AGRICOLA, Georgius (1494-1555). De re metallica Libri XII. Basel: H.Froben and N.Bischof, March 1556. 2° (307 x 205mm). With blank α6. Froben's woodcut device on title and final page, decorative initials, 2 folding plates and about 270 woodcut illustrations, most by Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch after Blasius Weffring. (Small tears at inner blank margins of a1 and 2.) 19th-century dark brown morocco, tooled in blind, g.e. (extremities rubbed). Provenance : early manuscript gloss; Naturwissenschaftliches Museum, Basel (early ink stamp on title verso); Alfred C. Pass (signature). A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. "Agricola's best known work, 'On Metals', is the first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times" Printing and the Mind of Man 79. The book was published four months after Agricola's death and was the distillation of over 20 years' practical experience; as a consequence it "remained the standard textbook... for over 200 years" (Norman). Cf. DSB I p.77; Norman 20; Dibner Heralds of Science 88; Grolier/Horblit 2b.
AGRICOLA, Georgius (1494-1555). De re metallica Libri XII. Basel: H.Froben and N.Bischof, March 1556. 2° (307 x 205mm). With blank α6. Froben's woodcut device on title and final page, decorative initials, 2 folding plates and about 270 woodcut illustrations, most by Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch after Blasius Weffring. (Small tears at inner blank margins of a1 and 2.) 19th-century dark brown morocco, tooled in blind, g.e. (extremities rubbed). Provenance : early manuscript gloss; Naturwissenschaftliches Museum, Basel (early ink stamp on title verso); Alfred C. Pass (signature). A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. "Agricola's best known work, 'On Metals', is the first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times" Printing and the Mind of Man 79. The book was published four months after Agricola's death and was the distillation of over 20 years' practical experience; as a consequence it "remained the standard textbook... for over 200 years" (Norman). Cf. DSB I p.77; Norman 20; Dibner Heralds of Science 88; Grolier/Horblit 2b.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
