Lot 391
  • 391

MAGNITSKII, ARIFMETIKA, MOSCOW, 1703, CONTEMPORARY MOTTLED CALF, NICHOLAS II'S COPY

Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Arifmetika. Moscow, 1703
Folio (287 x 182mm.), printed in red and black, engraved frontispiece, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, woodcut diagrams, 3 folding letterpress tables printed in red and black, 2 engraved plates, hand-stamped correction to verso of fol. 251 in outer margin, with a watercolour portrait of Peter the Great bound at front, contemporary Russian marbled calf, red morocco lettering-piece, green edges, portrait and frontispiece laid down (with slight loss on left hand side of frontispiece), first leaf of preliminary verses remargined, small hole in fol. 177, a few small stains, occasional light foxing or browning, last few leaves repaired at foot, lettering-piece repaired, later endpapers, binding slightly scraped

Provenance

Tsar Nicholas II, monogram book label and printed library label (in English) on inside front cover; Politikens Antikvariat, Copenhagen, 1998; bought from Pickering and Chatto, London, 1998

Literature

Tomash & Williams M21; James Cracraft, The Petrine Revolution in Russian Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 2004), appendix 1, 11

Condition

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

NICHOLAS II'S COPY OF THE FIRST RUSSIAN BOOK ON MATHEMATICS, the solitary arithmetic text for all Russians for over half a century. An encyclopaedia of more than 600 folio pages, with sections on arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and navigation, it was commissioned from the author, a junior instructor at the newly-founded Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation, in February 1701, sent to the publisher on 2 November 1702, and issued 11 January 1703 as an officially sanctioned textbook mandatory for all students. The book is organized in the didactic question-and-answer format, in which each new topic is introduced by a question, followed by a reply, which the student is meant to memorise. An overwhelmingly practical text, it is addressed also to merchants, keepers of church funds, property owners and stewards, builders and craftsmen, etc. In 1699, the government had decreed that Hindu-Arabic numerals henceforth were to be used in administrative documents instead of alphanumerals (an incompletely evolved base-ten system). Since Magnitskii had digested a wide range of foreign works, including Vlacq’s instructions for using his Tabulae sinuum tangentium (a pocket-sized, Russian edition of the tables was separately published), his use of Hindu-Arabic numerals was unavoidable; alphanumerals, however, were included as a transitional step to the newer programme.

On the inside front cover of this copy is the booklabel of Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich II (1868-1918), interlocking N and A beneath a crown (Marguerite Studemeister, Bookplates and their owners in imperial Russia, Tenafly, NJ 1991, pp.52-53 no. 27). According to a recent study (Valerii Durov, Kniga v sem'e Romanovykh, Moscow 2000, p.24ff.), Nicholas II’s huge library (10,915 titles, 15,720 volumes) was distributed between his official residence, the Winter Palace, and the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. Sales of books from Russian imperial palace collections commenced about 1930 and continued until the early 1940s.