Agricola, Georgius | The fine Freilich copy of the second Latin edition of De re metallica, Basil, 1561

Agricola, Georgius

De re metallica libri XII. Qvibus officia, instrumenta, machinæ, ac omnia denique ad metallicam spectantia. … Eivsdem De animantibus svbterraneis liber. Basel: (Hieronymus) Froben (and Nicolaus Episcopius, March), 1561

Folio (328 x 222 mm). Roman and italic types, with a little Greek and gothic, woodcut printer's device on title and last page, 263 woodcut illustrations (many full-page) by Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch and, perhaps, Blasius Weffring, full-sheet with 7 woodcut illustrations intended to be cut apart and assembled as a volvelle here preserved intact and bound between i2 and i3, 27 woodcut diagrams, 14 nine-line historiated woodcut initials, α6 blank and genuine; occasional light browning, several wormholes to first quarter of the volume and single wormhole to final fifth unobtrusively touching both text and woodcuts, fore-edge of large volvelle on sheet of woodcuts shaved. Contemporary pigskin over beveled wooden boards, covers paneled in blind with floral- and evangelists-rolls, two brass clasps catching on front board, plain endpapers, fore-edge ink-lettered with author and title; lightly soiled, front board wormed.

Second Latin edition, a page-for-page reprint of the 1556 first edition, with errata corrected.

REFERENCES

Adams A350; Agricola-Bibliographie 3.6.10.1.2; Durling 53; Ferguson I:9; Honeyman sale 1:31; Hoover 18; cf. Dibner, Agricola on Metals (1958)

PROVENANCE

Joseph A. Freilich (booklabel; Sotheby’s New York, 10 January 2001, lot 15)