Le diverse et artificiose machine / del capitano Agostino Ramelli ... Nellequali si contengono uarij et industriosi mouimenti, degni digrandissima speculatione, per cauarne beneficio infinito in ogni sorte d'operatione ; composte in lingua italiana et francese
[16], 338 leaves : illustrations, portrait ; 35 cm (fol.)
Type:
Early works to 1800
Pictorial works
Early works
Date:
1588
Notes:
Both the engraved title page with historiated border and the engraved portrait of Ramelli on the verso of the title page are signed: LG, for the engraver Léonard Gaultier. Plates CL, CLI and CLII are signed with the monogram JG (unidentified)
The work was dedicated to Ramelli's patron, King Henri III of France
Each page of text and illustrations is printed within a border of typographic floral ornaments
Woodcut initials; corner ornaments, and tail-pieces
There are 194 text engravings. The illustrations are numbered I-CXCV (numbers CXLVIII and CXLIX are combined in the same illustration). Double-page illustrations include XCV, CXLI-CXLIV, CXLVII, CLI-CLIII, CLXXXI-CLXXXIII, CLXXXVI, CLXXXIX-CXCII and CXCV; the remainder are on single pages
"Ramelli planned his treatise as a particularly lavish work that would be difficult to counterfeit, and produced and published it from his own house where he could maintain absolute control over the project" --The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (catalog issued by Christie's auction house), part I (1998), number 168
Leaves are printed on both sides, but are numbered only on the recto side
Errors in foliation: leaf 109 is misnumbered as 108; leaf 223 is misnumbered as 123; leaf 226 is misnumbered as 225; leaf 239 is misnumbered as 139; and leaf 320 is misnumbered as 319
For a fuller description of this book see: The various and ingenious machines of Agostino Ramelli 1588, translated from the Italian and French with a biographical study of the author by Martha Teach Gnudi. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976
Adams, H.M. Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries, R52
Hook, D.H. Haskell F. Norman Library of science and medicine, 1777
Dibner Library. Heralds of science, 173
SCDIRB has two copies; neither one is the copy formerly owned by the Burndy Library, which is briefly described in the Heralds of science entry and is now in the collections of the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California
SCDIRB copy 1 (39088002320117) has bookplate: Library of Charles Batchelor, with stamped accession number: 2291
SCDIRB copy 1 has some handwritten annotations in French or English in the margins
SCDIRB copy 1 (measuring 34 cm tall) has a later half-vellum binding with marbled paper boards; gilt-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; and red edges. Leaf 124 has been torn and repaired, slightly affecting the text and illustrations. Several leaves have off-setting of the text or image on the opposite leaf
SCDIRB copy 2 (39088020039913) has bookplates: 1. H.T. Livingston, Oak Hill; 2. (armorial) Alexander Aubert. With stamp on title page: Library, U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Nov. 25, [---]9; accession number 134425, "cancelled"; stamp on title page verso: Smithsonian Library, Apr. 18, 1958; and stamp on front free endpaper: U.S. National Museum, Science, Technology and Manufactures Library, "cancelled."
SCDIRB copy 2 has a handwritten inscription in ink on the front free endpaper: "Presented to the Smithsonian Institution by Herman T. Livingston of Oak Hill, manor of Livingston, New York, November 1889. This book has been in the possession of the donor's family for more than 50 years and was previously owned and probably used by Robert Fulton while perfecting his plans for the first steam boat on the Hudson River. Oak Hill, Columbia Co., New York." (Fulton and the Livingston family were related by marriage, as well as by business ties).
SCDIRB copy 2 (measuring 36 cm tall) has an old, blind-tooled full leather binding with raised bands and marbled endpapers; re-backed, with a glassine overwrap. The volume has two copies of leaf 333 (2I3) and two copies of leaf 334 (2I4).
