Abraham

1648 · réf. 001623 — Paris: Pierre Des-Hayes 1648. Book. Very good- condition. Hardcover. First Edition. 16mo - over 5¾" - 6¾" tall. xviii 342 pages of text. Defective copy lacking five plates the frontis and a final engraved table. Attractive early-to-mid-18th century leather binding with moderate wear to the hinges spine extremities and corners. Raised bands gilt tooling and lettering on spine. Decorative marbled endpapers and blank endsheets supplied at time of binding. Present is the full-page engraved portrait of Michel Larcher engraved armorial dedication to Larcher and the engraved title page following page 58. A complete copy has the plate numbers 151 and 156 used twice totalling 158 plates showing plans and designs of perspective of which 153 only are present in this copy. Lacks plate numbers 110 151 both 154 and 155. However early hand-drawn facsimiles of plates 151 one of two and 155 are supplied and bound-in leaving three images unrepresented. The majority of the plates are double-sided. Plate 156 is in less than good condition with heavy staining and soiling. Engraved title page is repaired with early conservator's tape with no loss. Pages 168 through 193 are bound out of order. Several leaves are affected by damp staining and minor rippling; approximately 15 front and 30 rear. The title page and several adjacent leaves as well as a few at the rear of the text are heavily stained. Some of the staining appears to originate from washed-out markings -- notations to which an attempt at removal were made -- that are in blank areas mainly in the front and rear pages but also in the blank areas in the introduction. Includes Desargues New Theory at the end with demonstrations. Protected in a modern circa 1950 slipcase decorated with marbled endpaper the seams of which are detached at the top edge. Desargues 1593-1661 was a French mathemetician and a founder of modern Geometry. With Pascal he introduced the method of perspective; treated conic sections as projections of circles formulated the so-called Arguesian transformation; developed the theory of involution and of transversals; defined parallels as lines that intersect at infinity. Measures 6-5/8" tall by 4-1/2" wide; printed on thick paper with ample margins. 20th century bookplate of Paul and Verner Mac Alister on front pastedown and a neatly handwritten identification on the 2nd front endpaper. On the same leaf is a contemporary name or marking. French France Fortifications Conics Cartography Projective and Descriptive Geometry. Early editions of Desargues works are quite uncommon. Pierre Des-Hayes Hardcover