Item #58862 The Vanity of the Arts and Sciences [ De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum ]. Henry Cornelius AGRIPPA, Henry Cornelius Agrippa Von Nettesheim.
The Vanity of the Arts and Sciences [ De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum ].

The Vanity of the Arts and Sciences [ De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum ].

London: Samuel Speed, 1676. First English Language edition. Hardcover. Small Octavo. [xviii] + 368pp. Contemporary brown calf, neatly rebacked with new spine with raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title label and decorations in blind. The first English language edition of Agrippa's "De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum Declamatio Inuectiua," an important and controversial work in which he mocked the presumption and pretensions of many of the learned of the time, including astrologers, magicians, and practitioners of all the sciences, and argued the futility of the quest for knowledge. It stands in stark contrast to his later work, "De Occulta Philosophia" (The Occult Philosophy) in which he expounds his own philosophies about the nature of life and existence. Boards and spine slightly discolored and lightly chafed. LACKS portrait frontispiece. Rebacked (as noted above), boards heavily rubbed with rubbed corners, but with a pleasant "antique" appearance. Fresh endpapers. Text clean and unmarked save for a couple of lines in the margins. Would easily rate as VG + were it not for the absent frontispiece. Item #58862

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