Milestones of Science Books

KIRCHER, Athanasius.

Arithmologia, sive de abditis numerorum mysteriis qua origo, antiquitas & fabrica numerorum exponitur; abditae... proprietates demonstrantur; fontes superstitionum in amuletorum fabrica aperiuntur.

Rome: Varese, 1665.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Item #002936

4to (226 x 168 mm). [16], 301, [11] pp., including final blank, engraved allegorical frontispiece, 3 folding letterpress tables (one in red and black), full-page woodcut arms of dedicatee on verso of title-page, woodcut initials, tailpieces and illustrations. Two neat composite eclectic zodiacs in contemporary ink are bound at the end. Bound in contemporary vellum over wooden boards with the original clasps intact, boards ruled in blind, blue-dyed edges, spine with faint ink lettering (vellum cleaned, spine with horizontal split and minor chipping, glue residue from old label at foot of spine, light soiling and spotting of boards). Text crisp and clean, first gathering very little browned only, faint brown spotting to lower margin of 4 leaves, frontispiece trimmed close just touching plate frame at top, table III trimmed close at upper margin just into headline, lower torn corner of leaf O1 repaired, short tear in leaf Q2 without loss. A fine copy, stunningly crisp internally. ----

Merrill 19; Caillet II, 5769; Dünnhaupt/Kircher 18; Sommervogel IV, 1063; Wellcome III, 395. - FIRST EDITION of a treatise on numerology. A rare work of the famous Jesuit and scholar on number mysticism, hieroglyphs etc. Historically very interesting. Beginning with a speculative history of the origin of numbers, it further deals with the decipherment of hieroglyphs and includes much on ancient Near Eastern, gnostic, kabbalistic, and neo-Pythagorean doctrines. "The 'Arithmologia', one of Kircher's more curious works, is a veritable gold mine of curiosities: magic formulas, amulets, and symbolic matrices" (Merrill) "Un des plus curieux ouvrages de ce prodigieux savant, traitant des nombres mysterieux, magiques, cabalistiques, gnostiques, mystiques, etc... Comme tous ses ouvrages, ce livre est base sur des principes occultes. - C'est l'un des rares ouvrages donnant les proprietes mystiques et cabbalistiqus des nombres" (Caillet). - Visit our website for additional images and information.

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