pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

8vo: )( 6 )( 8 A–3Q8 3R8 (–3R8) 3S–3Z8 4A–4K8 4L1 (=3R8?); (A)–(F) 8
(G) 4 ; 2A–O8 2P6 , 816 leaves, double page title and pp. [24] 1071 (i.e.
1070, 1055 omitted) [194]; 104; 236. Title in red and black, woodcut
illustrations in the text.
Double page engraved title signed ‘I. C. Marchand fecit, in Nürnberg’
and 19 full page engravings numbered A–T (A at p. 210; B–M
between pp. 968 and 991; N–T between pp. 1008 and 1023).
167 x 109mm. Some gatherings lightly browned, a good fresh and
clean copy.
Binding: Bound as two volumes in later eighteenth­century half calf
over sprinkled boards, Italian paste­paper endleaves, sprinkled edges.
An engraving of a chemical laboratory by I. Veenhuysen is pasted to
an endleaf in the Wrst volume and a manuscript titleleaf is added to the
second. Lower joint of Wrst volume cracked and torn, minor wear to
other joints and corners.
First edition. Ferguson I, p. 265.
A massive compilation centred on a reprint of Reusner’s Pandora (Basle 1582)
with a preface by Faust and numerous extracts and parallel passages from all
the main alchemical writers.
The Wrst edition of Pandora is one of the rarest books in the history of
alchemy, celebrated for its remarkable illustrations combining Christian
symbolism with alchemical operations. It is based on one of the earliest
German alchemical manuscripts, ‘Der buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit’ (the
text of which has apparently never been printed), of which the earliest copies
have been dated to 1415–16. Alchemical emblems only began to appear in
manuscripts around 1400. Reusner, a native of Lemberg in Silesia, gained
his MD at Basle and became town physician to Hof in Vogtland and then
at Nördlingen. He was apparently only the editor of the book, whose real
authorship is obscure and contested (Ferguson, i. p. 265).
In this edition, the famous woodcuts of Pandora are Wnely reproduced as
engravings. In addition there is a vast ‘Index rerum’ (pp. [194]); a ‘Lexicon
Alchemiae’ by Faust (pp. 104); and Wnally a ‘Summarischer BegriV’ (pp.
236). The last two parts are apparently not always present, or present in a
diVerent form. For example the Getty Research Institute copy has only a
96 page section after the ‘Index rerum’. The present copy conforms to the
description of the Young copy given by Ferguson.
In addition to this edition, Pagel owned Dyson Perrins’ copy of the Wrst
edition of Pandora, see my Catalogue 41, no. 105.
56
FIORAVANTI, Leonardo (1518–1588)
Three exact pieces of Leonard Phioravant Knight, and Doctor
in Physick, viz. his rationall secrets, and chirurgery, reviewed and
revived. Together with a book of excellent experiments and secrets,
collected out of the practises of severall expert men in both faculties.
Whereunto is annexed Paracelsus his One hundred and fourteen