17th century

Loves Garland: or Posies for Rings, Hand-kerchers, & Gloves

They say every book tells a story, and this one does not disappoint. Loves Garland, or Posies for Rings…contains a selection of posies, or love poems, that could be inscribed onto gold rings and given to a friend or lover as a testament of one’s affection. This edition of Loves Garland, published in 1883, is a reprint of a 1674 edition, which in turn is a reprint of the original 1624 edition.

Don Phelippe por la Gracia de Dios Rey

This is a brilliant example of an early 17th-century Spanish petition relating to nobility, similar in style to examples from Granada. The rank of Baron is signified by the five helmet bars in the crest on the coat of arms full-page miniature. To the left is another full-page miniature, likely of the Coronation of the Virgin with King Philip III in attendance. The use of bright red, blue, green, and gold demonstrates the wealth and power that stood behind the petition.

Machina Coelestis

Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) is justly famous as an astronomer, but his livelihood came from the family’s brewing business, and Johannes himself was admitted to the Brewer’s Guild in 1636. His interests lay elsewhere, however. Devoting himself to constructing astronomical instruments and, most importantly, to carefully and precisely grinding lenses for telescopes, he developed an extremely well-equipped 17th-century observatory in Danzig, Poland.

Traité des Moyens de Rendre les Rivieres Navigables

An early work in the French literature of hydraulic engineering. In the preface, Bouillet states that some of the machines he proposes were used in Holland and that some of his descriptions are translations of the Dutch. He describes methods of dredging rivers, constructing slipways and sluices, clearing ports and harbors, and maintaining river banks. He also discusses two techniques of raising a sunken ship and a way of blowing the deck of a ship with gunpowder to reveal cargo and then, salvaging it with diving bells made of copper.

Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum

Englishman John Ray (1627-1705) is considered by many to be the greatest naturalist of his day, and his works in the fields of botany and zoology are classics of pre-Linnean classification. The Synopsis methodica stirpium brittannicarum, in particular, was the standard botanical authority for many years; it is considered remarkably accurate in its coverage and descriptions of the British flora, and the classification follows a natural sequence, replacing earlier methods with the concept of grouping plants by direct observation of their similarities and differences.

Podrovnoe Opisanīe Parovoĭ Mashiny

An early Russian technical book describing an atmospheric steam engine for pumping water. The title indicates that it is based upon the one devised by the Englishman T. Savery. Thomas Savery (1650?-1715), the English military engineer, patented the first commercially successful atmospheric steam engine in 1698. This book was published by the Army Technical Academy. Following the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian Army continued to play a role in encouraging technical innovations (as well as in harboring political liberals).

Herrn Georgii Galgemairs Kurtzer Gründlicher Gebesserter unnd Vermehrter Underricht

Second, greatly expanded edition of a primer describing the construction & use of two instruments — a proportional compass (Circkel) and lineal compass (Schregmäß) — for the measurement of geometrical solids and lines, respectively. This 1615 edition is ninety-five pages longer than the initial pamphlet (1610), and substitutes an engraved plate for the second woodcut plate of the first edition. The construction of the instruments is described and the geometry and measurement of increasingly complex solids and linear configurations are explained.

A Large Dictionary English and Dutch

The Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History has been building a collection of foreign language dictionaries from the same time periods as the books in our rare collections (16th through 19th centuries) so that researchers can consult contemporary sources when reading and translating the books. Latin, Dutch, German, French, and Spanish have been the top priorities, with Swedish, Portuguese, and Italian as a second-tier. For 18th century Dutch, we recently bought the 4th edition of Sewel's English-Dutch dictionary, first published in 1691.

Alberti Ritter Gymnasii Ilfeldensis Regii Con-Rectoris Commentatio II. De Zoolithodendroidis in Genere et in Specie de Schvvartzburgico-Sondershusanis Curiosissimis ac Formosissimis...

Albrecht Ritter (1684-1748) was in instructor at the royal Stiftscollegium at Ilefeld, Germany. Although relatively little is know about him, he was an early proponent of taking students into the field and learning from direct observation of and experience with the natural world. A member of the Leopoldinian Academy, he wrote several short works on fossils and "formed stones," as fossils were conceived of in the period.

Isagoges in Rem Herbariam Libri Duo

A professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Leiden, Adriaan van de Spiegel (1578-1625) also studied botany, and his Isagoges in Rem Herbariam Libri Duo is an early work on plant classification. Linnaeus, who established the modern system of scientific nomenclature, held Spiegel's book in high regard and named a genus of flowering plants Spigelia in his honor.

Geometriae pars Universalis

Three major works of Scottish mathematician and astronomer James Gregory (1638-1675) who discovered infinite series representations for a number of trigonometry functions, although he is mostly remembered for his description of the first practical reflecting telescope, now known as the Gregorian telescope. "Of British mathematicians of the seventeenth century Gregory was only excelled by Newton." (Gjertsen, Newton handbook, 245)  Bound with:

Paradisus Batavus, Continens Plus Centum Plantas Affabre Aere Incises & Descriptionibus Illustratas.

Hermann, a physician and botanist, traveled to Africa, India, and Ceylon in the service of the Dutch East India Company and later served as the director of the famous botanic garden at the University of Leiden. In this work he published detailed descriptions and illustrations of the garden's plants, organized in accordance with the classification system of the great pre-Linnaean systematist Joseph Tournefort, under whom Hermann had studied in Paris.