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NIEUHOF, Joan (ed.). KIRCHER, Athanasius. OGILBY, John (trans.).
AN EMBASSY FROM THE EAST-INDIA COMPANY OF THE UNITED PROVINCES TO THE GRAND TARTAR CHAM EMPEROUR OF CHINA, Delivered by Their Excell[en]cies Peter de Goyer, and Jacob de Keyzer, at His Imperial City of Peking. Wherein the Cities, Towns, Villages, Ports, Rivers, &c. in Their Passages from Canton to Peking, Are Ingeniously Described... Also an Epistle of Father John Adams Their Antagonist, Concerning the Whole Negotiation, with an Appendix of Several Remarks Taken out of Father Athanasius Kircher. Englished and Set Forth with Their Several Sculptures, by John Ogilby, Esq; Master of His Majesties Revels in the Kingdom of Ireland. London: Printed by John Macock for the Author, MDCLXIX [1669].
Folio, (3), (1 blank), 146, (2 blank), 149-184, 205-327, (1 blank); 18, (2 blank); 106pp, concluding “Narrative of the Success of an Embassage” and Kircher “Appendix” each with separate pagination and register; engr. frontisportrait, extra engr. title (dated 1668), general title in red and black, 18 full-page engr. plates, 2 double-page engr. plates (“Description of Asia” and “Groundplat of Kanton”), 121 engr. text illus., woodcut head- and tail pieces, historiated initials, printed side-notes. Complete with both blank leaves: 2P2 (in the first series between pages 146 and 149) and e2 (preceding the “Appendix”). Sumptuously rebound in full English-style paneled calf, detailed in blind, spine with raised bands and gilt morocco lettering piece. Old cellotape at margins of first several leaves and accompanying reinforcement verso gutter joint of bi-folial map; occasional smudges and a few (strictly marginal) clean tears; text and plates overall crisp and nearly fine with occasional mild dampstain at bottom corner and fore-edge; slight erosion at bottom corner first and last several leaves; 1 plate with 4mm hole. Generally a very good or better copy, complete with all maps and plates, in a superb period style binding
¶ First English Edition of Nieuhof’s celebrated account of the first trade mission undertaken by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to the imperial court of China and one of the very few non-Jesuit sources of the period. Originally published in Dutch in 1665, it “is regarded as the definitive account of the Dutch embassy to Peking...” (Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800, p.752). The Dutch traveler and adventurer Joan Nieuhof (1618-1672) began his career with the Dutch West India company, serving in the West Indies and Brazil from 1640 to 1649, and later moved into the employ of the Dutch East India Company at Batavia as director on the Malabar coast. He was chosen to accompany Pieter de Goyer and Jakob de Keyser on their crucial embassy to the Chinese court from 1655 to 1657, likely on account of his skill as a draughtsman. A keen observer of his surroundings and a skilful writer, “Nieuhof provides firsthand information about his experiences...”(Lach-Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, III, p.500) along with gleanings from important Jesuit sources. The published account of the Dutch embassy was the most profusely illustrated work on China of the period, and its lavish engravings provided “European readers with more realistic visual images of China’s landscape and people than ever before” (Lach-Kley III, p. 484). Since the discovery in 1985 of Nieuhof’s original drawings it has been established how accurately his topographical illustrations were executed. His engravings depicting folk customs and native types were to have a lasting influence on the subsequent illustrated literature of China. The present English edition has been translated from Georg Horn’s Latin version (Amsterdam, 1668). Unlike the earlier Dutch, Latin, and French editions, however, it is has been significantly augmented with an appendix of copious extracts and additional illustrations drawn from all six parts of China monumentis (Amsterdam, 1667). This massive compendium of Jesuit material on China and the Far East edited by Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) is considered “the first publication of important documents on oriental geography, geology, botany, zoology, religion and language” (Godwin, Kircher, p.50). The renowned Jesuit polymath’s opus appeared the year following the publication of the original Dutch edition of the Embassy. Kircher draws upon his years of correspondence with colleagues in East Asia, most notably Johann Adam Schall, Bento de Goes, and Martin Martini, as well as accounts of the explorers Johann Grueber, Michael de Boym and Heinrich Roth, who had just returned to Rome in 1664. China monumentis opens with a detailed analysis of the 8th-century Nestorian inscription in Syriac and Chinese discovered at Si-an-fu in 1625, and goes on to present Kircher’s theory of the diffusion of idol-worship and polytheism from West to East. Both sections are substantially reproduced in our English version, along with significant excerpts from the remaining chapters on the exploration of China, its natural history, architecture, mechanical arts, and writing. Intriguingly, an English version of Kircher’s Mundus subterraneus also appeared at London in 1669 (although the translator is not noted). Together with the material from China monumentis in our version of the Embassy, these works appear to constitute the most substantial English translations of Kircher to ever appear in print. ¶ ESTC R-9298. Lowndes III.1692. Wing N-1152. For the earlier editions cf. Cordier, Sinica, p.2344. Landwehr, VOC, 539. Cat. NHSM I, 499. Tiele, 800. Lust 539. $14,500.
IMPERATO, Ferrante. HISTORIA NATURALE... nella quale ordinatamente si tratta della diversa condition di minere, pietre pretiose, & altre curiosita. Con varie historie di piante, & animali, sin’hora non date in luce. In questa seconda impressione aggiontovi da Gio: Maria Ferro spetiale alla sanita, alcune annotationi alle piante nel libro vigesimo attavo. Venetia [Venice]: Presso Combi & la Noù. M.DC. LXII. [1672].
Bound in two volumes, folio (355 by 255mm), (8), 348; 349-696, (7 index), (1 errata)pp, title in red and black with engr. vignette, folding engr. plate, 126 text woodcuts, numerous errors in pagination (mostly in second vol.), but text continuous. Contemp. heavy Italian rustica card wrappers, old manuscript lettering at spines. Wrappers lightly soiled, occasional light dampstaining (esp. at early leaves and top gutter of second vol.), some marginal smudges, else a fine, fresh, uncut and very amply-margined copy. $12,000. ¶ Second edition of “the first museum catalogue, containing plants and animals” (Cole Library). Like Francesco Calzolari and other of his colleages, the Neapolitan pharmacist Ferrante Imperato (1550-1625) accumulated over the course of his career an impressive natural history collection, among the very first of its kind in Italy. The pioneering catalogue of his museum prepared by Niccolo Antonio Stigliola was originally published in 1599. The work was much sought-after by 17th-century writers on the subjects of minerals and museums; aside from the present revised and expanded edition, a Latin version appeared at Cologne and Leipzig in 1695. Divided into 28 books, the catalogue contains substantial sections on mining (5 books) and alchemy (9 books), the remainder being devoted to animals and botanical specimens. Ferrante Imperato assembled his collection and published his catalogue at the moment when the wunderkammer was beginning to proliferate throughout Europe, amidst a tectonic paradigm shift in the Western conception of the natural world. Thus, the present work displays elements of both the Renaissance fascination with occult connections revealed in similitudes, and the emerging Classical preference for systematic classification and discrimination. The revolutionary nature of Imperato’s project is hinted at on the first page of his introduction where, just before referencing Aristotle, he subtly reverses the older relation between art and nature, by suggesting that art conduces to the perfection of stones and metals (la consideration delle spizie de metalli, epietre, con gli artificij di condurle all loro perfettione). “Ferrante Imperato took a scientific interest in his collection and was one of the first people to recognise the mysterious ‘bronteae’ and ‘ombriae’ as meteoric stones and proved that ‘Jew stones’, a popular ‘Wunderkammer’ specimen, were in fact the pertified points of an ‘echinus’” (Grinke). The edition under notice contains in its final section some addenda by Giovanni Maria Ferro (d. 1682), along with some additional woodcuts. The large folding illustration of Imperato’s cabinet of curiosities, the first such image to appear in print, is now reproduced in a fine copper-plate engraving (Hofer 76), an improvement on the somewhat cruder woodcut of the original 1599 version. The alert viewer will note that the illustration “clearly shows a two-headed snake and a lizard with two bodies joined to a single head” (Daston & Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, p.193). Grinke, From Wunderkammer to Museum, no. 22. Hunt 321. Murray I, p. 85. Nissen ZBI, 2111. Sinkankas 3109. Wellcome Cat. III, 328. Cf. Adams I-84 (ed.1599). Bird, 16th-Cent. Medical Books, 1308. Cole Library 319 (ed.1599) & 320 (ed.1695). Kelly, Catalogue of James Sutherland’s Library, 160. Mortimer, Italian, II, 345. Pritzel 4433. *For information on the proto-museums of the 16th and 17th century (all of which reference Imperato’s collection) see: L. Daston & K. Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750, New York, Zone Books, 1991; E. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge, London, Routledge Press, 1992. W. B. Ashworth, “Emblematic Natural History of the Renaissance” and K. Whitaker, “The Culture of Curiosity” [Both in:] Cultures of Natural History, N. Jardine (ed.), Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996. $12,000.
PROUST, Marcel. A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU. Paris: Grasset [&] Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Française, 1914-1927. 13 vols, 8vo, half red leather, a few volumes skillfully rehinged. Very good set.
¶ First Edition of Proust’s great work (wtih Le Cote de Geurmantes in the second state with the errors corrected and with the Grasset imprint). “How many times have you wished you had read the Recherche but dropped the book after reading the first paragraph? You might or might not want to recognize yourself. Reading Proust is indeed all about what has already been said: a work of fiction, chronicling the fall of aristocratic Parisian elites in a pre-first world war context woven in the poetic tapestry of ground breaking metaphors, at times comic or tragic, which transports the reader onto the labyrinthic journey of Time. Yet, have you ever thought of reading Proust as a meditation exercise where the experience of losing one’s time in the many folds of the tentacular text becomes the most appropriate way to regain a sense of time? If not, then relax, take a deep breath and open again that first book!” (Prof. Fanny Daubigny). $12,500.