Sadr al-sharia ('Ubayd-Allah ibn Mas'ud al-Mahbubi). Al-Talwih ila Kashf Haqa'iq al-Tanqih.Central Asia / Iran, 1357 CE = 758 H.

A very early manuscript survival: copied only eleven years after the death of the author, known as Sadr al-Shari'a, and comprising a commentary Sadr wrote on his own work on Islamic law. Sadr al-Shari'a the Younger (d. 1346/47 CE), also styled al-Mahbubi, was a leading Hanafi-Maturidi scholar, a jurist, theologian (including a thorough knowledge of hadith), grammarian and astronomer. He is best known for his work on Muslim law in the Hanafi school, and for synthesizing Hanafi ideas with that of medieval scholasticism. In doing so, his work combined the philosophy of Fakhr al-Islam al-Bazdawi with that of famous Maliki jurist and Cairo-based Kurdish grammarian Ibn al-Hajib (d. 1249 CE); these two scholars form the basis of much of his work and interpretations, but his skill in synthesizing different schools of thought is all his own. This very early copy is dated to Dhu'l-Qa'dah, 758 H (October 1357) by its anonymous scribe, little more than a decade after Sadr al-Shari'a was buried in Bukhara, in modern Uzbekistan.

L'Admiral, Jacob. Naauwkeurige waarneemingen omtrent de veranderingen van veele insekten …Amsterdam, 1774.

The second, greatly enlarged edition of a set of finely etched and engraved plates, hand-painted, depicting the metamorphosis of 70 sorts of butterflies, moths and other flying insects in their natural surroundings, the specimens collected, drawn and engraved, and the descriptions written by Jacob l'Admiral (1700-70), first published in 1740 with only 25 plates. The present edition adds eight plates prepared (along with their descriptive text) by l'Admiral but not previously published, along with a two-page foreword by the editor, Martinus Houttuyn (1720-98). Most plates show the species as egg, larva, pupa and adult, both male and female, placed on the plants they frequent in their natural habitat. Scientifically it was a great advance over all that went before, including the pioneering work of Maria Sibylla Merian.

The present foreword tells us that l'Admiral began studying butterflies at the age of ten and gives Houttuyn's personal recollections of l'Admiral and his work. He collected the specimens during thirty years of travel and intended the first edition with 25 plates to be one of four parts for a total of 100 plates. He finished only eight additional plates before his death in 1770 and had not yet published them or his descriptions. After l'Admiral's death the bookseller Sluyter bought all the copper plates at auction, and Houttuyn prepared the new descriptions from l'Admiral's manuscript. A few plates were revised after the first edition, probably by l'Admiral himself. Plate XII depicts a tulip.

Gaubil, Antoine, French Jesuit missionary, astronomer, and historian at the Imperial Court in Beijing (1689-1759). "Mémoire sur les îles de Lieou Kieou".Beijing, 1751/1752.

This highly interesting manuscript was evidently copied by an unknown hand from Gaubil's original in Beijing and sent to France in 1751. A very different version of the text would be published as part of volume 23 of the "Lettres édifiantes et curieuses" in 1811, long after Gaubil's death. Thus, the manuscript at hand is very likely much closer to Gaubil's text, which is a translation of the 1721 "Zhongshan chuán xìn lù", the official report of the Chinese envoy Xu Baoguang (1671-1723) on his mission to the islands and kingdom of Ryukyu and its main island, Okinawa. Baoguang was sent to the court of King Sho Kei (1700-52) in Shuri, Okinawa, by the Kangxi Emperor in 1718. Although a vassal to the Japanese Satsuma Domain since the invasion of 1609, the Kingdom of Ryukyu also remained a tributary to the Chinese Emperors until the Japanese annexation in 1879.

Baoguang's report remains one of the central sources for the history of the Kingdom of Ryukyu (here referred to by its Chinese name, Liuqiu, which is also applied to the main island Okinawa and is not to be confused with Liuqiu Island just off Taiwan) and for the situation at the time of the report, while also providing the earliest documentation of maritime distances between the main islands. Its importance was such that is was not only published in China but also in Japan in several editions from 1765 onwards and translated into French by Antoine Gaubil, thus introducing European audiences to the then virtually unknown kingdom in the East China Sea. Such interest can be explained partly by the Sino-Japanese conflict over the kingdom but, more importantly, by its unique role for maritime trade in East and Southeast Asia over more than 200 years. This role, which was closely linked to Ryukyu's topographical and political position between China and Japan, also explains French interest in Baoguang's report. As Japan was closed to European merchants except for the Dutch trading post Dejima off Nagasaki, Ryukyu was the central marketplace for indirect Nanban trade with Japan.

The original report is divided into six chapters that Gaubil does not appear to have translated in their entirety, through he adds extensive annotations. The report and Gaubil's translation thereof concern the diplomatic mission itself, the mentioned geographical survey of the main islands, a detailed list of the goods produced and traded in Ryukyu, a description of the political situation (although Baoguang does not mention the tributes paid to the Satsuma Domain, as Gaubil remarks), a genealogy of the kings of Ryukyu, a description of the royal palace, court ceremonial, local religion and customs, and the Okinawan language. In one of the longest comments, Gaubil attempts to correct European misconceptions regarding what is referred to by "Liuqiu", stating that it is not to be confused with Taiwan itself or the Island today known as Liuqiu and sometimes called Small Liuqiu, to distinguish it from Okinawa.

Antoine Gaubil, who arrived in Beijing in 1722 and would remain there for the rest of his life, was the most important astronomer among the French Jesuits in China, and one of the greatest disseminators of Chinese science and wisdom in Europe in the 18th century. His work on astronomy and as a historian and translator of important Chinese texts such as the "I Ching" earned him the praise of Alexander von Humboldt as the wisest of the Jesuit missionaries.

Zarqali, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al- / Bianchini, Giovanni (ed.). Tabulae de motibus planetarum.Ferrara, ca. 1475.

The so-called "Toledan Tables" are astronomical tables used to predict the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to the fixed stars. They were completed around the year 1080 at Toledo by a group of Arab astronomers, led by the mathematician and astronomer Al-Zarqali (known to the Western World as Arzachel), and were first updated in the 1270s, afterwards to be referred to as the "Alfonsine Tables of Toledo". Named after their sponsor King Alfonso X, it "is not surprising that" these tables "originated in Castile because Christians in the 13th century had easiest access there to the Arabic scientific material that had reached its highest scientific level in Muslim Spain or al-Andalus in the 11th century" (Goldstein 2003, 1). The Toledan Tables were undoubtedly the most widely used astronomical tables in medieval Latin astronomy, but it was Giovanni Bianchini whose rigorous mathematical approach made them available in a form that could finally be used by early modern astronomy.

Bianchini was in fact "the first mathematician in the West to use purely decimal tables" and decimal fractions (Feingold, 20) by applying with precision the tenth-century discoveries of the Arab mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqilidisi, which had been further developed in the Islamic world through the writings of Al-Kashi and others (cf. Rashed, 88 and 128ff.). Despite the fact that they had been widely discussed and applied in the Arab world throughout a period of five centuries, decimal fractions had never been used in the West until Bianchini availed himself of them for his trigonometric tables in the "Tabulae de motis planetarum". It is this very work in which he set out to achieve a correction of the Alfonsine Tables by those of Ptolemy. "Thorndike observes that historically, many have erred by neglecting, because of their difficulty, the Alfonsine Tables for longitude and the Ptolemaic for finding the latitude of the planets. Accordingly, in his Tables Bianchini has combined the conclusions, roots and movements of the planets by longitude of the Alfonsine Tables with the Ptolemaic for latitude" (Tomash, 141).

The importance of the present work, today regarded as representative of the scientific revolutions in practical mathematics and astronomy on the eve of the Age of Discovery, is underlined by the fact that it was not merely dedicated but also physically presented by the author to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in person on the occasion of Frederick's visit to Ferrara. In return for his "Tabulae", a "book of practical astronomy, containing numbers representing predicted times and positions to be used by the emperor's […] astrologers in managing the future" (Westman, 10ff.), Bianchini was granted a title of nobility by the sovereign.

For Regiomontanus, who studied under Bianchini together with Peurbach, the author of the "Tabulae" counted as the greatest astronomer of all time, and to this day Bianchini's work is considered "the largest set of astronomical tables produced in the West before modern times" (Chabbas 2009, VIII). Even Copernicus, a century later, still depended on the "Tabulae" for planetary latitude (cf. Goldstein 2003, 573), which led to Al-Zarquali's Tables - transmitted in Bianchini's adaption - ultimately playing a part in one of the greatest revolutions in the history of science: the 16th century shift from geocentrism to the heliocentric model.

In the year 1495, some 20 years after our manuscript was written, Bianchini's Tables were printed for the first time, followed by editions in 1526 and 1563. Apart from these printed versions, quite a few manuscript copies of his work are known in western libraries - often comprising only the 231 full-page Tables but omitting the 68-page introductory matter explaining how they were calculated and meant to be used, which is present in our manuscript. Among the known manuscripts in public collections is one copied by Regiomontanus, and another written entirely in Copernicus's hand (underlining the significance of the Tables for the scientific revolution indicated above), but surprisingly not one has survived outside Europe. Indeed, the only U.S. copy recorded by Faye (cf. below) was the present manuscript, then in the collection of Robert Honeyman. There was not then, nor is there now, any copy of this manuscript in an American institution. Together with one other specimen in the Erwin Tomash Library, our manuscript is the only preserved manuscript witness for this "crucial text in the history of science" (Goldstein 2003, publisher's blurb) in private hands. Apart from these two examples, no manuscript version of Bianchini's "Tabulae" has ever shown up in the trade or at auctions (according to a census based on all accessible sources).

Condition: watermarks identifiable as Briquet 3387 (ecclesiastical hat, attested in Florence 1465) and 2667 (Basilisk, attested to Ferrara and Mantua 1447/1450). Early manuscript astronomical table for the year 1490 mounted onto lower pastedown. Minor waterstaining in initial leaves and a little worming at back, but generally clean and in a fine state of preservation. Italian binding sympathetically rebacked, edges of covers worn to wooden boards. A precious manuscript, complete and well preserved in its original, first binding.

Provenance: 1) Written ca 1475 by Francesco da Quattro Castella (his entry on fol. 150v) for 2) Marco Antonio Scalamonte from the patrician family of Ancona, who became a senator in Rome in 1502 (his illuminated coat of arms on fol. 1r). 3) Later in an as yet unidentified 19th century collection of apparently considerable size (circular paper label on spine "S. III. NN. Blanchinus. MS.XV. fol. 43150"). 4) Robert Honeyman, Jr. (1928-1987), probably the most prominent U.S. collector of scientific books and manuscripts in the 20th century, who "had a particular interest in astronomy" (S. Horobin, 238), his shelf mark "Astronomy MS 1" on front pastedown. 5) Honeyman Collection of Scientific Books and Manuscripts, Part III, Sotheby's, London, Wed May 2, 1979, lot 1110, sold to 6) Alan Thomas (1911-1992), his catalogue 43.2 (1981), sold to 7) Hans Peter Kraus (1907-1988), sold to 8) UK private collection.

[Ibn Butlan]. [Taqwim al Sihha - latine]. Tacuini sanitatis Elluchasem Elimithar medici …Strasbourg, 1531.

Editio princeps of this rare treatise on health, with delightful woodcuts by Hans Weiditz.

Ibn Butlan's guide to good health, known as "Taqwim as-Sihha" in Arabic, had been circulating in manuscript copies during the 14th and 15th centuries under the Latin title "Tacuini sanitatis" or "Tables of Health". This is the first printed edition. It lays out six elements necessary for good health and avoiding stress: food and drink, air and climate, activity and rest, sleep and wakefulness, the secretion and excretion of humours, and states of mind, i.e. the emotions.

Mukhtar ibn al-Hasan, known as Ibn Butlan, a Nestorian physician in Baghdad in the 11th century, attempted to summarize medical knowledge in the form of synoptic tables. The effect and influence of many remedies, various waters, food, animals, the seasons, etc. are evaluated to bring about a harmony of health in man. The altogether 280 charming woodcut illustrations by Hans Weiditz at the foot of pages illustrate plants, animals, fruits, humours, diseases and cookery.

The other two works in this edition, which both deal with similar subjects, are by the 9th century Arabic philosopher al-Kindi and the 11th century Spanish physician Albengnefit.

Nizami Ganjavi. Iqbal-nama.Safavid Iran, 1562-1571 CE = 97? H.

Alexander the Great in the 16th century Muslim manuscript tradition: Nizami Ganjavi's "Iqbal-nama", comprising half of his poetic "Eksandar-nama" and illustrated with three fine Qajar miniatures showing hunting scenes and a particularly striking battle with demons or djinns. "The Alexander of the Persian romances is much more colorful than his Western counterpart [...] Nizami celebrates him first as a king and conqueror, then as a sage and a prophet. In 'Iskandarnamah', in addition to being a zealous Moslem, Alexander becomes an ardent lover with numerous wives and concubines" (Southgate).

Paired with the "Saraf-nama", which tells the stories of Alexander's life and travels, the "Iqbal-nama" focuses on Alexander as the scholar-king, who can hold his own in debates with the greatest of Greek and Indian philosophers, follow extensive discussions of the creation of the universe, and set the standard for all kings and princes to follow. This allows Nizami, one of the greatest Persian poets in history, to stretch his talents: "Whereas the Šaraf-nama clearly belongs to the tradition of Persian epic poetry [...] in the Eqbal-nama he shows his talents as a didactic poet, an anecdotist and a miniaturist" (Enc. Iranica).

This manuscript, beautifully illustrated, is a fantastic 16th century example of the "Iqbal-nama" (with later and quite fine Qajar illustrations); its colophon, though with the final digit of its date obscured, dates it to the 970s Hijri (1562-71 CE). Thus, a quite early and beautiful copy, uncommon on the market from this date.

Camões, Luis de. The Lusiad, or, Portugals historicall Poem.London, 1655.

The first English edition of the great epic poem of Portuguese exploration, based by Camões on Vasco de Gama’s discovery of the sea route to India in 1497/98. "The 'Lusiads' is a synthesis of all the elements included in the reality and myth of Portugal's overseas expansion. It captures the heroism and the suffering, the glory and the disillusionment, the generosity and the avarice which characterized the national enterprise. The author himself was the only major Portuguese poet to participate personally in the voyage, the wars, and the rigors of life in Asia. His epic successfully combines the personal with the national experience and provides thereby an intelligible, individualistic expression of the collective enterprise in which Portuguese of all walks of life had engaged either directly or indirectly" (Lach).

In the early 1530s the great Portuguese historian João de Barros had called for an epic poem of Portuguese exploration and discovery. Luis de Camões (1524-80) answered that call four decades later with the 1572 publication of "Os Lusíadas". Camões was educated in a monastic school in Coimbra, and produced poetry and plays at a young age. In his early twenties he was banished from Lisbon after producing a play considered disparaging to the royal family. He served as a soldier in the Portuguese forces besieging Ceuta in North Africa, where he lost an eye. Camões returned to Lisbon in 1550, but found himself in more trouble, and was pardoned by the King on condition he serve the Crown in India for five years. He arrived in Goa in late 1553 and stayed there briefly before joining an expedition to the Malabar Coast. In 1556 he left Goa again for the East Indies, taking part in the military occupation of Macao, where he remained for many months. On his return trip to India, he was shipwrecked off the Mekong and wandered in Cambodia before reaching Malacca and eventually returning to Goa.

Camões's inspiration for his epic poem was Virgil's Aeneid. He made the explorer Vasco de Gama his great hero, using his exploits to glorify the achievements of the Portuguese nation, the "sons of Lusus". Beyond the glorification of Portuguese colonial exploits, the Lusiads contain descriptions of the flora, fauna, and geography of Asia and India, as well as ethnographic details, informed both by Camões's own experiences as well as his familiarity with Ptolemy and Barros. The epic was immensely popular upon its publication, appearing in numerous Portuguese and Spanish editions before the end of the century.

Richard Fanshawe (1608-66) travelled to Madrid in the 1630s and there "laid the foundations of the mastery of Spanish which was to be central both to his diplomatic career and to his career as a translator of Spanish literature" (ODNB). During the Civil War he was ambassador to Spain of King Charles II in exile, but was arrested by Cromwell after the Battle of Worcester in 1651 and sent into voluntary exile at Tankersley Park in Yorkshire. There he composed the present work, dedicated to his host William Earl of Strafford. It was the first translation of a Portuguese literary work into English, though Fanshawe produced his English verse rendition via a scholarly Castilian edition, in prose, of 1639. He prefaces it with a parallel-text translation of a section from Petronius’s "Satyricon", and a translation of Tasso’s sonnet on Camões.

For the frontispiece, Fanshawe had a copy of Camões's unmistakable portrait as poet laureate in plate armor made and paired it with English verses that make the Portuguese poet speak of himself. By copying the original without alteration, the inattentive or careless anonymous engraver inverted Camões' good and bad eye. This artist can be identified with some certainty with Thomas Cross (active 1642-82), the printmaker behind the portrait of Vasco da Gama. Though cropped here, as often found in copies of Fanshawe's translation, and thus lacking Cross's signature to the lower edge, a complete copy at the British Museum attests to his authorship. That the portrait of Prince Henry of Portugal is of better quality can be attributed to the fact that the likely co-author Cross here re-used the printing plate of Thomas Cecil's portrait of Edward the Black Prince before the Battle of Poitiers from ca. 1625. Traces of the polished-out caption "Poitiers", now replaced by Ceuta, the battle that robbed Camões of his right eye, are still visible.

[Roman inked wooden tablet]. Roman inked wooden tablet.Roman Empire, 4th century CE.

One of the earliest extant documents in world history to be written in ink: a wooden tablet in New Roman cursive, the first true cursive script with minuscules. Succeeding the earlier, unsophisticated Old Roman cursive in the 3rd century, the style was quickly adopted as the daily script of the later Roman Empire and used widely beyond the official chanceries: not simply a stylistic variation, it is a foundational element in the development of written language in Western Europe and the ultimate precursor of all subsequent medieval minuscules, including our own lower-case alphabet.

Roman writing tablets were a crucial medium of communication in antiquity. Typically made from oblong pieces of wood pieces, they usually had a wax surface that was inscribed with a stylus. While the vast majority of ancient writing tablets is lost, examples of such wax slates ("tabulae ceratae") were discovered in Pompeii, and between 2010 and 2013 a significant collection was unearthed in London's financial district, dating from 50 to 80 CE.

Inked tablets, by contrast, are vastly more uncommon than wax examples. A trove of these remarkable slates was discovered in the fort of Vindolanda, south of Hadrian's Wall; each tablet is approximately the size of a modern postcard, and similarly thin. These specimens, now in the British Museum, are considered the earliest known surviving instances of ink-written letters from the Roman era.

The ink tablet at hand, however, represents a third group, the rarest of them all. The closest example are the "Tabulae Albertini", cedar wooden tablets which are larger and thicker than those from Vindolanda. Written in Northern Africa in the late 5th century CE, they were discovered in the region of Tébessa, Algeria, in 1928. The present tablet, however, is at least a century older, and although it has been reused, the recessed area never held any wax. No traces from earlier writing with a stylus is evident, so the previous text was probably washed off - a common practice with the ink tablets.

In his Historia Naturalis (book 35, §25), Pliny gives a classic account of "atramentum" ("ink", or literally, "blacking"), describing it as a mineral "made from soot in various forms, as (for instance) of burnt rosin or pitch ... The ink of the very best quality is made from the smoke of torches. An inferior article is made from the soot of furnaces and bath-house chimneys. Some manufacturers employ the dried lees of wine ... Polygnotus and Micon, celebrated painters at Athens, made their black paint from burnt grape-vines ... The dyers make theirs from the dark crust that gradually accumulates on brass-kettles. Ink is made also from torches (pine-knots), and from charcoal pounded fine in mortars ... Book-writers' ink has gum mixed with it, weaver's ink is made up with glue. Ink whose materials have been liquified by the agency of an acid is erased with great difficulty".

The text forms the end of a record of real estate transaction. Written in highly formulaic legal language, it confirms a contract between heirs and elders ("heredes et seniores") negotiated on an estate called "Rascotiano". The full document would have been a diptych or triptych, comprising two or even three tablets.

Gaubil, Antoine, Jesuit missionary, astronomer, and historian at the Imperial Court in Beijing (1689-1759). "Catalogue Chinois des Étoiles". Autograph manuscript.Beijing, 1734.

An unrecorded manuscript celestial atlas from the Sui dynasty, edited with an extensive commentary by the early 18th century Jesuit astronomer Antoine Gaubil, hailed by Joseph Needham as the "father superior of Chinese Astronomy".

The manuscript contains an unpublished translation of the "Bu Tian Ge" (given in English variously as "Songs of pacing the heavens" or "The song of the marches of the heavens"), a Sui dynasty (581-618 CE) star catalogue in verse by the Taoist hermit Dan Yuanzi, also known as Wang Ximing. Beyond the text of the star catalogue, Gaubil provides his ink-drawn copies of 31 star charts, including a spectacular fold-out celestial map of the north polar region. Further, Gaubil offers not only an extensive commentary on the text, but also a tabular catalogue of Chinese stars that allows us to determine the corresponding European stars based on their distance from the North Pole.

The manuscript can be dated securely to 1734, the year Gaubil sent it, together with the Chinese original, to the French astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle in St Petersburg with a request that it be forwarded to his editor Étienne Souciet SJ (1671-1744) in Paris - a wish with which Delisle complied. Delisle's copy of the manuscript and the Chinese original, as well as the accompanying letter by Gaubil, dated Beijing, 25 July 1734, are preserved in the library of the Paris Observatory.

Written in verse, "Bu Tian Ge" was probably not intended for a scientific audience but rather to disseminate astronomical knowledge and to serve as a mnemonic. It is nevertheless "important in the history of Chinese astronomy because it definitely codifies the subdivision in the celestial skies into 3 yuan (enclosures or barriers) and 28 essential xiu, thus delineating the original theoretical organization of ancient Chinese astronomy" (Iannaccone). The poem is a beautiful testament to the microcosm-macrocosm analogy in Chinese natural philosophy, walking the reader through palaces and other institutions of the Chinese Empire, linking stars and their constellations to the political organization of the state and its representatives. In this system, the first constellation is the middle or purple palace (Zi wei yuán) of the Celestial Emperor: "In the middle of the Zi palace are the 5 stars of the northern pole, and the 6 Gòuchén stars. The northern pole is the most respectable in the sky, and the star seen there is called Niu [Niu Xing], the celestial pivot. The 1st star of the northern pole is called the Crown Prince, and presides over the moon. The 2nd is the Sovereign King, presiding over the sun; the 3rd is named after the sons of the second wives, presiding over the 5 planets" (transl.). The constellations of the purple palace or Ziwei enclosure are represented in fig. 1, the spectacular fold-out celestial map of the north polar region. Although the illustrations and the text are from the same source, Gaubil remarks in a short introduction to the charts that they cannot be assumed to be identical with those of the Sui dynasty original: "It would be preferable if we had these figures as they were made by the author of Bu Tien Ge, but no doubt they have been altered". They are nevertheless part of a continuous tradition of Chinese star maps that includes very similar objects such as the Dunhuang star map, dated around 700.

In his extremely valuable notes, comments, and glosses, Gaubil provides highly erudite cultural contextualization and the key to connecting Chinese astronomy with its European equivalent. A particularly interesting note points to astrological beliefs tied to the specific form of celestial representation in the "Bu Tian Ge", while distancing Chinese astronomical scholars from astrology: "It should come as no surprise, therefore, to see stars honoured in this catalogue, for example Canopus. As we have seen, the catalogue assumes that the spirit or soul of certain great men resides in certain stars, and it is not surprising for beings to be honoured who are believed to have the power to procure happiness or misfortune. Chinese scholars have always been far removed from such ideas". Finally, Gaubil offers a history of Chinese star catalogues and charts, tracing them back to the legendary Shang dynasty (ca. 1600-1046 BCE) shaman Wuxian, here transcribed as "Vou Hien", and the historically documented early astronomers Gan De and Shi Shen, active in the 4th century BCE, but also documenting Jesuit contributions to his own day: "When the Jesuits entered the court of mathematics [Imperial astronomical bureau, Qintianjian], they examined the Chinese celestial maps in detail, by means of conferences with local astronomers. They were soon able to see the Chinese stars that corresponded to the European ones, and made celestial maps in the European manner for latitudes, longitudes, declinations and right ascensions. They did not put the figures on the maps, but joined the stars of the Chinese asterisms by lines. They took the positions of the stars from Tycho's catalogues, and made a Chinese catalogue according to the order of the signs, adding the stars near the southern pole, unknown to the Chinese". As part of this tradition, Gaubil mentions the star charts of Ferdinand Verbiest and Claudio Filippo Grimaldi, whose charts were also attached to the aforementioned letter to Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, as well as Ignaz Kögler's plan to execute such a work. With respect to the recent catalogue of the Belgian Jesuit François Noël, Gaubil was somewhat skeptical: "Father Noël wrote a Latin catalogue of Chinese stars, but I do not think it is enough to explain what the Chinese know about stars".

Antoine Gaubil, who arrived in Beijing in 1722 and would remain there for the rest of his life, was the most important astronomer among the French Jesuits in China, and one of the greatest disseminators of Chinese science and wisdom in Europe in the 18th century. His work on astronomy and as an historian and translator of important Chinese texts such as the "I Ching" earned him the praise of Alexander von Humboldt as the wisest of the Jesuit missionaries. Joseph Needham even considers him "the interpreter general and father superior of Chinese astronomy", of which the manuscript at hand gives impressively evidence.

Pasternak, Boris, Russian poet (1890-1960). "Stikhi iz romana v proze" [Poems from a novel in prose]. A cycle of ten …No place, ca. 1948.

Samizdat ("self-published") collection of poems from Pasternak's then-unfinished novel "Doctor Zhivago", which would be published by Feltrinelli in Milan in 1958 after the manuscript was smuggled out of the USSR. Following an old Russian tradition widely used even in Czarist times, manuscripts and typescripts such as the present one were clandestinely disseminated by the author and his friends to evade Soviet censorship.

A gift to the author's close friend Mikhail Zenkevich, inscribed by his wife in pencil on the flyleaf: "Manuscript, autograph and binding of Boris Leonidovich Pasternak. This manuscript was given by B. L. Pasternak to my husband, Mikhail Zenkevich, on one of his visits to our house. Alexandra Zenkevich".

The cycle includes all of Zhivago's poems written before 1948 (ten out of the 25 "Lara" poems published in the novel), among them "Hamlet", "Ob'jasnenie" ("Explanation"), "Zimnjaja noch'" ("Winter Night"), "Rozhdestvenskaja zvezda" ("Christmas Star"), and "Na Strastnoj" ("On Strastnaya"), with which the novel ends.

Pasternak published "Stikhi iz romana v proze 'Doktor Zhivago'" in "Znamya" (no. 4, 1954, pp. 92-95) prior to their appearance in the book. The poems in this carbon vary only slightly in language, capitalization and layout from those in "Doctor Zhivago". Pasternak instructed his typist Marina Kazimirovna Baranovich to prepare copies of "Stikhi iz romana v proze" for distribution among friends. Only four other carbon copies of the work in this form have been located: one inscribed to Olga Petrovska (Sotheby's, Dec 5, 1991, lot 554); a second inscribed to Iuri Aleksandrovich Afanasiev (Bonham's, 2016, lot 24); a third inscribed to literary historian M. P. Gromov (Pasternak, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii 9, pp. 515f.); and a fourth inscribed on 10 April 1948 to his translator Cecil Maurice Bowra (Collection of Irwin Holtzman, Hoover Institution Archives).

Ibn Batuttah. Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah. Texte arabe, accompagné d'une traduction par C. …Paris, 1853-1859.

First and only complete edition of the Arabic text of Ibn Battuta's famous "Rihla" (literally, "The Journey"), the most significant eyewitness account of the Arabian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Over a period of thirty years, the Muslim Moroccan explorer Abu-‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Batutah (1304-77?) visited most of the known Islamic world, including North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, to the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the East - a distance surpassing that covered by his near-contemporary Marco Polo. Ibn Battuta is considered one of the greatest travellers of all time. He journeyed more than 75,000 miles, a figure unsurpassed by any individual explorer until the coming of the Steam Age some 450 years later. After returning home from his travels in 1354, Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his journeys to Ibn Juzayy, a scholar whom he had previously met in Granada. This account is the only source for Ibn Battuta's adventures. For centuries his book was obscure, even within the Muslim world, but in the early 19th century extracts were published in German and English based on manuscripts discovered in the Middle East, containing abridged versions of Ibn Juzayy's Arabic text. During the French occupation of Algeria in the 1830s, five manuscripts were discovered in Constantine, including two that contained more complete versions of the text. "These manuscripts were brought back to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and studied by the French scholars Charles Defrémery and Beniamino Sanguinetti. Beginning in 1853, they published a series of four volumes containing the Arabic text, extensive notes and a translation into French. Defrémery and Sanguinetti's printed text has now been translated into many other languages while Ibn Battuta has grown in reputation and is now a well-known figure" (Wikipedia).

Gaubil, Antoine, Jesuit missionary, astronomer, and historian at the Imperial Court in Beijing (1689-1759). "Catalogue pour la lune et les 5 planètes". Autograph manuscript.Beijing, 1735.

A chronological survey of the movements and positions of the moon and the five planets between 147 BC and AD 1735, compiled from Chinese works. Beyond the tables of observations, Gaubil offers highly interesting notes and remarks on the observations themselves, Chinese astronomical terminology, as well as the history, practice, and relevance of lunar observation in China, especially with respect to the lunar calendar, dynastic chronology, and astrology.

Two particularly interesting notes are found towards the end of the manuscript on pp. 29 and 31, respectively. In the first note, Gaubil mentions his source and prides himself with surpassing comparable Chinese compilations: "It is from the astronomy of the dynasties that I have drawn the calculations or observations shown in these 29 pages. Several Chinese have made these kinds of compendiums, but they are unselective, truncated and full of errors" (transl.). The following note directs the reader's attention to the high esteem that Jesuit astronomers enjoyed at the Imperial Court in Beijing: "The mandarins appointed by the Emperor to work with the Jesuits to reform the Calendar gave an account of their commissions. In particular, they pointed out the shortcomings of the Ephemerides for the year 1634. It is here that they state that the Chinese do not speak of the latitude or declination of the planets, and that even the longitudes of the planets are very often incorrect" (transl.).

Gaubil sent the manuscript to his editor Étienne Souciet SJ (1671-1744), librarian at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris, who added his note of receipt on 17 August 1752 in ink to the first page. Gaubil himself noted, "sent catalogue of constellations", apparently indicating another manuscript. The later pencil foliation ("153-168"), possibly added by Souciet, appears to indicate a publication project, but the manuscript was not published in Souciet's Observations and is not listed by Pfister.

Tagore, Sourindro Mohun. Tárávatí: a Tale, translated into English.Calcutta, 1881.

Only edition of this Hindu legend of Taravati, the wife of a wealthy Indian merchant, a tale originally composed by the translator's mother. Elaborately bound presentation copy, inscribed by the Indian musicologist and writer Sourindro Tagore (1840-1914) to the British patron of the arts, Constance Gwladys Robinson, Marchioness of Ripon (1859-1917), a close friend of Oscar Wilde (to whom the latter would dedicate "The Importance Of Being Ernest"): "In submission as an humble offering to Her Excellency The Most Hon.ble Marchioness of Ripon, CI. / With Sourindro Mohun Tagore's most profound respect", dated Calcutta, 5 December 1881. Rare; OCLC lists only six copies in libraries worldwide.

[Biblia arabica]. Biblia Sacra arabica, Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide iussu edita. …Rome, 1671.

First edition: the editio princeps of the complete Bible in Arabic. Work on this translation began as early as 1625 under the direction of the Lebanese bishop of the Maronites, Sergius Risius (Sarkis el-Rizzi, 1572-1638), and Filippo Guadagnoli (1596-1656); it was later completed by Abraham Ecchellensis (1605-1664) and Luigi Marracci (1612-1700). "The preface relates how Sergius Risius started the work of translation in 1625. The reader is warned that he will find many colloquialisms not sanctioned by the grammars. The text is unvocalised […] Of interest are the woodcut Bible book headings, first crude and angular in the Pentateuch, then in a more fluent style for the Historical Books, and even sometimes in outline in the Prophets. In the Gospels almost one half of a column is taken up by them, and in the N.T. Epistles they cover one half-page over two columns" (Smitskamp, p. 338).

Numerous errors in pagination, especially in the first and second volumes, but complete with the often lacking errata leaves. A good copy, appealingly bound.

Owen, Charles Henry. Sketches in the Crimea, Taken During the Late War.London, 1856.

A rare volume of hand-painted lithographed plates, complete in 8 scenes on 6 leaves, the final plate a folding panorama of Sevastopol in the midst of battle. Each scene, including the lithograph title-page, has been hand-painted with delicate watercolours, particularly finely and subtly done, with bright uniforms and delicately painted skies and landscapes. The author, Charles Owen (1830-1921), was a Major in the British Army, and ostensibly a veteran of the 1853-56 Crimean War, fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance between France, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The plates show war scenes on sweeping landscapes, particularly focused on Sevastopol. In full, they are titled: Chapel in the Caves (the title-page lithograph); Dockyard and Barrack Buildings; Balaklava; Sebastopol from the Picket House Battery; Harbour of Sebastopol, from the Crow's Nest, Inkermann; Creek Battery Sebastopol; Monastery of St. George; Valley of Baidar, and finally, Sebastopol from the 2nd Parallel Right Attack, the large folding plate.

Scarce, with only five copies listed in institutions, all currently in the United States or Britain.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Philosoph (1844-1900). Eigenh. Brief mit U. ("Friedrich Nietzsche").Basel, 27.09.1876.

An Richard Wagner, der ihn zuvor in einem Schreiben aus Venedig um "zusendung zweier Paar seideneren unterjacke und hosen baseler fabrikant feinste Waare" nach Bologna gebeten hatte. Der vorliegende Brief war offenbar dieser Wäschesendung beigelegt: "Hochverehrter Freund! Sie haben mir durch den kleinen Auftrag, welchen Sie mir erteilten, Freude gemacht: es erinnert mich an die Tribschener Zeiten. Ich habe jetzt Zeit, an Vergangenes, Fernes wie Nahes, zu denken, denn ich sitze viel im dunkelen Zimmer, einer Atropin-Kur der Augen wegen [...]. Der Herbst, nach diesem Sommer ist für mich, und wohl nicht für mich allein, mehr Herbst als ein früherer. Hinter dem grossen Ereignisse liegt ein Streifen schwärzester Melancholie, aus dem man sich gewiss nicht schnell genug nach Italien oder ins Schaffen oder in beides retten kann".

Etwas gebräunt, schwach feuchtfleckig und mit kleinem Einriß im unteren Rand.