The Property of
A GENTLEMAN
BARBA, ALVARO ALONSO. Arte de los Metales. Madrid: Imprenta del Reyno 1640.
Details
BARBA, ALVARO ALONSO. Arte de los Metales. Madrid: Imprenta del Reyno 1640.
Small 4to, 198 x 140mm. (7 3/4 x 5 1/2in.), old vellum, repaired, first fly-leaf and title-leaf torn and silked on verso, title with portion of typographic border chipped away at fore-edge, some other fore-edges and gutters silked, badly stained throughout and a few tears, some foremargins ragged, red quarter morocco slipcase.
FIRST EDITION, 12 woodcuts in text of mining methods and apparatus. At the end of the dedication, underneath Barba's printed signature is a contemporary manuscript four-line note explaining that there are many misprints due to incompetent overseeing of the printing. These authoritative corrections are made throughout the text in the same hand.
Palau 23622 ("muy rara", noting only the sale of a defective copy in 1921); Sabin 3253.
EXTREMELY RARE. "In 1588 Barba was sent by the Church to Peru, where he combined priestly duties with studies of mineral deposits, mining, and especially the treatment of silver ores by amalgamation. He traveled widely in the Peruvian provinces, living in Tarabuco (1590) and Tiahuanaco (1615). In 1617 he moved to Yotala in Los Lipez province where he perfected his new procedures for treating silver ore. After 1624 Barba served the San Bernardo parish in the famous silver town of Potosi, where he presumably died sometime after 1639...El arte was the first significant treatise on metals to be written in Spanish and is the only seventeenth-century treatise that was largely original."--Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
Provenance: Robert Honeyman IV (sale, Sotheby's London, Part I, 30 October 1978, lot 196).
Small 4to, 198 x 140mm. (7 3/4 x 5 1/2in.), old vellum, repaired, first fly-leaf and title-leaf torn and silked on verso, title with portion of typographic border chipped away at fore-edge, some other fore-edges and gutters silked, badly stained throughout and a few tears, some foremargins ragged, red quarter morocco slipcase.
FIRST EDITION, 12 woodcuts in text of mining methods and apparatus. At the end of the dedication, underneath Barba's printed signature is a contemporary manuscript four-line note explaining that there are many misprints due to incompetent overseeing of the printing. These authoritative corrections are made throughout the text in the same hand.
Palau 23622 ("muy rara", noting only the sale of a defective copy in 1921); Sabin 3253.
EXTREMELY RARE. "In 1588 Barba was sent by the Church to Peru, where he combined priestly duties with studies of mineral deposits, mining, and especially the treatment of silver ores by amalgamation. He traveled widely in the Peruvian provinces, living in Tarabuco (1590) and Tiahuanaco (1615). In 1617 he moved to Yotala in Los Lipez province where he perfected his new procedures for treating silver ore. After 1624 Barba served the San Bernardo parish in the famous silver town of Potosi, where he presumably died sometime after 1639...El arte was the first significant treatise on metals to be written in Spanish and is the only seventeenth-century treatise that was largely original."--Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
Provenance: Robert Honeyman IV (sale, Sotheby's London, Part I, 30 October 1978, lot 196).