pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

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MYLIuS, Johann Daniel (b. 1585 or 6)
Tractatus III. Seu Basilica philosophica continens lib. III. 1.
Horum prior continet philosophorum ac sapientum antiquorum
consilia super lapidem philosophorum seu medicinam universalem. 2.
Liber describit chymicorum vasa & fornaces. 3. Liber explicat quaedam
philosophorum obscura.
Frankfurt: apud lucam Iennis, 1618.
4to: );( 4 3a–3k4 3A–4L4 ; a–e4 f2 ; 202 leaves, pp. [88] 272; 44.
Allegorical engraving on title, full page engraved diagram on );(4v and
12 engravings in the text, mostly full page; woodcut diagrams.
16 engraved plates, the Wrst three folding. The Wrst plate (bound in the
prelims) is titled ‘In praefationem tertiam Basilicae Philosophicae’ and
signed M. Merian fecit’; two more folding plates (following p. 192)
and 3 double­page plates (bound as single leaves after p. 272) are of
chemical apparatus in series with the engravings printed on the text
leaves; each of the Wnal suite of plates, numbered 1–10, contains 16
circular allegorical images with surrounding text.
[bound with:]
Operis medico­chymici continens tres tractatus sive Basilicas...
Index geminus luculentissimus.
Frankfurt: prostant apud Lucam Iennisium, 1630
4to: A–M4 , N2 (–N2, blank), 48 or 49 leaves, unpaginated.
190 x 146mm. First folding plate soiled and frayed in the upper margin,
engraving on p. 195 shaved; worm tracks in a few outer margins of text
leaves; text browned and foxed, but plates largely unaVected.
Binding: Seventeenth­century mottled calf, perhaps English, sometime
rebacked, nineteenth­century writing exercises used as pastedowns, no
free endleaves.
Provenance: Contemporary signature on title, cropped, and illegible.
Walter Pagel’s name in capitals in his hand on pastedown.
First edition of the third part only of the three parts of Opus medicochymicum
(1618), together with the index to all three parts published
in 1630. Krivatsy 8235; Wellcome 4498; VD17 14:647009G.
This is the alchemical volume from Mylius Wrst work, a large treatise on
various aspects of chemical medicine.
‘In 1616, while still a candidate for the medical degree, Johann Daniel
Mylius had published the Iatrochymicus of Duncan Burnet. Two years later
a Medical­Chemical Work of his own appeared in three parts or Basilcae,
a designation probably suggested by Croll’s Basilica chemica. The Wrst of
these, called Basilica medica, was Hippocratic and divided into three books
on physiology, pathology and therapeutic. The second or Basilica chymica
contained seven books, of which three were on metals, the others on gems,
minerals, vegetables and animals respectively. The three books of the third