Details
PORTA, Giovanni Battista della (1535?-1615). De Furtivis Literarum Notis. Vulgo De Ziferis Libri IIII. Naples: Giovanni Maria Scotto, 1563 [but London: J. Wolfe, 1591].
4° (190 x 140mm). Title with woodcut vignette, 3 full-page woodcut dials within elaborate borders, and the separate plate with their volvelle discs, numerous woodcut examples of ciphers and other vignettes, woodcut tailpieces and initials. (Some spotting, three quires browned.) Old limp vellum, title lettered on spine (hinges split but still firm). Provenance: Josephus Laurentius and his friends (an "et amicorum" inscription in Latin and Greek, dated 1635).
The rare London reprint of Porta's influential treatise on secret writings and cryptography. It is a page-for-page copy of the first edition, printed in Naples in 1563, execpt that the title-page vignette shows a grotesque mask, rather than the arms of the kingdom of Naples, and each page has a catchword, whilst the Naples edition had catchwords only on the last leaf of a gathering. This copy, like the Harvard copy, has the leaf with the volvelle parts intact and unassembled. STC 20118a; Riccardi I (2), 309; cf. Adams P-1924; Mortimer Italian 397.
4° (190 x 140mm). Title with woodcut vignette, 3 full-page woodcut dials within elaborate borders, and the separate plate with their volvelle discs, numerous woodcut examples of ciphers and other vignettes, woodcut tailpieces and initials. (Some spotting, three quires browned.) Old limp vellum, title lettered on spine (hinges split but still firm). Provenance: Josephus Laurentius and his friends (an "et amicorum" inscription in Latin and Greek, dated 1635).
The rare London reprint of Porta's influential treatise on secret writings and cryptography. It is a page-for-page copy of the first edition, printed in Naples in 1563, execpt that the title-page vignette shows a grotesque mask, rather than the arms of the kingdom of Naples, and each page has a catchword, whilst the Naples edition had catchwords only on the last leaf of a gathering. This copy, like the Harvard copy, has the leaf with the volvelle parts intact and unassembled. STC 20118a; Riccardi I (2), 309; cf. Adams P-1924; Mortimer Italian 397.