BARLET Annibal Le vray et methodique cours de la physique resolutive, vulgairement dite chimie. Representé par Figures generales & particulieres. pour connoistre la theotechnie ergocosmique, C’est à dire, L’Art de Dieu en l’ouvrage de l’univers.

Caillet, 730 ; Dorbon 214 ; Ferguson I, 72; see Duveen, p. 44, Cole, 41, Neville, p. 77, Wellcome, II, 101, & Krivatsy, 708 (missing the frontispiece, later supplied in fac-simile) all for the second edition 1657.

First edition. Richly illustrated with 36 highly interesting full-page woodcut engravings : they show the various furnaces, retorts and stills used, allegories of the planets, and the author surrounded by his students in his large laboratory in Paris, where he gave his lectures. "Written to accompany Barlet's lectures given in his laboratory in Paris. Many woodcuts show a chemist identified as 'Hermes' (i.e. Barlet) and assistants conducting experiments before several auditors, including perhaps John Evelyn, who took a course of these lectures in 1646, and the Aberdeen physician Mathew Mackaile, who attended others. The first part is mystical and illustrated by obscure plates. The second part is practical and is devoted to the preparation of pharmaceutical chemicals and processes, e.g. calcination, dissolution, sublimation, and digestion. Instructions are given for distilling alcohol and for testing mineral waters using plant extracts" (Neville). "L'un des ouvrages les plus intéressants et les plus documentaires dans ce genre" (Caillet). Good, complete copy.