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Science

Contact Andrea Mazzocchi

Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.
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  1. L’HÔPITAL, Guillaume François Antoine, marquis de. 

    Analyse des infiniment petits, pour l’intelligence des lignes...

    Paris, François Montalant, 1715. 

    Second edition (first 1696) of l’Hôpital’s famous Analyse, the first textbook on differential calculus, inspired by the work of Leibniz and the Bernoulli brothers, this copy profusely annotated by an anonymous but proficient eighteenth-century mathematician.

    £3500

  2. KRUMP, Epiphanius.

    Analysis syllogistica seu theses Scoto-logicae de syllogismo in communi, ac resolutione eiusdem in ea, ex quibus...

    Ingolstadt, Thomas Grass, 1695.

    Very rare thesis on the syllogism, by the Scotist Franciscan philosopher and theologian Epiphanius Krump, with students including Massaeus Kresslinger (1672-1742), who went on to publish a number of works on canon law and moral theology. Here, Krump discusses predicates, the basic rules of syllogisms,...

    £175

  3. LAMB, Sir Horace.

    Autograph letter, signed, to Thomas Bromwich.

    6 Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield, Manchester, 9 March 1916.

    A letter from Sir Horace Lamb (1849–1934) to fellow mathematician Thomas Bromwich. Lamb held the chair of pure mathematics at Owens College, Manchester, from 1885 until 1920. He ‘was a talented and inspiring teacher, whose lectures to generations of mathematics, engineering, and physics students...

    £125

  4. [ARISTOTLE – ELIAS.]

    Biblioteca Armeno-Georgica. I. Commentarii in Aristotelis Categorias Eliae commentatori adscripti versio...

    St Petersburg, Academiae Imperialis Scientarum, 1911.

    Uncommon edition, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, of the Armenian translation of the commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories by the sixth-century Christian philosopher and commentator Elias.

    £250

  5. WHITWORTH, William Allen.

    Choice and chance.

    Cambridge, Deighton, Bell and Co.; London, Bell and Daldy, 1867.

    First edition, scarce especially in good condition, of a key work in the history of probability and statistics. Whitworth’s best-known book, an accessible presentation of problems of probability and associated areas, was derived from a series of lectures delivered before the women of Queen’s College,...

    £225

  6. SACCHI, Giovenale. 

    Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze.  Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...

    Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761. 

    First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics. 

    £850

  7. BROGGI, Ugo.

    Die Axiome der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung.

    Göttingen, Dieterischen Universitäts-Buchdruckerei, 1907.

    Rare first edition of this doctoral dissertation on the solution of Hilbert’s sixth problem, written under the supervision of David Hilbert. The problem posed tried to axiomatize those branches of science in which mathematics is prevalent. Broggi here aims to establish a system with which to prove...

    £200

  8. KNAPP, Georg Friedrich.

    Die neuern Ansichten über Moralstatistik …

    Jena, Friedrich Mauke, 1871.

    First edition of a lecture given on 29 April 1871 at the University of Leipzig, presentation copy, the title-page inscribed ‘Herrn Dr Adolf Mayer, freundschaftlich G.F. Knapp’.

    £250

  9. BALLARIN, Vincenzo. 

    Dimostrazione sintetica della quadratura del circolo di Don Vincenzo Ballarin, piovano di S. Pietro della...

    Venice, Fracasso, 1828. 

    First and only edition of this confident but mistaken attempt at squaring the circle – drawing a square with the same area as a given circle using a compass and straightedge – later proven to be impossible. 

    £900

  10. RIEMANN, Georg Friedrich Bernhard.

    Ein Beitrag zu den Untersuchungen über die Bewegung eines flüssigen gleichartigen Ellipsoids.

    Göttingen, Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, 1861.

    the very rare offprint issue from the abhandlungen der königlichen gesellschaft der wissenschaften zu göttigen of riemann’s classic paper on rotating liquid ellipsoids, containing solutions of the equations of fluid dynamics that were later applied to the physics of rotating stars by chandrasekhar...

    £750

  11. DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.

    Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...

    Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.

    A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.

    £3000

  12. REID, Thomas.

    Essays on the powers of the human mind; to which are prefixed, an Essay on quantity, and an Analysis of Aristotle’s...

    [Edinburgh, W. Aitchison for] London, Ogle, Duncan & Co., and Edinburgh, J. Dick & Co. and W. Hunter, and Glasgow, M. Ogle, 1822.

    A beautiful set of this small format edition of the principal philosophical works of the Scottish enlightenment philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–1796).

    £750

  13. MARZAGLIA, Gaetano.

    Fascetto di pratiche matematiche spiegate alle persone popolari per uso del comercio umano, e civile, in questa...

    Verona, Dionisio Ramanzini, 1780.

    A lovely copy of the second edition, considerably augmented from the first of 1754, of this book of applied mathematical problems by the Veronese mathematician Gaetano Marzaglia (or Marcegaglia, 1716–1787), heavily influenced by the work of Wolff, who provides the motto to the book, and whose works...

    £650

  14. FISHER, George.

    The instructor: or, young man’s best companion … to which is added the family’s best companion.

    London, for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch et al. [not before 1735].

    Second edition (the first appeared in 1727). ‘Volumes entitled “The Young Man’s companion” exist in many versions and go back to the 1680s when William Mather produced the first of them. They are compendiums of useful information, intended for self-improvement. They concentrate on English, Mathematics,...

    £350

  15. BOSE, Johann Andreas.

    Io. Andr. Bosii introductio generalis in notitiam rerumpublicarum orbis universi. Accedunt eiusdem dissertationes...

    Jenae, Johann Bielke, 1676.

    First edition of a pioneering work of statistics and rare Americanum, by the philosopher and historian Johann Andreas Bose (1624-1674). Bose’s crucial intuition as a student of human societies lies in his advocacy of interdisciplinary investigations. His work ‘on all the states in the world’ marshalls...

    £1500

  16. [ARNAULD, Antoine, and Pierre NICOLE.]

    La logique ou l’art de penser, contenant, outre les regles communes, plusieurs observations...

    Paris, Jean Guignart, Charles Savreaux, and Jean de Launay, 1662.

    Scarce first edition of the work known as the Port Royal Logic. The authors were leaders of the Port Royal movement, and the book displays the distinctive tone of earnest piety for which the movement became famous. La Logique was the most famous logic text of the seventeenth century and set the form...

    £1750

  17. [BATEMAN, John].

    Land surveying. Definitions, problems, and theorems in geometry requisite in landsurveying.

    [S.l.], April 13th, 1866.

    An attractive and well-preserved manuscript copy book, signed at the end by one John Bateman, examining arithmetical, geometrical, and other problems connected to land surveying. After a section on geometric definitions, Bateman discusses chain and cross staff surveying, before offering a series of problems...

    £275

  18. [ROYAL PRUSSIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES.] 

    Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, ex scriptis societati regiae scientiarum...

    Berlin, Johann Christoph Papen, 1723. 

    First continuation of Leibniz’s Miscellanea berolinensia.  First appearing in 1710, the publication of the Miscellanea was revived in 1723 as the official journal of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences after the death of Leibniz, its founding President.  The Continuatio comprises...

    £575

  19. LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm.

    Oeuvres de Leibniz publiées pour la première fois d’après les manuscrits originaux avec notes...

    Paris, Firmin Didot, 1859-1875.

    A handsome seven-volume edition of the correspondence and historical and political writings of the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), the ‘last universal genius’, edited by Louis-Alexandre Foucher de Careil (1826–1891), with texts in French, German, and Latin. The second volume...

    £250

  20. FINÉ, Oronce. 

    Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da...

    Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587. 

    First Italian edition of the works of Finé.  Among the most influential scientific scholars of the sixteenth century, over three decades at the Collège Royale Oronce Finé (1494–1555) made considerable contributions to various branches of mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic to astronomy...

    £2750