[Secrets of nature] Io. Bapt. Portae Neapolitani Magiae Naturalis libri XX

Ab ipso authore expurgati, & superaucti, in quibus scientiarum naturalium divitiae, & delitia demonstrantur. Naples, Apud Horatium Salvianum, 1589, (16),303,(1 blank) p., title inside profusely decorated woodcut border, verso title with woodcut portrait, several woodcut illus. of stones, distillery equipment etc., 20 large woodcut headpieces, many smaller vignettes and initials, 18th-century green halfleather, ribbed and gilt back with morocco letterpiece, folio.

Occ. foxing, binding with some wear, else a very good copy. The first edition of the Magiae Naturalis in 20 books. Remarkably no copies of this crucial edition (according to Mortimer "essential to an understanding of Della Porta and the science of his day") in PiCarta. Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615), famous Italian mathematician and philosopher, who lived and worked in Naples. There he founded the Academia Secretorum Naturae, devoted to the study of natural secrets, which was banned around 1580. In 1592 the church even banned the printing and publishing of Della Porta's work. His work became immediately succesful, with subjects as mathematics, meteorology, astrology and naturial philosophy, but also occultism and alchemy. Mortimer, Harvard Italian 400 ('); Riccardi I, 307.