Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia., vol. 1 1617 and vol. 2 1618

Curatorial Notes:

Vol. 1: The cosmos, with Earth (represented by the Garden of Eden) at the center. Throughout the two-volume History of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, the physician Robert Fludd used exquisite, geometrical diagrams to explore correspondences between the “double world” of macrocosm (the cosmos) and microcosm (humanity). His elaborate cosmology drew on the philosophy of Neoplatonism and the writings of Paracelsus, who envisaged the moment of Creation as a chemical separation on a cosmic scale. / Vol. 02: In this plate, Fludd illustrates the routes by which the human mind can access three worlds of knowledge: sensible, imaginable, and intellectual. While the physical world is known through the five senses, more abstract concepts are constructed in the imagination, while still drawing on information from the senses. Knowledge of the divine—the world of God and the hierarchy of angels—is apprehended by the mind directly, through reason and intellect.

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Rare Books Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

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Description:

Illustrated title-pages, engraved.
"Tractatus secundus" has t.-p. and separate paging.
Pages 3-6,41-44,, pt. 1 and 345-346, 391-393, 467-468, pt. 2 are folded.
Three folded plates are included in the paging.
"[The work] was to have been in two volumes, the first containing two treatises, the second three; it was completed as far as the first section of the second treatise of the second volum." --Dict of nat. biog. contains a notice of v. 2 (p. 785-788 of pt. 2) with table of contents.

References:

Catalogo ragionato dei libri d'arte e d'antichità posseduti dal conte Cicognara 32

Provenance:

Ex copy: Booklabel on front pastedown 'J. Hallenberg.'
Ex copy: Inscribed on title page verso 'Johannes Panhuis' and 'Upsalon (Uppsala?) 5 Jan 1653'

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