Astronomical texts included a 1645 second edition of De scientia stellarum by the Arab astronomer Muhammed Al-Battani (c.850-929). Illustrated throughout with woodcut diagrams, this Bologna edition of a work much consulted and mentioned no fewer than 23 times by Copernicus in De revolutionibus was a copy of the only Latin text version, that prepared in the 12th century by Plato of Rivoli and first published in Nuremburg in 1537. Bound in contemporary limp vellum, it sold at $3400 (£2430).
Medical texts included a 1626 first of Adriaan van de Spiegel’s De formatu foetu..., a posthumously published embryological treatise illustrated with nine fine and full-page engraved plates after Giulio Casserio. A wide marginned copy, but one showing some dampstaining and bound in modern brown morocco, it made $2400 (£1715).
Sold at that same sum was a 1574, fifth edition of Thomas Hill’s The profitable arte of Gardening..., here incorporating treatises on beekeeping and the art of grafting and planting. An early copy of a pioneering work on general gardening, first published in 1558, this was a washed example in a Jansensist-type binding of black levant by Rivière.
Consulted by Copernicus
USA: THREE LOTS representing the principal science, medicine and natural history sections of a Swann sale of October 18 are described below, and illustrated right is one a of small group of patents that featured in the New York sale.
