Lot 503
Descartes, Réné
Rare Books, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: Rare Books, Manuscripts & Photographss | 10 May 2007
Description
Tractatus de homine et de formatione foetus. Amsterdam: Blaeu, 1686, 4to, title printed in red and black with woodcut device, woodcuts in text, [76], 239, some damp-staining, mainly marginal, early ink inscriptions on title of Josamis Szexenty, Stephani Miskolizi and Andres Marbosahi, two deleted; Forge, Ludovico de la Tractatus de mente humana, ejus facultatibus & functionibus. Amsterdam: Blaeu, 1688, 4to, woodcut device on title page, woodcuts in the text, [22], 241, [7], lacking a preliminary (?blank) leaf, some early scoring and underlining, somewhat damp-stained Gilbert, William, the younger De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova. Amsterdam: Ludovico Elzevir, 1651, first edition, title printed in red and black with woodcut device, folding map, woodcuts in the text, worming to G3, H3, I3, K3, L3, M3, N3, P3, Q3, R3, S3 &c affecting a few letters, lacking OO1, somewhat damp-stained, 3 works in one volume, contemporary Dutch blind-stamped vellum, upper joint split, tear to spine, lacking marbled free endpapers
Footnote
Note: Descarte's Tractatus is really a physiological appendix to his Discourse on Method. The first section of Gilbert's De mundo nostro contains an extension of the cosmological ideas Gilbert introduced into the last section of de Magnete. Goldsmid, p.23 [Descartes] and p.55 [Gilbert]