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82 - DESCARTES (René). Specimina philosophiæ. Amsterdam, Louis El…
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Estimate €2,000 - €3,000
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DESCARTES (René). Specimina philosophiæ. Amsterdam, Louis Elzevier, 1644. Small in-4, soft vellum, smooth spine, spotted edges (Binding of the period). First Latin edition. This is the first Latin translation of the Discourse on Method and the essays on La Dioptrique and Les Météores that follow it in the French original of 1637. It is in this edition that the famous Latin formulation of the cogito is printed for the first time: "cogito, ergo sum" (p. 31). The Latin translation was the work of the theologian Étienne de Courcelles, a friend of Descartes, but revised and modified by the author. The essay on Geometry that appeared in the French edition was excluded at Descartes' request. The Specimina philosophiæ are sometimes bound with the Principia philosophiæ published the same year by Louis Elzévier, but the two works are independent. Both scientific treatises are illustrated with numerous woodcut figures and diagrams. A precious copy of the Toulouse scholar Emmanuel Maignan (1601-1676), with the manuscript bookplate of the convent of Saint-Roch des Minimes in Toulouse "ad usum R.P. Em. Maignan". A famous mathematician, physicist, astronomer, philosopher and theologian, Father Maignan was one of those who, like Descartes, "set out to overthrow the philosophical empire of Aristotle and who 'dared to seek the truth for themselves'" (P. Julien). Maignan, who "corresponded with Fermat, criticised Descartes' Tourbillons [...], was recognised as a universal mind, mastered both Greek and Hebrew, and established himself in the most learned circles, even in Paris..." (ibid.). (ibid.), was first admitted as a novice in 1618 to the convent of Saint-Roch, where he remained for most of his life as master of mathematics and where "his cell became a renowned place visited by scholars to admire all sorts of mathematical, pneumatic and hydraulic machines..." (ibid.). (ibid.). From 1636 to 1650, he had stayed in Rome at the Trinité des Monts convent, where Father Marin Mersenne, a friend and correspondent of Descartes and Fermat, resided. A fascinating and very rare strictly contemporary scientific and philosophical provenance on an original edition by Descartes (1596-1650). From the library of Dr Desbarreaux-Bernard (1879, II, no. 83), another scholar from Toulouse, with bookplate. A forensic doctor, Tibulle Desbarreaux-Bernard (1798-1880) was above all a great bibliophile and a learned historian of books and printing in Languedoc, the author of numerous works on the subject, including the Catalogue des incunables de la Bibliothèque de Toulouse (Catalogue of incunabula in the Toulouse Library), which now holds more than 2,000 works that belonged to him. Desbarreaux-Bernard was also one of the first historians to study the Lanternistes, a circle of Toulouse scholars to which Father Maignan belonged, in a reference work published in 1858. An excellent copy in contemporary vellum. Small worm gallery in the back of the volume on pp. 289-331. Guibert, 104:1 - Norman, n°623 - Pascal Julien, " Anamorphoses et visions miraculeuses du père Maignan ", Mélanges de l'École française de Rome, 2005, n°117/1, pp. 45-71 - Desbarreaux-Bernard, Les Lanternistes, Paris, 1858.
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About the sale Antiquarian books from the 15th to the 19th century - Astronomy
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Auction time 06/24/2026 at 2:00 PM
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