Beschreibung:

FLUDD, Robert (1547-1637). Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia. In duo volumina secundum cosmi differentiam divisa. --Tractatus secundus de naturae simia seu technica macrocosmi historia . Oppenheim: Hieronymus Gallerus for Johan Theodorus de Bry, 1617-1618. 4 parts in one volume, 2° (320 x 250mm). 2 engraved allegorical titles, 7 engraved plates, of which 6 folding or double-page, numerous engravings throughout, many full-page. (Some browning, occasional marginal dampstain, two small repairs, figure on title censored in ink, I2 bound out of sequence.) 19th-century quarter calf, spine tooled and lettered in gilt (lower joint just starting, two small wormholes). FIRST EDITION OF FLUDD'S MYSTIC MASTERPIECE, richly illustrated with designs variously attributed to de Bry and Fludd. Fludd contends that humans are linked to divinity through nature, and that divine truth can be found in the microcosm-macrocosm analogy. The Cosmi Maioris is 'a presentation of Renaissance Magia and Cabala, with the addition of Alchymia as developed by Paracelsus and the developments introduced by John Dee into these traditions... [it is] a 'Rosicrucian' philosophy, a Renaissance philosophy brought up to date' (Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment , p. 80). Caillet 4042 ('Traité FORT RARE ET TRèS RECHERCHé... avec de nombreuses gravures très belles et curieuses de Jean Théodore de Bry'); Duveen p.222; Houzeau & Lancaster 2965, 2966; Wellcome 2324.