Lot 78
Agricola, Georgius
De mensuris et ponderibus Romanorum atque Graecorum lib v.
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
De externis mensuris et ponderibus Lib. II. Ad ea, quae Andreas Alciatus denus disputavit de mensuris et ponderibus, brevis defensio Lib I. De mensuris, quibus intervalla metimur Lib. I. De restituendis ponderibus atque mensuris Lib. I. De precio metallorum et moneis Lib. III. Basel: Froben, 1550. Folio in sixes (30.5 x 19cm), 18th-century British sprinkled calf, spine with dove of peace motifs gilt to compartments, text in roman letter, frequent Greek and Hebrew types, woodcut Froben device to title-page and verso of errata leaf, historiated woodcut initials throughout, retaining medial blanks q8 and x6, manuscript bibliographical note in an 18th-century hand (possibly James Stirling's) to front free endpaper, manuscript marginalia to pp. 12, 35, 120, and index, a few leaves with pagination added in manuscript, binding rubbed, spine-label perished, front free endpaper near-detached, occasional faint creasing across lower fore corners, t1 with short slit to either side of peripheral section of diagram to create folding tab sparing diagram from trimming by binder, similar diagram on x4 just cropped at head, u4 with old stain to lower margin, a few other old marks and blemishes [Adams A344; Tomash & Williams A43; VD16 A 918]
Footnote
First folio edition of Agricola's treatise on weights and measures and the first to include, among substantial further additions, the important treatise ‘De precio metallorum et moneis’, which ‘breaks new ground in discussing the price differential between gold and silver and the influence on the local economy of foreign as well as counterfeit money’ (Tomash & Williams). The work was first published in 1533, in the form of a quarto edition by Froben in Basel and an octavo edition by Wechel in Paris, priority not established, followed by a Venetian quarto of 1535.