BALMONT, Konstantin
THE EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION OF THIS CHARMING COLLECTION OF FAIRY TALES WRITTEN FOR THE AUTHORS DAUGHTER NINA, WRITTEN AT A TIME WHEN THE POETS CREATIVITY WAS CONSIDERED TO HAVE BEEN IN DECLINE, BUT PROBABLY MORE SO A TIME WHEN BALMONT RECONSIDERED HIS LIFE PRIORITIES. Feinye Skazki, subtitled Childrens songs is a book Balmont dedicated to his daughter Nina, who was four at the time of publication. Ninas mother was Balmonts second wife, Ekaterina Andreeva. In these poems Balmont reveals an awareness of the small things that surround us and a childlike ability to feel amazement and joy at this miniature life. The unimportant things in nature are brought out, or, in Vera Zhibuls words, in the familiar the miraculous unfolds, and then again, in the visible that which cannot be seen. It is a fairy-tale realm, open only to the child and the poet, as Balmonts colleague Valery Bryusov pointed out. Earth with its flowers, insects, midges and small beetles and gnomes, is seen as the triumph of eternal beauty. A grain of sand or snowflakes on a childs tiny little finger are perceived with wonder. At the centre of Balmonts poetic world is the Fairy, everyones darling. For the poet she is his seductive Muse, turning reality into magic (Ben Hellman, Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children p. 230). The collection contains 71 poems, including the dedication.
BECCAFUMI, Domenico [Mecarino].
THE EXTREMELY RARE AND COMPLETE SUITE OF 10 ALCHEMICAL AND METALLURGICAL WOODCUTS BY BECCAFUMI, ONE OF THE LAST PURE STYLISTS OF THE SIENESE SCHOOL AND AN IMPORTANT MANNERIST FIGURE. OUTSTANDING IN DESIGN AND ICONOGRAPHY, THIS EXCEPTIONAL SUITE OF WOODCUTS IS VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN ON THE MARKET AND HERE PERFECTLY PRESERVED IN DEEP, FINE IMPRESSIONS. His work - although less Mannerist than that of the painters of neighbouring Florence - is filled with characteristic Mannerist iconography and detail: the elongated fingers, the theatrical posing of figures, skewed perspective and constant expression of spontaneity. All of these Mannerist details are implicit in this extraordinary series of woodcuts which have surrounding them a degree of mystery and even notoriety.It has been suggested by many sources that the woodcuts were either inspired by, or produced as, illustrations for Vanno Biringuccio s De Pirotechnia of 1540. Biringuccio s work, a treatise on metallurgy, would certainly account for the subject matter but, as an essentially practical work, and, given Biringuccio s negative view of alchemy, it clouds rather than elucidates Beccafumi s iconography. It seems more plausible that Beccafumi s series was inspired by, or illustrative of, an alchemical text or was intended as a liber mutus requiring a detailed analysis of the pictorial imagery, symbolism and allusion in the pursuit of a coherent esoteric meaning. Of greater mystery, however, is the order of the plates, the subject matter and the difficulty of Beccafumi s dense, alchemical iconography. The plates appear to divide naturally into two series: the initial five plates feature the alchemist and his assistant (both present in all of the woodcuts) as well as various symbolic beings, apparently gods, requiring courtship, capture, and refinement. The iconography of these five plates - and the figures themselves - is made simpler through the depiction of each god with their own symbols, thus: Venus, symbolizing copper, holds her dove; Saturn, with his sickle, represents lead; Jupiter, with the thunderbolts, zinc; Mercury, quicksilver; Mars, iron; Sol, gold; and standing at the top, Luna symbolizes silver (Caroline Karpinsky, The Alchemist s Illustrator). The series begins with the gods observing the alchemist in his laboratory, proceeds via an initial meeting, to the gods alarm at possible capture and, perhaps, the intended use to be made of them and their properties, their capture and enchainment by the alchemist and, finally, the gods being lead to the anvil. The alchemist s assistant, most likely symbolic of Vulcan, does the work, while the alchemist in pensive mode, looks on as director, scholar and philosopher. The second group of five plates, while appearing to be simpler, at least in thematic terms, is made more complicated by having no clear pictorial conclusion. What is clear is that the laboratory functions, metal refinement is successful, gold is extracted from silver (Kaplinsky s reading of the alembic plate) and bells and cannons are cast. In one reading the series finishes with an apocalyptic apotheosis of the alchemist, the sky turned to fire and the earth scorched. Another reading has the alchemist appalled at his creation, his laboratory dismantled and his assistant destitute. This latter reading seems to make more logical sense, particularly given Beccafumi s distaste for war. Equally the alchemical and metallurgical content of the plates highlights Beccafumi s interests in sculpture and metallurgy during the later period of his life. In common with some of the other surviving copies of this suite, most woodcut borders, and, in some cases, details are partly retouched in ink. The date of printing of this series is generally considered to be around 1540 , whereas D. Sanminiatelli, author of the standard monograph on Beccafumi, holds it to be earlier.
SCHOOTEN, Frans van
The de Thou copy of van Schootens work on conic sections, a work studied by Newton. Schootens first independent work was a study of the Kinematic generation of conic sections (1646). In an appendix he treated the reduction of higher-order binomial irrationals to the form x + √y in cases where this is possible, using a development of a procedure of Stifels. An interesting problem that Schooten considered was how to construct a cyclic quadrilateral of given sides, one of which is to be the diameter - a problem that Newton later treated in the lectures on Arithmetica universalis (Mathematical Papers, V, 162181). After the death of his father in 1645, Schooten took over his academic duties. He also worked on a Latin translation of Descartess Géométrie. Although Descartes was not completely satisfied with Schootens version (1649), it found a broad and receptive audience by virtue of its more carefully executed figures and its full commentary. It was from Schootens edition of the Géométrie that contemporary mathematicians lacking proficiency in French first learned Cartesian mathematics. Schooten possessed an excellent knowledge of the mathematics of both his own time and earlier periods. Besides being an extraordinarily industrious and conscientious scholar, a skillful commentator, and an inspiring teacher, he was a man of rare unselfishness. He recognized his own limitations and did not seek to overstep them. Fascinated by the personality and ideas of Descartes, he worked hard to popularize the new mathematics; his highly successful efforts assured its triumph. (DSB). This copy stems from the library of Jacques Aguste (II) de Thou, Baron de Meslay, Ambassador to the Netherlands, and Président aux Enquêtes, with his gilt arms on covers.
ROCCO, Antonio
First edition of this important and rare critique of Galileos Dialogo, published within a year of the Dialogo, and the work to which, as a consequence, much of the Galileos Discorsi e dimostrazioni mathematiche, intoro a due nuove scienze (1638) was written as a reply. Roccos Esercitationi prompted Galileo to explain how he detected and corrected the falsehood in Aristotles law of free fall (Shea) and formulated his own law of falling bodies. Wallace, examining the reasons why the Aristotelians are accorded better treatment in the Two new sciences, as compared to that in the Dialogo, remarks that a factor that is noteworthy was the publication of a book in late 1633 and dedicated to Pope Urban VIII that defended Aristotles teaching against the attacks made by Galileo in the Dialogo. The author of the work entitled Esercitationi Filosofiche, was Antonio Rocco, and it is to Galileos credit that he read and annotated Roccos critique and even wrote out a series of replies to him, some of which later appeared in the Two new sciences. Roccos text is arranged in eight sections. The first treats of general philosophical questions. The second is devoted to circular motion and velocity. The third is devoted to the composition of the heavens, the nature of matter, its form and substance, and the reality of substantial transmutation. The fourth is on the corruptibility of the heavens, comets, sunspots, novas, Galileos telescopic observations, etc. The fifth is on the moon and its relation to the earth. The sixth is on movement, and whether the earth moves or not. The seventh argues the immobility of the earth. The eighth is on various related topics, such as tides, etc. This work is especially interesting in the light of Pietro Redondis recent thesis that the condemnation of Galileo was motivated by his undermining of the tenets of peripatetic philosophy, and thus the philosophical edifice on which the Eucharistic mystery of transubstantiation was based. This was considered so threatening that the Jesuit scholars put on a show trial, with heliocentricity being Galileos alleged offence, in order to cover up the more serious Eucharistic crisis.
WERNER, Johannes
The extremely rare first edition of Johannes Werner s original publication on the theory of conic sections and on the motion of the eighth sphere. Communicated to Copernicus by the Polish cartographer Bernard Wapowski as an extract and covering only the motion of the eighth sphere , this section was critically studied by Copernicus, resulting in the so-called Letter against Werner. Whereas the original exchange between Wapowski and Copernicus was most probably intended to be private, Wapowski decided to share his friend s assessment of this single section of Werner s work. Manuscript copies of Copernicus Letter subsequently circulated among major scientists over a period of time, partly resulting in the wider distribution of Werner s entire printed work. Werner s mathematical works are in spherical trigonometry and the theory of conic sections. Werner s Libellus is a collection of five separate works published and financed by Werner s rich friend, the publisher Lucas Alantsee (died 1523 Vienna). The work, in five parts, which was written between 1505 and 1513, was not revised for publication by Werner. The treatise containing twenty-two theorems on conic sections was intended as an introduction to his work on duplication of the cube. For that reason Werner dealt only with the parabola and hyperbola but not with the ellipse. In a manner similar to the methods of Apollonius, Werner produced a cone by passing through the points of the circumference straight lines that also pass through a point not in the plane of the circle. In contrast to the ancients he did not consider the parabola and the hyperbola to be defined as plane curves but regarded them in connection with the cone by which they were formed. He proved the theorems on conic sections through geometrical observations on the cone. Werner s report on duplication of the cube contained nothing new, being only a revision of the eleven solutions to this problem found in classical antiquity; they were known to Werner from the translation of the commentary by Eutocius on Archimedes prepared by Giorgio Valla. Werner added twelve supplementary notes to his treatise. The first ten dealt with the transformation of parallelepipeds and cylinders. In the eleventh note Werner proved that the sun s rays fall on the earth in parallel, and in the twelfth he showed that the rays are gathered in one point on a parabolic mirror. The third writing in the collection of works dated 1522 also contained an Archimedean problem already treated by Eutocius, in which a sphere is to be cut by a plane so that the volumes of the two spherical sections are in a given proportion to each other. Werner added his own solution, in which a parabola and hyperbola intersect each other, to those of Dionysodorus and Diocles (DSB). One of several mathematicians credited with the invention of prosthaphaeresis, which simplifies tedious computations by the use of trigonometric formulas Werner is also considered a pioneer of modern meteorology. He is also famous for promoting the Werner map projection , a cordiform (heart-shape) projection map.
WEIERSTRASS, Karl.
CAREFULLY WRITTEN LECTURE NOTES OF A MATHEMATICAL LECTURE ON HYPERELLIPTIC FUNCTIONS HELD PRIVATIM BY THE GERMAN MATHEMATICIAN KARL WEIERSTRASS AT BERLIN UNIVERSITY IN SUMMER 1887. The unpublished lecture was handwritten on the request of the Mathematische Verein Berlin during the lecture, possibly by Victor von Dantscher (for his own research Felix Klein used an earlier version, copied by Adolf Hurwitz). The lecture was intended to appear in print by Berlin Academy of Sciences as volume eight of the collected papers of Weierstrass, but the volume was never finished. The mathematician Georg Feigl (1890 1945), since 1935 a full professor at the University of Breslau, had been asked to edit the lecture. Weierstrass introduced rigor into mathematical analysis and considerably enlarged the understanding of functions. Admired by Poincare for his unity of thought , Weierstrass was the most important nineteenth-century German mathematician after Gauss and Riemann Over the years Weierstrass developed a great lecture cycle, Introduction to the Theory of Analytic Functions ; Theory of Elliptic Functions [etc.]. Within this cycle Weierstrass erected the entire structure of his mathematics, using as building blocks only that which he himself had proven (DSB XIV, 219 ff.). Weierstrass s successful lectures in mathematics attracted students from all over the world. The topics of his lectures included: the application of Fourier series and integrals to mathematical physics (1856/57), an introduction to the theory of analytic functions (where he set out results he had obtained in 1841 but never published), the theory of elliptic functions (his main research topic), and applications to problems in geometry and mechanics. In his lectures of 1859/60 Weierstrass gave Introduction to analysis where he tackled the foundations of the subject for the first time. In 1860/61 he lectured on the Integral calculus. In his 1863/64 course on The general theory of analytic functions Weierstrass began to formulate his theory of the real numbers. In his 1863 lectures he proved that the complex numbers are the only commutative algebraic extension of the real numbers. Gauss had promised a proof of this in 1831 but had failed to give one. In 1872 his emphasis on rigor led him to discover a function that, although continuous, had no derivative at any point. Analysts who depended heavily upon intuition for their discoveries were rather dismayed at this counter-intuitive function. Riemann had suggested in 1861 that such a function could be found, but his example failed to be non-differentiable at all points. Weierstrass s lectures developed into a four-semester course which he continued to give until 1890. The four courses were: 1. Introduction to the theory of analytic functions, 2. Elliptic functions, 3. Abelian functions, 4. Calculus of variations or applications of elliptic functions. Through the years the courses developed and a number of versions have been published such as the notes by Killing made in 1868 and those by Hurwitz from 1878. Weierstrass s approach still dominates teaching analysis today and this is clearly seen from the contents and style of these lectures, particularly the Introduction course. Its contents were: numbers, the function concept with Weierstrass s power series approach, continuity and differentiability, analytic continuation, points of singularity, analytic functions of several variables, in particular Weierstrass s preparation theorem , and contour integrals. At Berlin, Weierstrass had two colleagues Kummer and Kronecker and together the three gave Berlin a reputation as the leading university at which to study mathematics. A large number of students benefited from Weierstrass s teaching. We name a few: Bachmann, Bolza, Cantor, Engel, Frobenius, Hensel, Hölder, Hurwitz, Killing, Klein, Kneser, Königsberger, Lie, Lüroth, Mertens, Minkowski, Mittag-Leffler, Netto, Schottky, Schwarz and Stolz. One student in particular, h
NELJUBIN, Aleksandr Petrovic.
FIRST EDITION OF THE EXTREMELY RARE FIRST RUSSIAN PHARMACOPOEIA - SEEMINGLY UNRECORDED IN WESTERN HOLDINGS - BY THE HIGHLY ACCLAIMED PHARMACOLOGIST ALEKSANDR PETROVIC NELJUBIN, A FOUNDING FATHER OF THE RUSSIAN PHARMACOLOGICAL SCHOOL. Following an apprenticeship in pharmacology and studies at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, Neljubin obtained his doctorate there in 1821, from which year he held the chair of pharmacology at the Academy. In 1824 he was promoted to the professorship in Pharmacology and Botany, headed the Academy on several occasions as their president, and directed one of the major the military hospitals between 1848 and 1858 as chief physician. Indefatigable, he also worked as an obstetrician from 1816, and became Town Obstetrician to the St. Petersburg district of Vyborg from 1817 to 1831. In 1822-1823 he travelled to the Caucasus to analyse the mineral waters there, and in 1830-1832 he actively participated in fighting the then raging cholera epidemic in St. Petersburg. Between 1831 and 1841 he furthermore acted as Scientific Secretary of the Medical Council, and also as Vice Director of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry from 1831 to 1837. Neljubin outlines the purpose of his work in the Farmakografijas preface, here summarized: the past ten years have shown outstanding advances in science, chemistry and medicine, more than in the entire previous 100 years. Competition in the medical field and among doctors has significantly advanced scientific research, and some of the newly developed drugs have now first been tested on animals, before being prescribed or used on man. Some errors, however, have been made by doctors regarding dosage, as well as with regard to the drugs prescribed. The year 1821 saw the publication of Magendies Formulaire pour la préparation et lemploi de plusieurs nouveaux médicaments, a work that combined all the latest recipes, prescriptions and instructions on the preparation of drugs, and which was almost immediately translated into many languages. Unfortunately such work is not available in the Russian language. Due to an overwhelming number of requests by provincial doctors and pharmacists and the inability to respond to these individually, he here applies his entire accumulated knowledge, and all the available international scientific literature and formularies to write this work, the first such work to be published in Russian. It offers as many alternative ways of preparing the same drug as possible, and includes case records of successful treatments, as well as failures. The work is dedicated to His Excellency, Yakov Vasilievich Viliye that is Sir James Wylie (1768-1854), 1st Baronet. Wylie was a Scottish physician and a man of extraordinary character and reputation, who served as a battlefield surgeon and court physician in the Russian Empire from 1790 until his death in 1854, and as President of the Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy from 1808 to 1838. He is considered one of the organizers of military medicine in Russia. Wylie was created a baronet in the name and on behalf of George III. On 2 February 1824 his title was recognized by the State Council of the Russian Empire, making him the only baronet in the countrys history. Constantly amended and updated, Neljubins Farmakografija went through a number of printings. Another edition was published at St. Petersburg in three volumes in 1831, and a fourth, four volume edition in the 1840s. In the year of the present publication and well before Ignaz Semmelweiss research into septicaemia, Neljubin suggested the application of a bleach-based solution for the disinfection of operation theatres, as well as of the hands. He also improved various methods for the production of drugs, as well as apparatus for the production of sulphuric ether, then in use as an inhalation anaesthetic. Neljubin was a member of numerous medical and scientific academies and societies, including the Pharmaceutical Society of St. Pe
[CHORALES AND HYMNS].
THE SECOND KNOWN COPY OF THIS FINELY PRODUCED PRINTING OF GERMAN CHORALES AND LATIN HYMNS, WITH THE PRINTED LYRICS SIGNIFICANTLY REVISED FROM THE EDITION OF 1557, THE ONLY EARLIER PRINTING. With the beginning of the sixteenth century, European music saw a number of momentous changes. In 1501, a Venetian printer named Ottaviano Petrucci published the first significant collection of polyphonic music, the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton. A. Petrucci s success led eventually to music printing in France, Germany, England, and elsewhere. Prior to 1500, all music had to be copied by hand or learned by ear; music books were owned exclusively be religious establishments or extremely wealthy courts and households. After Petrucci, while these books were not inexpensive, it became possible for far greater numbers of people to own them and to learn to read music From about 1520 through the end of the sixteenth century, composers throughout Europe employed the polyphonic language of [the Franco-Flemish composer] Josquin s generation in exploring musica expression through the French chanson, the Italian madrigal, the German tenorlieder, the Spanish villancico, and the English song, as well as in sacred music. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation directly affected the sacred polyphony of these countries. The Protestant revolution (mainly in Norther Europe) varied in the attitudes toward sacred music, bringing such musical changes as the introduction of relatively simple German-language hymns (or chorales) sung by the congregation in Lutheran services (Rebecca Arkenberg, Music in the Renaissance, the MET, online). Contained here are 84 German chorales, including 31 by Luther, and 64 Latin hymns, including the Magnificat set to 4 voices. VD 16 ZV 21307 (recording a copy at the Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, the only other known copy of this printing).
LATOMUS, Sigismund
A VERY GOOD COPY IN ITS ORIGINAL BINDING OF WHAT MAY BE THE FINAL PRINTING OF THIS SUPERB BAROQUE MODEL BOOK WITH WOODCUT LACE PATTERNS FOR NEEDLE WORK, WITH THE ARTISTIC QUALITY AND INTRICACY OF THE DESIGNS MUCH SURPASSING THOSE PRESENTED IN JOHANN SIEBMACHER S CONTEMPORARY PUBLICATION, WHICH USED COPPER ENGRAVINGS. ALL ISSUES OR EDITIONS OF THIS WORK ARE EXTREMELY RARE, AND RECORDED IN A VERY SMALL NUMBER ONLY. During the sixteenth century, the technique of lacemaking was freed from a woven foundation, and became a fabric in its own right. A number of notable pattern books for both needle and bobbin lace were published in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and these illustrate some of the pictorial designs that became possible using true lace techniques. Examples of lace exist which attest to the fact that these pattern books provided inspiration to numerous lace makers. There are essentially two methods of making lace: both involve the manipulation of fine linen thread and they are commonly referred to by the names of the tools used. Needle lace requires the use of a single thread and a needle to make stitches one after another that gradually build up a fabric. Bobbin lace uses many threads attached to small bobbins, which are interwoven in various combinations to create a pattern (Melinda Watt, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003, online). As with the other recorded examples of Latomus work, the title of his Newes Modelbuch is in contemporary colour, most probably publisher s. The central section of the lower part of the title border shows six women and two men pursuing needle work. The thirty-three woodcuts that follow, printed in black-on-white, show highly delicate, intricate patterns. Several incorporate various animals as well as mythological creatures; two include figures in contemporary dress. All printings are of the greatest rarity. See Lotz 45a-d, Lipperheide Yda 103, Murray Collection of Early German Books 294, and VD 17 28:720731U for other issues or editions of the work.
ROOMEN, Adriaan van [Adrianus ROMANUS]
FIRST EDITION, AND A VERY APPEALING COPY WITH THE WOODCUTS HERE FINELY COLOURED, OF THE FAMOUS FLEMISH PHYSICIAN AND MATHEMATICIAN S LATIN TOWN BOOK. Whilst the woodcuts are largely identical to Abraham Saur s German version, but with some omitted or added, this Parvum theatrum urbium is not a Latin edition of the German work published by the same printer in German language. The author of the small town book had died in 1593 and was not available for a Latin edition [and] so the publisher secured A. Romanus from Wurzburg as the author of a Latin text (translated from Fauser). Completely independent from Saur s, van Roomen s text is entirely new, displaying a very different and more succinct approach in his rendition of this geographical work, much reflecting his scientific education and orientation. The work includes 67 European woodcut city views and plans including cuts showing London, Lisbon, Louvain, Antwerp, Brussels, Rouen, Ghent, Lyon, Bordeaux, Paris, Frankfurt, Mainz, Aachen, Heidelberg, Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, Fulda, Wittenberg, Magdeburg, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Tubingen, Dresden, Worms, Leipzig, Erfurt, Jena, Lubeck, Brunswick, Strasburg, Basel, Geneva, Riga, Rome, Venice, Genova, Prague, Vienna, and Riga, as well as Constantinople, Jerusalem and the tower of Babylon (the final illustration contained). All are in fine colouring, employing red, various shades of green, as well as yellow, purple, and brown, with some delicate and carefully applied heightening in gum Arabic. The work s unillustrated part provides notes on various parts and cities of Russia, Armenia, Assyria, Serbia, Georgia, Albania, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Bactria, Afghanistan, Malabar, Ceylon, India, Siam, Cambodia, Korea, China, and Japan, as well as on Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Moluccas, Japan, and Turkestan. The final pages contain brief descriptions of Florida, New-France, New-Spain, Nova Galicia, Yucatan, Cuba, Brazil, Peru, etc. (Sabin 73000). Adrian van Roomen studied mathematics and medicine in Germany and Italy (he met Christoph Clavius at Rome in 1585, and dedicated his Idea mathematica pars prima, Louvain, 1593, to him). While at Louvain he published the first part of a general work on mathematics and in this he gave the value of pi to seventeen decimal places, an unusual achievement at the time (Smith, History of Mathematics I p. 340). In the same year he obtained a professorship of medicine at Würzburg and subsequently was employed as mathematician of the chapter there. He then went to Prague, was honoured by the Emperor Rudolff II, and travelled to France, where he met Viète. Provenance: early Dutch inscription to title page ( Cornely Deyn (?) Aemstelredamensis ), and a later inscription to front free end-paper. VD 16 R 3024; Adams R 694; Fauser LXIV.
A HITHERTO UNKNOWN JOINT COLLABORATION BY THE CANADIAN ARTIST DALLA HUSBAND AND LANGSTON HUGHES, WHOSE EMOTIVE SPANISH CIVIL WAR POEM MADRID 1937 IS FIRST PRINTED HERE. SIGNED IN PENCIL NO. II ON THE LIMITATION LEAF, AND ANNOUNCING THE WORK TO BE OR HAVE BEEN PRINTED IN FIFTY COPIES, THIS WORK APPEARS TO BE THUS FAR UNRECORDED. Canceling a 60-day tour through Russia that he was slated to lead, Langston Hughes left to cover the Spanish Civil War on June 30th, 1937. The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper sent him abroad to write trench-coat prose about black Americans volunteering in the International Brigades with articles being picked up by other news outlets such as Clevelands Call-post and Globe magazine (Jason Miller, Langston Hughes, 2020). Hughes lived at the headquarters of the Alianza de Intelectuales Antifascistas in Madrid for the greater part of his six-month stay in Spain, where he was welcomed by the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti and his wife María Teresa León. While food was scarce in the Alianza, the cultural atmosphere was anything but impoverished. Responding to the deadly drama of Madrid, Hughes wrote Madrid-1937. This long and passionate poem was not published until thirty-six years (sic!) later. Inscribed and sent in September 1937 to his friend and lawyer, Arthur Springarn, it revealed a city under siege. Madrid! / Beneath the bullets! / Madrid! / Beneath the bombing planes! Madrids civilian population still remained fiercely Loyalist, and Hughes found them holding out bravely against Francos aerial attacks. The poem presents Hughess reaction to the meaning of the Spanish Civil War. The first line of the poem refers to the bomb-damaged clocks and nightly blackouts in the city. Hughes likens the assault on Madrid to an attack on civilization itself (Luis Girón Echevarría, Langston Hughess Spanish Civil War Verse, in Anuario de Estudios Filológicos vol. XXVIII, pp. 91-94, with the present first printing of the poem unknown to the author). Hughes had lost over 14 pounds by the end of his six months in Spain. He was hungry but never bored. Hemingway threw a farewell party for Hughes in Madrid. It started only after one of the heaviest shelling attacks on the city finally ended, leaving a very drunk poet stumbling with Guillén to a bus that sped them to Valencia (Jason Miller, ibid.). In the dynamic, avant-garde milieu of Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, Winnipeg-born artist Gladys Dalla Husband (1899 - 1943) established herself as an imaginative and innovative artist. She used a legacy to travel to Europe and study art with Stanley William Hayter at his experimental print studio Atelier 17. This print studio was a place for experimentation in intaglio printmaking and as its reputation grew, it attracted many notable 20th century artists, including Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti and Max Ernst. These artists had a great impact on Husbands work, but her art was also influenced by social and political change, specifically her commitment to the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War (Dalla Husband, an exhibition curated by Gary Essar at Regina Public Library, Saskatchewan, 1997). As mentioned above, this copy bears the rather early number II of a total of 50 copies announced for this publication. With the number of plates by Della Husband numbering nine in total, rather than the Seven mentioned on the title, and the work seemingly thus far unrecorded, the question arises as to whether publication was aborted at an early stage. Several of Husbands plates show mothers grieving for their child or children; one depicts two soldiers of the International Brigades. Husbands final, 9th, engraving, possibly a self-portrait - , bears the pencilled note Epreuve de Artiste. The work was printed by Gonzalo More, who also produced the work Fraternity for Atelier 17, and which included engravings by John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayer, Dalla Husband, Wassily Kandinsky, and
AN ATTRACTIVE COPY IN THE ORIGINAL PRINTED WRAPPERS OF THE EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION OF THIS FRAGILE PUBLICATION, CONTAINING VERSE BY SIXTEEN CONTEMPORARY GEORGIAN POETS, AMONG THEM MEMBERS OF THE PART-FUTURIST, PART-SYMBOLIST, PART-DADAIST BLUE HORNS GROUP. Included are poems by Grigol Robakidze (the most flamboyant manifesto-writer, poet, novelist, and dramatist Georgia was ever to know, Rayfield, pp. 25960); Paolo Iashvili (after Robakidze, the groups leader); Titsian Tabidze (the most popular of Blue Horns poets, Rayfield, p. 271), and his cousin Galaktion Tabidze; Valerian Gaprindashvili (who also provides ten of the translations here); Kolau Nadiradze (the most promising poet of his generation, Rayfield, p. 276); and the Symbolist Giorgi Leonidze. Modern poetry poetry devoted to no aims but itself did not penetrate Georgia until Europe itself was in the throes of self-destruction. Imitators of Russian Symbolists, Acmeists, and Futurists at first had little success in Tbilisi [so] quite unpredictably, the convulsion that shook Georgian poetry into true modernity came from the provinces. The sleepy boulevards and cafés of Kutaisi [130 miles west of Tbilisi] were transformed in 1916 by a group of former local schoolboys who had returned from university in St Petersburg and casual study in France and Germany. They were determined not only to avoid conscription, but to foist a cult of Oscar Wilde, Paul Verlaine, and Russian Symbolism on the local intelligentsia. Rimbaud was perhaps the ultimate role-model for the Georgian adolescent poet. Perhaps more important still, the young innovators of Kutaisi, the future Blue Horns, were not content to accept traditional metres [and thus] gave Georgian the chance to try out the percussive and flexible rhythms characteristic of English and Russian poetry (Rayfield, p. 259). Among the translations are four by Mandelstam, then living in Tiflis, who was recuited by the editor, Nikolo Mitsishvili, to help with the project (Rayfield, p. 275): Birnam Wood (1919) by Titsian Tabidze; Fifth sunset by Valerian Gaprindashvili (from Daisebi, 1919, his first and best book, Rayfield); Self-portrait by Giorgi Leonidze; and A Farewell (1920) by Nikolo Mitsishvili, one of his best poems [which] was lovingly translated into Russian by Mandelstam, and arguably generates the motifs of Mandelstams as yet unwritten poetry of exile in Voronezh (Rayfield, p. 276). The other translators are Tatyana Verochka, Sergei Rafalovich, Tristan Machabeli, and Nikolai Bobyrev. Osip Mandelstam was arrested by Stalins government during the Great Purge in the 1930s and sent into exile with his wife Nadezhda. Given a temporary reprieve, he was arrested again in 1938 and sentenced to five years of forced labour. He died that year at a transit camp near Vladivistok. Galaktion Tabidze, Georgias greatest 20th-century poet, committed suicide in a psychiatric hospital in Tbilisi having plunged into depression and alcoholism as the result of the Great Purge, which saw his wife arrested and exiled to Siberia, where she died in 1944, and himself savagely tortured by the KGB. Charged with anti-Soviet agitation, his cousin Titsian Tabidze was executed in 1937. Gaprindashvili survived the Stalinist purges, but his later years were unproductive. Robakidze defected to Germany in 1930 and following the publication of his two books on Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler was considered to favour Nazism. He died a broken man in Geneva in 1962. Pressured during the Great Purge to denounce many of his associates from the Writers Union, as well as his former friend, André Gide, Paolo Iashvili shot himself at the Writers Union office in 1937. Giorgi Leonidze tried to pursue the correct political line during the purges, but was forced to direct his talents into panegyrics to Joseph Stalin.
FIRST EDITIONS OF PEURBACH S ECLIPSE TABLES AND TABLES OF THE FIRST SPHERE BY HIS STUDENT REGIOMONTANUS, BOTH EDITED WITH COMMENTARY BY GEORG TANNSTETTER. THIS WORK ALSO INCLUDES ONE OF THE EARLIEST HISTORIES OF EUROPEAN ASTRONOMY. Recognized throughout the sixteenth century as a monument of industry, the Tabulae eclipsium, completed probably in 1459, is Peurbach s most impressive work and was still used (although critically) by Tycho near the end of the sixteenth century . The tables are based entirely on the Alphonsine Tables, in that the underlying parameters are exclusively Alphonsine; but Peurbach expanded and rearranged the tables needed for every step in eclipse computation, saving the calculator much time and relieving him of a number of tedious procedures. The tables in the printed version run to fully 100 pages . Most remarkable, and evidently most laborious to compute, are the forty-eight-page double-entry tables (solar and lunar anomaly) of time between mean and true conjunction or opposition and the twelve-page triple-entry tables (solar longitude, lunar anomaly, time from noon) of the difference of lunar and solar parallax in longitude and latitude for the sixth and seventh climates (latitudes about 45º - 49º) that are used to find the time and location of apparent conjunction in solar eclipses (DSB). The Regiomontanus section contains two important works. While still in Italy, Regiomontanus began to compute his Table of the First Movable [Sphere], or of the apparent daily rotation of the heavens. He completed this work, together with an explanation of its use, in Hungary and dedicated it to his friend King Matthias I Corvinus. He also expounded the geometrical basis of this Table. These three related items constituted an item in the list of his own writings that Regiomontanus intended to print on his own press, an intention he could not carry out. Of these three works, the first two were published in Vienna in 1514 [in the present work] (ibid.). This work is also notable for Tannstetter s preface, which lists all the known texts, manuscript and printed, of Peurbach and is the prime bibliographical source. It also contains a listing of Viennese and German astronomers, with notes on their lives. There is a fine woodcut of an armillary sphere with the two authors seated below on the verso of aa8. There are two issues of this work, the first as above; the second, represented by only a few of the surviving copies, has a two-leaf Tabella manualis added at the end.
FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF GROTIUS RAREST WORKS. In 1638 Grotius prepared his De coena and a second treatise, An semper communicandum, for the press. He ensured that the two works, combined in a little booklet of sixteen [recte 17] quarto pages, were published in the deepest secrecy at Amsterdam. Even confidants as close as his brother Willem and son Pieter were deliberately left in the dark. De coena deals with baptism and communion in the early Christian Church. Grotius maintained that the administration of these sacraments by laymen and even by women had been permitted in time of need, if no priest were present. The booklet is important because it shows that Grotius still chose to defend the intellectual patrimony of the early Church, even when it was disagreeable to the representatives of the Catholic and Anglican Churches. He was convinced that the early Church offered a model for a community of believers that could include all Christians. For that reason, he believed that it was essential for scholars to clarify its dogmas and rites, by publishing carefully edited sources. In the second treatise published with De coena, An semper communicandum, he included a brief passage in which he deplored the far-reaching fragmentation of the Christian Church. The proliferation of sects only incited loss of faith, one who was placed outside a community, and not accepted as a member anywhere, must bear his fate quietly until intolerance had ebbed. Isolation was always preferable to a church that burdened one s conscience or demanded a schismatic zeal Although Grotius took pains to protect his anonymity, his authorship was soon widely known (Henk J. M. Nellen, Hugo Grotius: A Lifelong Struggle for Peace in Church and State, 1583-1645, pp. 604-606). Leaf A4 verso contains a reference to Antonio Gouvea and the Rites Controversy.
A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST FRENCH EDITION (FIRST DUTCH 1687), OF THE LIFE AND DEEDS OF ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS DUTCH ADMIRALS OF ALL TIMES, AND RECENTLY IMMORTALISED IN THE EXCELLENT MOVIE ADMIRAL COMMAND & CONQUER. LEADER OF THE RAID ON THE DOCKYARDS IN THE MEDWAY IN 1667, HE DELIVERED ONE OF THE DEEPEST HUMILIATIONS EVER VISITED UPON ENGLAND AND THE ROYAL NAVY. Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter (1607-1676) is celebrated and regarded as one of the most skilled admirals in history, and famous for his achievements with the Dutch Fleet during the Anglo-Dutch Wars. He fought the English and French naval forces and scored several critical victories, with the Raid on the Medway being the most famous of them. Retaining the pagination of the original Dutch printing, the folding plates depict 1) the naval battle at Plymouth in August 1652, with General George Ayscue in charge of the English fleet and attack, 2) the joint battle of Dutch and Danish forces against the Swedes at Nyborg in November 1659, with the Swedish army commanded by the Prince of Sulzbach and Marshal Steenbok, 3) de Ruyter s brief stop at Algiers, following the signing of a peace treaty with Tunis in September 1662, 4) the raid on Medway in June 1667, 5 ) the huge naval battle of Kijkduin in August 1673 against the combined English and French fleet, under the commands of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, and the Comte D Estrées, 6) the battle against the French fleet under the command of Admiral Abraham Duquesne near Sicily in April 1676, where de Ruyter was mortally wounded. The last folding plate shows the funeral procession; the final, single-page plate the admiral s tomb. Gerard Brandt, the author of this important biography, was a Dutch preacher, playwright, poet, church historian and naval historian. He died in 1685. The present translation from the original Dutch is by the French priest and writer Nicolas Aubin, whose Dictionnaire de marine appeared at Amsterdam in 1702. Aubin s translation is dedicated to François Jacques le Fort (1656-1699), a Genevan born Russian military figure of Huguenot origin, admiral general, and a close associate of Tsar Peter the Great. Provenance: Captain Simcoe R[oyal] N[avy] Wolford with his 19th-century lithographic armorial bookplate to front paste-down, and most likely identifiable as Captain John Kannaway Simcoe (1825-1891), grandson of General John Graves Simcoe, and the last member of this rather illustrious family. John Kannaway Simcoe was a direct descendent of James Cook s captain on HMS Pembroke, John Simcoe (1710-1759), who, together with Samuel Holland, is remembered as one of Cook s mentor in methods of navigation. Taken ill by pneumonia, John Simcoe died aboard his ship on May 15, 1749, having entered the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. He was succeeded by his son, John Graves Simcoe (1752-1806), the only child of four to live past childhood. John Graves followed in his illustrious father s footsteps, entering the army as an ensign in 1770. In 1775, he was promoted to captain and sailed to North America, landing on Staten Island, New York in July 1776. In June 1778, he was granted the provisional rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and the 19th of December 1781, his rank was made permanent. He returned to England in December 1782, where he married and settled down on the country estate Wolford, Devon, that had been purchased by his wealthy wife, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim, and which was to remain the family seat until 1923. In 1790, Simcoe was promoted to Colonel, and the following year appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the new province of Upper Canada. He sailed for Quebec in 1791. He remained in Canada for five years and left the colony in 1796, two years after having been appointed Major-General, to accept a new position in San Domingo. He eventually returned to England, and died on October 26, 1806. The present, last, in the Simcoe lineage, Captain John Kennaway, Justice of the Peace for the County of Devon, w
THE COMPLETE AND EXTRAORDINARILY THOROUGH SCIENTIFIC REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ASSEMBLED BY THE DUC DE MONTPENSIER, EXAMINING THE FEASIBILITY OF THE USE OF THE NEWLY INVENTED PYROXYLIN OR NITROCELLULOSE, ALSO KNOWN AS GUNCOTTON, AS AN EXPLOSIVE FOR MILITARY PURPOSES AND IN MINING. COMMISSIONED IN 1846, THE YEAR OF THE DISCOVERY OR INVENTION OF A PROCESS OF PREPARATION, AND COMPLETED IN 1847, THIS REPORT - THE DUKE'S OWN COPY - REPRESENTS THE MOST IN-DEPTH ASSESSMENT OF THE DISCOVERY S USE AND APPLICATION AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE DATE. Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to nitric acid, or to a mixture of nitric acid and another acid, usually either hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid, or to another powerful nitrating agent. One of its first major uses was as guncotton, a replacement for gun powder as propellant in firearms. It was also used to replace gunpowder as a low-order explosive in mining and other applications.Interestingly, three chemists including C. F. Schönbein independently and simultaneously uncovered this new material in 1846 and a German chemist from Braunschweig, F. J. Otto, was first to publish the general method using a mixture of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and nitric acid (HNO3) for producing this new material where each of the three available alcohol groups (-OH) on the glucose repeating unit is substituted with a nitrate group, -ONO2. Besides a large number of respected, experienced members of the French military and Navy, the commission of the present manuscript report included officials of the highest rank, such as Général Baron Gourgaud, Minister of War, Lieutenant Général Baron Neigre, Director of Directeur of the Service of Gunpowders, Charles-Pierre-Mathieu Combes, head chief of Mines, the President of the Artillery Committee, etc., with some of their proposals, findings and advice in the form of letters here finely copied by the commission's scribe or secretary.Fur to the insufficiencies and the lack of depth apparent in two earlier, foreign reports that had recently been assembled, the French government and military body assembled this commission of their own. There are first attestations with regard to the higher initial velocity of a bullet fired using guncotton, the tiny amount of residue left in the barrel and lack of smoke produced, and the comparatively weaker recoil. Further early tests examine the comparative dynamic forces of both gunpowder and nitrocellulose. Experiments conducted at the Depot Central de l'artillerie detailing the exact weights of the charges used, their sizes, recoil, comparative bullet velocities using both cotton and gunpowder and their residues are analysed in numerous tables, with these experiments then extended to larger artillery devices such as cannons, and with regard to the material s use in mines. The use of a large number of different fibers in the making of nitrocellulose is studied, as well as the effect of different dyes on its combustive qualities, and the actual ignition process. A number of reports relate to experimentation with sulfuric acids of different strengths and formulae, and their production. The investigations are then extended to the explosive s use and application in mining, with the famous French engineer, Chef des mines or Inspector-General of Mines, Charles-Pierre-Mathieu Combes, in charge of the trials, an engineer later honoured by Gustav Eiffel by the inclusion of his name on the list of seventy-two scientists and engineers engraved on the Eiffel Tower in recognition of their contributions. The superbly executed watercolours in the second volume show the results of experiments with Pyroxylin conducted at two different mines, first those at the quarry La Folie at Nanterre. The second and rather extended report concerns further experiments at the so-called America quarries.
AN EXCEPTIONAL MEMENTO: THE ANNOUNCEMENT BY HELENE SALZER, BORN WITTGENSTEIN, MARGARET STONBOROUGH, BORN WITTGENTSTEIN, AND PAUL WITTGENSTEIN OF THEIR BROTHER S DEATH IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, SIX DAYS EARLIER, ON APRIL 29, 1951, AND HIS BURIAL ON MAY 1. In the 1930s and 1940s Wittgenstein conducted seminars at Cambridge, developing most of the ideas that he intended to publish in his second book, Philosophical Investigations. These included the turn from formal logic to ordinary language, novel reflections on psychology and mathematics, and a general skepticism concerning philosophy s pretensions. In 1945 he prepared the final manuscript of the Philosophical Investigations, but, at the last minute, withdrew it from publication (and only authorized its posthumous publication). For a few more years he continued his philosophical work, but this is marked by a rich development of, rather than a turn away from, his second phase. He traveled during this period to the United States and Ireland, and returned to Cambridge, where he was diagnosed with cancer. Legend has it that, at his death in 1951, his last words were Tell them I ve had a wonderful life (Monk: 579) (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Born in Vienna into one of Europe s richest families, Ludwig Wittgenstein, his three sisters (a fourth died as a baby) and four brothers received a Catholic education, taught at home in an exceptionally intense environment, and an environment that deeply marked all of them. Ludwig inherited a fortune upon the death of his father in 1913. He initially made some donations to artists and writers, and then, in a period of severe personal depression after the First World War, he gave away his entire fortune to his brothers and sisters. Three of Ludwig s four brothers Hans, Rudi, and Kurt - committed suicide, which Wittgenstein had also contemplated; Hermine died in February 1950, a little over a year before her famous and youngest brother. Ludwig s death is here jointly announced by all of his surviving siblings, Helene, Margaret, whose husband, Jerome Stonborough also had committed suicide 13 years earlier, and Paul. The note mentions Ludwig to have succumbed on Sunday, April 29, after prolonged grave illness, and after having received the last rites. The latter note is of some interest regarding Wittgenstein s faith and relationship with Christianity, which changed over time. Baptized and educated a Catholic, he lost his faith and became an atheist whilst attending the Realschule in Linz as a teenager in 1903-1906. It is also well documented though, that whilst resisting formal religion, he was always sincerely disposed towards religious faith, developing a deepening spirituality with age. The end of the notice prints the siblings respective addresses: Vienna IV, Brahmsplatz 4 for Helene, Vienna III, Kundmanngasse 19, for Margaret, and New York 25, 310 Riverside Drive for Paul, who had fled to America in 1938 to spend the rest of his life there, following charges of racial defilement. This death note was never posted; the original envelope remained unused and is in virgin state. It is thus likely that it remained in the possession of one of Wittgenstein s siblings until it found its way into the open. The number of copies produced was undoubtedly rather small, and sent to close relatives, friends, fellow philosophers, and possibly to members or heads of institutions concerned or involved with Ludwig s work only. Its ephemeral nature much impedes the search for other known examples. Various separate searches on KvK, OCLC, or the catalogue of the Austrian National Library locate no copies though.
