A lamp fed with a liquid made from human blood
Biolychnium seu Lucerna. Cum vita eius, cui accensa est mystice vivens iugiter; cum morte eiusdem expirans; omnesq[ue] affectus graviores prodens.
8vo. 144, (3)-15 pp. All edges red. Unsophisticated wrappers.
$832.00
Second edition thus, the first to contain Ribola's appendix. This work on sympathetic magic constitutes "a curious booklet, the first edition of which appeared in 1610 or 1611. It gives an account of a lamp fed with a liquid made from human blood, which burns as long as the person lives from whom the blood is taken, and goes out at his death" (Duveen, p. 109). "Ouvrage remarquable par la bizarrerie des idées qui y sont exposées" (Rosenthal 3082). Also contains Paracelsus's "Cura morborum magnetica, qua vera Theophrasti mumia significatur", as well as the "Alexipharmacum". The separately paginated appendix is the "Tractatus de facultate metallorum germinatrice secundum hermeticos" by the Munich Benedictine monk and alchemist Petrus Ribola.
Outer edge untrimmed; light worming to lower corner; insignificant browning. This copy lacks the blank leaf K1, as do those at the BSB Munich and in Prague. A good copy; rare.
VD 17, 12:657571X. Brüning 1516. Ferguson I, 131 (note). Kopp II, 367. Rosenthal 188 (wanting appendix). OCLC 491751455. Cf. Caillet I, p. 264f., no. 1807.