AGRICOLA, Georg

Libri Quinque de Mensuris & Ponderibus: in quibus pleraque a Budaeo & Portio parum animadversa diligenter excutiuntur

      Woodcut printer's device on title (repeated on verso of final leaf, otherwise blank). 261, [9] pp. (lacking final leaf, a blank). Small 8vo, cont. limp vellum (binding with one or two minor defects), ties gone. Paris: C. Wechel, 1533. Second edition and a very fine copy of one of Agricola's most important books which became a standard work on ancient weights and measures. It is "a valuable book of reference on the history of ancient measures...The book is also valuable to the student of Roman and Greek numerals, and of the various symbols of measures. Such works explain the origin of certain systems of measures employed before the metric system was developed, and of such symbols as are still used by apothecaries."-Smith, Rara Arithmetica, pp. 171-73-(who, like several other bibliographers, including the Hoovers, mistakenly describes this as the first edition). Besides these subjects, Agricola treats the value of metals of all kinds and of money both in ancient and modern times. The first edition appeared in the same year at Basel. A fine copy bound before a very slightly defective copy of Robert Ceneau's De Vera Mensurarum ponderumque ratione opus de integro instauratum... (1547); it lacks half of the folding table. Early ownership inscriptions of "Ex Biblioth. M.S. Cigirami" and "C. Lancelot" on the first title. Darmstaedter, G. Agricola, pp. 71-74-"especially important for the historian of medicine." .