Theatrum Instrumentorum et Machinarum. Theatre des Instrumens Mathematiques & Mechaniques (additional text and preface by François Béroalde de Verville).

Architectural title-page with classical figures, grotesques and geometric forms. With 60 engraved plates by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau the Elder, unsigned, elaborate grotesque head- and tail-pieces, and initials. Text in Roman and Italic types. [40] pp. (some spotting on title and light foxing in following leaves). Folio (390 x 270 mm). Modern vellum imitating the old style, with ornamentation in blind tooling on sides and back. Lyon (i.e. Geneva), Barth'elemy Vincent, 1578. First edition, second issue. According to the catalogue of the BnF this issue was preceded by a slightly different one printed in the same year by the same publisher, where the title-page is in French and dated in Roman numerals MDLXXVIII. Our copy has a bilingual title-page Latin and French, and is dated in modern spelling 1578. Both editions are augmented with text in French by François Béroalde de Verville. This book is one of the most important pictorial works on machines and opened the type of "Theatra machinarum". An elegant encyclopaedia of different inventions, ranging from musical instruments, hoists, pulleys, fountains, water-wheels, excavation and construction equipment to fire-fighting apparatus, etc. by Jacques Besson (1510-1576), professor of mathematics and engineer to the king. All the illustrations show great detail in the depiction of the human figures working the engines and the landscapes in which they are situated. The edition retains the description in Latin text engraved at the top of each plate.- A nice copy. - Cf. Brunet I, 829-830; Adams B-841; USTC 141612; no copy in BL London or BSB Munich; cf. Mortimer 56 & 57. SCIENCE:INSTRUMENTS ; SCIENCE:TECHNOLOGY ; GRAPHIC ARTS:ILLUSTRATED BOOKS ;