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“
Throughout his adventurous life he served in various ecclesiastical and state missions, lastly as a bishop of
Vigevano (near Milan), where he died in 1682. He was an extremely prolific author. He produced two hundred
and sixty works, of which only sixty were published. Caramuel contributed to several disciplines including
music, physics, mathematics, linguistics, and architecture. He was in contact with many of his contemporaries
including Descartes and Gassendi”
(Daniel Novotny,
Ens rationis from Suarez to Caramuel
, p. 22).
Exemplaire entièrement non rogné et à toutes marges, quelques feuillets légèrement brunis, portrait
gravé monté ; dos refaits avec pièce de titre manuscrites.
First edition of the rarest and most ambitious architectural treatise ever written in the Spanish
language, by the Spanish-born polymath Juan Caramuel Y Lobkowitz, containing the first systematic
application of the phenomenon of anamorphosis to three dimensional structures. Complete copy,
illustrated with 170 engraved plates, the author’s portrait (dated 1679) and not always present in
copies, is here cut down to the margin and mounted. Broad margined copy with deckle edges.