical and natural philosophy from a Cartesian viewpoint. Among the wide variety of topics covered, there is a chapter on the circulation of the blood (p. 267 ff.), and also an interesting section on magnetism..... More
Item #3222