This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/10/2020
MONCONYS, Balthasar de (1611–1665). Journal des Voyages de Monsieur de Monconys… Lyon: Horace Boissat & George Remeus, 1665/66. 3 parts in one volume. 4to (229 x 1778 mm). FIRST EDITION. Complete with 29 engraved plates, many folding, woodcut headpieces, tailpieces, and initials. Several errors in pagination as issued. Early full calf, raised bands, gilt scrollwork and titling in compartments (spine slightly dried, light worming to end leaves and slightly affecting a few textual leaves, some marginal worming to signatures Cc–Cc2 and facing plate, dampstaining to upper margin of first few quires in Part I). RARE. Monconys was a French physicist, diplomat and world traveler. From 1663 to 1665, Monconys travelled between Paris, London, the Netherlands, and Germany on numerous occasions where he visited with princes, philosophers, libraries and laboratories. Shortly after his death in 1665, his son and Jesuit Friend, J. Berchert, edited and published his diary that contained a wealth of information including medical recipes, formulas, puzzles, scientific devices, measurements, and an extensive list of names of scholars, physicians, alchemists, astrologists, and other researchers that has made it possible for present-day researches to reconstruct the contacts between scientists and scholars of Western Europe in the mid-17th century.