![MANGET, Jean Jacques, editor (1652-1742). Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, seu rerum ad achemiam pertinentium thesaurus instructissimus. Geneva ['Genevae']: Chouet, G. De Tournes, Cramer, Perachon, Ritter, & S. De Tourne, 1702.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2000/CKS/2000_CKS_06298_0117_000(011251).jpg?w=1)
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MANGET, Jean Jacques, editor (1652-1742). Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, seu rerum ad achemiam pertinentium thesaurus instructissimus. Geneva ['Genevae']: Chouet, G. De Tournes, Cramer, Perachon, Ritter, & S. De Tourne, 1702.
2 volumes, 2° (355 x 215mm). Volume I with title in red and black, half-title on verso of the frontispiece, woodcut title devices. One-leaf publisher's 'Catalogus librorum medicorum, miscellaneorum' bound in after title to volume II. Engraved portrait frontispiece, 30 engraved plates and illustrations, woodcut diagrams, head- and tailpieces and initials. (Variable browning, some light dampstaining, mainly marginal, occasional worming, affecting headline on leaves Mm3-Nn4, small paper flaws on a few leaves affecting text, 3 plates affected by damp, one partially detached.) Contemporary calf, gilt spine compartments with morocco lettering-piece and volume number tooled in gilt (somewhat rubbed and scuffed, slightly affected by worming, upper joint of volume I partially split but firm, spine of volume II chipped at head), modern cloth boxes.
FIRST EDITION. 'THE MOST COMPLETE COLLECTION OF ALCHEMICAL TEXTS EVER PUBLISHED, CONTAINING 140 TREATISES ... FOR THE HISTORIAN OF CHEMISTRY THIS IS A MOST IMPORTANT AND INDISPENSABLE WORK' (Duveen). The son of a wealthy merchant -- and the nephew of the physician to the King of Poland -- Manget initially studied theology in conformity with his parents' wishes, but later turned to medicine, graduating as a doctor at Valence, Dauphiné in 1678 before returning to Geneva to practise, where he became Dean of the Medical Faculty. In 1699 he was appointed physician to the Elector of Brandenburg, a position he retained when the Elector became King of Prussia. As Ferguson comments: 'His literary work, in which he is said to have been helped by Daniel Leclerc, consisted chiefly in collecting and reprinting in large volumes treatises on medicine and surgery, and these are valuable as works of reference to books which either are now difficult to obtain or which have disappeared' (p.71). Manget's other editions include: Messis medico-spagyrica ([?Geneva]: 1683), Bibliotheca anatomica (Geneva: 1685), Bibliotheca pharmaceutico-medica (Geneva: 1704), and Bibliotheca chirurgica (Geneva: 1721).
In the present work Manget 'has classified the authors partly according to subject, partly chronologically. The first book contains the authors who have written the history of alchemy; those who have written against or for it; those who have given examples of transmutation; those who have written on the difficulties of alchemy and its language. Then follow the treatises from Hermes to Raymund Lully, with the Liber Mutus, which completes the first volume [69 treatises]. The second volume contains authors from Lully down to Manget's own time, the beginning of the eighteenth century [71 treatises]' (op. cit. p. 70).
There appear to be two issues of the work, distinguished by the place of publication in the imprint: either 'Genevae' (as here) or 'Coloniae Allobrogum.' It was subsequently reissued in Frankfurt in 1707, edited by Conrad Horlacher. Blake p. 285 (2 copies, 'Coloniae Allobrogum' and 'Genevae'); Bolton pp. 1004-1013 ('Genevae', with a full listing of the treatises); Brunet III, 1365 ('Genevae'); Caillet III, p. 28 ('Genevae', commenting 'ouvrage de la plus grande rareté ... c'est le moins commun des ouvrages de M. Manget: il contient les auteurs les plus estimés et les moins suspect, en matière de chimie métallique'); Duveen p. 387; Ferguson II, pp. 68-71 (vol. I: 'Coloniae Allobrogum', vol. II: 'Genevae', with a full listing of the treatises); Graesse IV, p. 363; Waller 11192 ('Coloniae Allobrog.'); Wellcome IV, p. 42. (2)
2 volumes, 2° (355 x 215mm). Volume I with title in red and black, half-title on verso of the frontispiece, woodcut title devices. One-leaf publisher's 'Catalogus librorum medicorum, miscellaneorum' bound in after title to volume II. Engraved portrait frontispiece, 30 engraved plates and illustrations, woodcut diagrams, head- and tailpieces and initials. (Variable browning, some light dampstaining, mainly marginal, occasional worming, affecting headline on leaves Mm3-Nn4, small paper flaws on a few leaves affecting text, 3 plates affected by damp, one partially detached.) Contemporary calf, gilt spine compartments with morocco lettering-piece and volume number tooled in gilt (somewhat rubbed and scuffed, slightly affected by worming, upper joint of volume I partially split but firm, spine of volume II chipped at head), modern cloth boxes.
FIRST EDITION. 'THE MOST COMPLETE COLLECTION OF ALCHEMICAL TEXTS EVER PUBLISHED, CONTAINING 140 TREATISES ... FOR THE HISTORIAN OF CHEMISTRY THIS IS A MOST IMPORTANT AND INDISPENSABLE WORK' (Duveen). The son of a wealthy merchant -- and the nephew of the physician to the King of Poland -- Manget initially studied theology in conformity with his parents' wishes, but later turned to medicine, graduating as a doctor at Valence, Dauphiné in 1678 before returning to Geneva to practise, where he became Dean of the Medical Faculty. In 1699 he was appointed physician to the Elector of Brandenburg, a position he retained when the Elector became King of Prussia. As Ferguson comments: 'His literary work, in which he is said to have been helped by Daniel Leclerc, consisted chiefly in collecting and reprinting in large volumes treatises on medicine and surgery, and these are valuable as works of reference to books which either are now difficult to obtain or which have disappeared' (p.71). Manget's other editions include: Messis medico-spagyrica ([?Geneva]: 1683), Bibliotheca anatomica (Geneva: 1685), Bibliotheca pharmaceutico-medica (Geneva: 1704), and Bibliotheca chirurgica (Geneva: 1721).
In the present work Manget 'has classified the authors partly according to subject, partly chronologically. The first book contains the authors who have written the history of alchemy; those who have written against or for it; those who have given examples of transmutation; those who have written on the difficulties of alchemy and its language. Then follow the treatises from Hermes to Raymund Lully, with the Liber Mutus, which completes the first volume [69 treatises]. The second volume contains authors from Lully down to Manget's own time, the beginning of the eighteenth century [71 treatises]' (op. cit. p. 70).
There appear to be two issues of the work, distinguished by the place of publication in the imprint: either 'Genevae' (as here) or 'Coloniae Allobrogum.' It was subsequently reissued in Frankfurt in 1707, edited by Conrad Horlacher. Blake p. 285 (2 copies, 'Coloniae Allobrogum' and 'Genevae'); Bolton pp. 1004-1013 ('Genevae', with a full listing of the treatises); Brunet III, 1365 ('Genevae'); Caillet III, p. 28 ('Genevae', commenting 'ouvrage de la plus grande rareté ... c'est le moins commun des ouvrages de M. Manget: il contient les auteurs les plus estimés et les moins suspect, en matière de chimie métallique'); Duveen p. 387; Ferguson II, pp. 68-71 (vol. I: 'Coloniae Allobrogum', vol. II: 'Genevae', with a full listing of the treatises); Graesse IV, p. 363; Waller 11192 ('Coloniae Allobrog.'); Wellcome IV, p. 42. (2)
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