Bacon, Sir Francis

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Sold

bidding is closed

Description

Instauratio Magna [Novum Organum]. London: [Bill Norton and] John Bill, 1620
ink, paper, leather

Folio (11 x 7 1/4 in.; 279 x 187 mm). Engraved title-page signed in the plate by Simon van de Passe (Johnson no. 2), woodcut headpieces and historiated initials, e3 cancelled, errata on e4r, Norton's name omitted from colophon. Contemporary calf paneled in blind, the spine in seven compartments, plain endpapers, edges sprinkled red; marginal staining to endpapers from leather turn-ins.

Provenance

Christie's London, 29 November 2000, lot 58. acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

Literature

STC 1163; ESTC 122428 ; Gibson 103b; Grolier/Horblit 8B; PMM 119

Catalogue Note

First edition, second issue, a "landmark in the advancement of human learning" (Pforzheimer I: p.xxi). The Instauratio Magna was intended to be a work in six parts, but only De Augmentis Scientiarum, an expanded version of The Advancement of Learning, and the Novum Organum were completed. "Bacon made no contributions to science itself, but his insistence on making science experimental and factual, rather than speculative and philosophical, had powerful consequences" (PMM).