Details
PARACELSUS [Bombastus von Hohenheim, Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus]. (ca. 1493-1541). Phi[lo]sophiae ad Atheniensis, drey Bcher. Cologne: The Heirs of Arnold Birckmann, 1564.
4o (190 x 151 mm). Collation: A-K4 a-q4. 104 leaves, unfoliated. Gothic type. Title printed in red and black, woodcut coat-of-arms on K4v and repeated at end. (Excised 1 x 3 in. piece from title fore-margin patched, not affecting letters.) 18th-century mottled calf, sides with gilt coat-of-arms, spine gilt. Provenance: Foliation supplied in an early hand and early marginalia.
FIRST EDITION, with small overslip hand-lettered "Philo" mounted on title to correct printed mispelling "Phisophiae." Philosophiae ad Atheninesis introduced one of Paracelsus's key ideas of Paracelsain philosophy: the concept of mysterium, or a matrix in which an object is generated. Paracelsus believed that all mysteria descended from the mysterium magnum, a universal matrix which is the mother of all elements. The work also contains an analysis of the causes and cure of epilepsy, a disease Paracelsus discussed in several of his works. BM/STC German p. 139; Heirs of Hippocrates *120; NLM/Durling 3467; Pagel Paracelsus pp. 89-95; Sudhoff 65; Temkin pp. 170-77; Waller 7121; Wellcome 4754; Norman 1634.
4o (190 x 151 mm). Collation: A-K4 a-q4. 104 leaves, unfoliated. Gothic type. Title printed in red and black, woodcut coat-of-arms on K4v and repeated at end. (Excised 1 x 3 in. piece from title fore-margin patched, not affecting letters.) 18th-century mottled calf, sides with gilt coat-of-arms, spine gilt. Provenance: Foliation supplied in an early hand and early marginalia.
FIRST EDITION, with small overslip hand-lettered "Philo" mounted on title to correct printed mispelling "Phisophiae." Philosophiae ad Atheninesis introduced one of Paracelsus's key ideas of Paracelsain philosophy: the concept of mysterium, or a matrix in which an object is generated. Paracelsus believed that all mysteria descended from the mysterium magnum, a universal matrix which is the mother of all elements. The work also contains an analysis of the causes and cure of epilepsy, a disease Paracelsus discussed in several of his works. BM/STC German p. 139; Heirs of Hippocrates *120; NLM/Durling 3467; Pagel Paracelsus pp. 89-95; Sudhoff 65; Temkin pp. 170-77; Waller 7121; Wellcome 4754; Norman 1634.