LE GRAND, Antoine (d. 1699)

An entire body of philosophy, according to the principles of the famous Renate Des Cartes , in three books: I. The institution ... II. The history of nature ... III. A dissertation of the want of sense and knowledge in brute animals ... Written originally in Latin by the Learned Anthony Le Grand. Now carefully translated from the last corrections, alterations, and large additions of the author, never yet published. The whole work illustrated with almost an hundred sculptures ... by Richard Blome

London: printed by Samuel Roycroft, and sold by the undertaker Richard Blome, dwelling in New Weld-street, at the Green Pales, near Clare-Market, 1694.
Folio: [pi]1 A2 2A6 (a)--(c)2 B--8F2, 347 leaves, pp. [30] 403 [1] 92 97--263 [1] (last page blank). Title with rule border, text in double columns. Plates: 99 engraved plates printed on 88 leaves: the majority by Johannes Kip (1653--1722) after G. Freeman (dates unknown), a few after 'Lens', probably Bernard Lens II (1659--1725) and a few engraved by Michael Vandergucht (1660--1725), comprising a frontispiece, 3 plates of scientific illustrations, 4 plates of benefactors arms and 91 allegorical plates. Two of these, the frontispieces to parts 2 and 3 (bound facing pp. 1 and 225 of the second sequence of pagination) have a letterpress dedication printed on the recto. Leaf size and condition: 338 x 220 x 55mm. Sig. 7s browned, otherwise a fine fresh and clean copy with strong impressions of the plates. Binding: Contemporary mottled calf, gilt spine, red and brown sprinkled edges. Rubbed, vertical cracks in the spine, 1 of 2 rear endleaves removed. Provenance and annotation: Earls of Macclesfield with South Library Bookplate and blind-stamped arms in prelims, sale at Sotheby's, London 25--26 October 2006, lot 2775. References: Wing L950A; ESTC R223323.
First edition, issue for sale by the publisher, Richard Blome; with the arms of 97 benefactors. In the other issue, after Blome's name on the titlepage, there are the names of 9 booksellers; copies vary in the number of benefactors' arms.
§ Antoine Le Grand was born near Douai, in the Spanish Netherlands, and became a lecturer in philosophy at the English Catholic College there 1655. In the following year he was sent to London to teach philosophy. He established a school of philosophy where he taught the sons of the Roman Catholic gentry and produced a series of textbooks which had a wide influence and were used at Oxford and Cambridge colleges. These were the Philosophia veterum e mente Renati Descartes, more scholastico breviter digesta (1671), expanded as Institutio philosophiae secundum principia Renati Descartes, nova methodo adornata et explicata, ad usum juventutis academicae (1672), printed by John Martyn, printer to the Royal Society, and Historia naturae variis experementis et ratiociniis elucidata (1680), also printed by Martyn. It is these three works that Richard Blome, the entrepreneurial bookseller and cartographer, had translated into English and published as the present work. According to Richard Acworth in ODNB, Le Grand was unhappy with this translation, writing that so much had been added, omitted, and changed by the editor that he did not know whether he ought to acknowledge it as his own work. Not surprisingly, Blome puffs Le Grand's involvement in his project rather differently. In his 'Epistle to the Reader' he says: 'And altho' this Volume of PHILOSOPHY has been so well received in Latin by the Sale of several Impressions, yet for the making it more exact and perfect, I contracted with the Author Mr. Le Grand to make Additions thereunto; so that by his large Additions and the great Alterations throughout, it may be boldly said to be a New Book, and the best yet extant in any Language.' As well as being a 'New Book' textually, it is a new book, and indeed an original conception, in its presentation and illustration, placing Le Grand's work in a very different contex for a different readership. Blome as publisher and 'undertaker' of the work - that is it was Blome's financial speculation - transformed Le Grand's university textbooks into a lavish illustrated book to compete with the illustrated editions of the classics by his rival in cartographic publishing, John Ogilby. Le Grand's standard Cartesian diagrams, woodcuts in the original editions, are gathered together in three engraved plates, indexed to the text. But the glory of Blome's edition is the 92 allegorical plates (including the frontispiece) which are decoded in an 8-page section in the prelims. Many books of this period have printed explanations of their frontispieces, but an extended reading of such a large body of illustrations is unique, I think, and of enormous value for understanding the visual imagery of the seventeenth century. Blome's edition of Le Grand should be seen not only as the most extensive compendium of Cartesian natural philosophy available to English readers, but as a great scientific emblem book, overlooked by Praz and other writers on emblems. Blome and Ogilby were both pioneers of subscription publishing. A proposal form for An entire body of philosophy was issued (ESTC locates a single copy at the Clarke Library) but there is no printed list of subscribers in the book. However Blome in part funded the book by persuading patrons to pay for the plates. A series of plates at the start of the work displays the arms of all the benefactors; and a dedication to each benefactor and their arms are engraved on the plates that they had paid for. What is fascinating is that comparing different copies of the book, one can see this process at work. Thus in this copy the arms of 97 benefactors are engraved on 4 plates at the start of the work, and 30 of the allegorical plates are undedicated, with a blank panel under the illustration. In the copy in the Cambridge University Library (6000.a.8, a copy without any contemporary provenance, purchased from Quaritch in 1996) 105 benefactors' arms appear on 5 plates at the beginning and only 22 plates are undedicated. The Wellcome Library has two copies, 32867/D/1 with 111 arms and 20 plates undedicated, and 32867/D/2 with 113 arms and 17 plates undedicated (and several plates lacking). Martin Folkes' arms are at no. 62 on the arms plates, those of Samuel Pepys at 88 and of Thomas Sprat at 110, that is his arms were added after the Macclesfield copy was issued. <<Le Grand, whose books were recommended for study at Oxford and Cambridge, was an important link in the transmission of Cartesian ideas and their popularization in England. He is also interesting as showing that a Roman Catholic priest could occupy an influential position in English intellectual life even at a time when persecution was by no means over. His life and work link the two worlds of Catholic recusancy and the new philosophy of the later seventeenth century. >> Richard Acworth in ODNB.

• GBP 3,000.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: 18035

• Antiquariat: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)