22        BÖCKLER, Georg Andreas (1617-1687). Theatrum machinarum novum, exhibens aquarias, alatas, iumentarias, manuarias; pedibus, ac ponderibus versatiles, plures, et diversas molas (translated into Latin by Heinrich Schmitz). Folio (530x210 mm). [10], 55 pp. Frontispiece engraved by Paul van Somer after Boekler and 154 engraved plates, some signed BS or EK.Contemporary vellum with title penned in ink on spine. Some foxing to text leaves, frontiscepiece minimally cropped at foredge, plate 17 with small tear, else fine. Cologne, at the expense of Paul Fürst in Nuremberg, 1662. 

A fine copy of this classic in early machine book in its first Latin edition.

A lavishly illustrated display of mechanical art with plates showing the construction of gigantic mill wheels and hydraulic machinery to be operated not only by water or wind, but weights, horse power or human energy.

The work by the Nuremberg architect and engineer Böckler is based on the treatises by Besson, Strada and Ramelli. The excellent engravings – the same as in the German first edition of 1661 – are partly engraved by B. Schwan and E. Kiefer and show various types of mills, water-raising devices and fire extinguishers. Particularly noteworthy is the fire pump newly developed by H. Hautsch in 1655 with a pumping capacity of up to 25 meters in height, as well as the very early depiction of a vane turbine and a perpetual motion machine driven by Archimedean screws. The work is also unusual among baroque machine books because it primarily contains actually realised devices and not just the fantasies of inventors.

A copy with wide margins, the title and some leaves retaining the deckle edges.

Provenance: Brathnaver (manuscript name on frontispiece) and J. Gilbert F. Crompton (19th century engraved bookplate).

References: Hilz, Theatrum machinarum (2008), p. 102f.; Bacher, Das Theatrum machinarum, in: H. Holländer, Erkenntnis, Erfindung (2004), 512f.; Klemm, Die Mühlenbücher des 17. und 18. Jhs., in: Aus dem Antiquariat (1951), A173f.; Thorndike VII, 617f.; Moon, The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci (2007), 385f.; VD 17 (Online Kat.) 23:296774F; Wellcome II, 186.

Price: CHF 7500