Susanne Schulz-Falster Catalogue Eighteen - International League ...

Scientific Illustration
106. TOMASSI, Marchetti. Nuovo Trattato sulla vera
Rettificazione del Circolo, with Dissertazione sul modo di navigare
sott’Acqua. Fuligno, Feliciano Campitelli, 1817. £1,500
4to, pp. 75, [1], 34, [2] blank, with six folding etched plates; uncut in
contemporary wrappers, early reback; a little dog-eared.
Second edition (first 1814) of a curious scientific work on ‘modes of navigating
under water’, with a detailed description of a submarine, illustrated
on a charming plate.
Count Gaetano Marchetti Tomassi (1774–1857) was an amateur mathematician
who studied various methods of squaring the circle, documented
here in the first essay, the second part contains a discussion of conic
sections, and the third of curves. The fourth essay, (with its own title page)
is illustrated with an etching of the submarine propelled by oars. Tomassi
describes his invention of a simple submarine, designed to protect a man
while navigating under water for prolonged periods of time. He hints at
military use of the invention and maintains that classical artillery could be
kept dry and functional in the submarine. In the introduction he writes
that he invented the submarine as early as 1799 and first published a note
of it and built a prototype in 1800. He claims his idea was stolen, and
six months later a copy was built in Rouen – Fulton’s ‘Nautilus’, the first
practical submarine.
Roller-G. II, 507; Catalogue Weil 6, 275; Anderson, Submarines, diving and the
underwater world, 1254.
With Trade Cards and Trade Advertisements
susanne schulz-falster rare books catalogue eighteen
107. [TRADE DIRECTORY – BIRMINGHAM.] Wrightson’s
New Triennial Directory of Birmingham, including an alphabetical
list of the Merchants, Tradesmen and respectable Inhabitants of the
Town; the Different Trades arranged under their own particular
heads; and the departures and arrivals of the various Mails, Coaches,
Waggons, Boats, and every other Conveyance. Embellished with
Plates, engraved purposely for this work. Birmingham,
R. Wrightson, 1815. £1,600
8vo, frontispiece advertisement, pp. [vi], 198, [1] blank, with 53 insert ed
leaves (10 of which folding), mostly engraved some letterpress printed,
one colour-printed; a couple of folding engravings with tears in fold;
original printed boards, rebacked; corners rounded, still a good copy.
First edition under this name, of one of the earliest illustrated trade directories
for the city of Birmingham. Wrightson’s lists some 4000 names, with
street address and profession, followed by an alphabetical list of the principal
trades, which gives a firsthand insight into Birmingham industries. Listed
are over eighty Brass Founders, twenty-eight Bridle- Bit & Stirrup-Makers,
nearly one hundred Button Makers (including Matthow Bolton’s Soho
Works), some eighty Gun Makers, about one hundred and twenty Jewellers
and Silversmiths to mention but a few. The listing shows very clearly the
predominant role that the metal-working industry had in the city.
The great attraction of the work are the numerous advertisements
placed within it, most of them finely engraved, similar to trade cards,
showing business addresses and relevant tools or products, shop fronts
and advertising material. Some of the inserts are letterpress printed and
give price lists of products sold or services offered. The directory, one of
the earliest of its type, was first published under the title New Triennial
Directory in 1808. They continued to be published until 1839 – though
not necessarily in three year intervals, but instead in 1815, 1818, 1823,
1828–30, 1833 and 1839.
The trade cards included provide a virtual gallery of classical or patriotic
motifs, which indicate how the owners wished to present the culture of
their business. Many engravings present the urban landscape, individual
buildings, industrial processes and manufactured products. They provide
an insight into how artists presented Birmingham’s architectural and
economic life at the start of the 19th century.
Norton 726; not in Kress or Goldsmiths’.