Isaac

Variarum Observationum Liber. Bound with: Observationum ad Pomp. Melam Appendix. Accedit ejusdem ad Tertias P Simonii Objectiones Responsio. Subjungitur Pauli Colomesii ad Henricum Justellum Epistola.

1685réf. 8324Londini London: Apud Robertum Scott 1685. FIRST EDITIONS 2 vols. bound as 1 4to pp. vi 397 3 iv 136. Full-page engraved and woodcut illustrations included within pagination. Dedication leaves discarded as often. Contemporary panelled calf spine divided by raised bands edges sprinkled red. A little rubbed and marked front joint splitting but cords firm. Armorial bookplate of the North Library of Shirburn Castle to pastedown embossment of the Earls of Macclesfield to first few leaves small paper shelfmark labels to spine. The first editions of these late works by the Dutch scholar then resident in London Isaac Vossius 1618-1689 both collections of wide-ranging scholarship and speculation mainly concerning the ancient world. A contemporary joke attributed to Charles II is that Vossius would believe anything not in the Bible. The ‘book of various observations’ considers Roman history the geography of northern Africa and the east the Sibylline oracles the construction of boats the appearance of the moon Jewish history and - almost in passing - the population of the world and the age and superiority of Chinese civilisation society and medicine. Jonathan Israel’s recent biography of Spinoza highlights Vossius’s Sinophilia calling him ‘the first Westerner to affirm Chinese philosophy’s and medicine’s general superiority as well as Chinese civilzation’s unmatched antiquity’ Spinoza Life and Legacy p. 662 - Vossius’s main contribution to the more radical end of Enlightenment thinking that Spinoza exemplifies. Bound with it as often is a collection of more directly classical studies with a polemical bent the main element an ‘appendix’ to Vossius’s earlier edition of Pomponius Mela which in fact continues a personal feud with Gronovius and though he was already dead Salmasius carried out in the form of emendations and commentary. Also as often particularly when found together both works have had their printed dedications left out when binding - these were both to Charles II and presumably omitted as no longer necessary since the monarch had died by the time the second work had left the press. ESTC R842; R24581. Apud Robertum Scott hardcover

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Isaac

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