RAMELLI, Agostino (1521-c.1610)

RAMELLI, Agostino (1521-c.1610)

Schatzkammer, Mechanischer Künste. Leipzig: Georg Eiger for Henning Grosen, 1620.

‘The engravings are among the best in technical illustration’ (Dibner). This is the only German edition of Ramelli’s treatise on late Renaissance technology, published posthumously after the Italian engineer’s death in c.1610. The illustrated text depicts and explains all manner of machines and includes designs for automata, such as mechanical talking birds. Dibner 173; Hollstein IV, 154; Ornamentstich-Slg. 1771; Riccardi I/2, 341; Wellcome I, 5324.

Folio (312 x 183mm). Engraved title page cut down and mounted to first leaf, engraved portrait, 14 copperplates, 8 double-page and 180 nearly full page text engravings and 101 woodblock print devices stamped at end of each text block, engraved colophon at end (occasional offsetting and spotting throughout, leaf D2 with corner chip, leaf F4 with marginal tear, tiny rust hole to leaves hH2/4 with loss to a couple of letters, short marginal tears at foot of gutter from leaf K4/M2 with occasional loss to a few letters of catchwords, leaf B4 with corner repaired with later paper stock, with loss to woodcut device, filled in with manuscript). Contemporary mottled calf, spine with raised bands in seven compartments, gilt spine label to second, the others tooled in gilt with centrepieces of fleece or, surrounded by volutes, crowns and various dotted tools (extremities rubbed, the joints splitting and sometime crudely repaired, loss to head and tail of spine exposing headbands, corners bumped). Provenance: Charles Hamilton (engraved armorial bookplate).