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RUSCHA EDWARD (né en 1937)
Me and The
2002 Tampa, FL: Graphicstudio, U.S.F., 2002, 133x182x56mm, 576 pages non paginées, tranches dorées, relié sous couverture toilé bleu nuit.Signé et numéroté au colophon 136/230 +21 AP.
Reference : 104213
Un "Livre sculptural" signé par Ruscha, les mots "Me" et "The" imprimés sur la gouttière du bloc de texte qui apparaissent lorsque l'on courbe les feuilles d'abord dans un sens puis dans l'autre. Une feuille d'information de l'éditeur et jointe. État neuf.
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Librairie Chloé et Denis Ozanne Déesse sarl
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5 book(s) with the same title
Marc Cantin, Pelon Sebastien, mathieu dominique
Reference : RO20265955
(2010)
ISBN : 208123100X
To the rescue + 1 CD audio : A lire et a ecouter en anglais
MY FIRST READING BOOK / FLAMMARION. 2010. In-8. Cartonné. Etat d'usage, Couv. convenable, Dos satisfaisant, Intérieur frais. 61 pages illustrées en couleur, en anglais + 1 CD audio. . . . Classification Dewey : 420-Langue anglaise. Anglo-saxon
Classification Dewey : 420-Langue anglaise. Anglo-saxon
Danicorum Monumentorum Libri Sex: E spissis antiquitatum tenebris et in Dania ac Norvegia extantibus ruderibus eruti + Regum Daniae Series duplex et Limitum inter Daniam & Sveciam Descriptio. Ex vetustissimo Legum Scanicarum Literis Runicis in membran... - [THE FIRST WRITTEN STUDY OF RUNES]
Hafnia, Joachim Moltke, 1643 + Melchior Martzan, 1642. Small folio. Bound in a nice contemporary full calf binding with raised bands to richly gilt spine. Spine worn and corners bumped. A damp stain throughout, mostly faint. Title-page of ""Danicorum Moumentorum"" with a contemporary presentation-inscription to verso: ""Ex donatione amici et fautoris nei Secretarii Rejersen./ Wedege."" Contemporary handwritten corrections and additions to the Index. Engraved title-page (by Simon de Pas). (24), 526, (16) pp. + large folded woodcut plate (the Golden Horn). Large woodcuts in the text + (12), 36 pp. The text is in two columns, in Latin and runes. Captions and some runic letters printed in red.
Scarce first editions of both of Worm's famous masterpieces on runes - 1) ""Danicorum Monumentorum"" being Worm's runic magnum opus, which not only constitutes the first written study of runestones and the first scientific analysis of them, but also one of the only surviving sources for depictions of numerous runestones and inscriptions from Denmark, many of which are now lost"" 2) ""Regum Daniae"", which contains the highly important reproduction of The Law of Scania in runes as well as in Latin translation with commentaries. The ""Danicorum Monumentorum"", with its numerous woodcut renderings of monuments with rune-inscriptions - including the world-famous folded plate of the Golden Horn, which had been found only five year previously, and which is now lost - is arguably the most significant work on runes ever written, founding the study of runes and runic monuments. Most of the woodcuts were done after drawings by the Norwegian student Jonas Skonvig"" they are now of monumental importance to the study of runes and runic monuments, not only because they appeared here for the first time in print, but also because many of the monuments are now lost and these illustrations are the only surviving remains that we have. Ole Worm (Olaus Wormius) (1588-1655) was a famous Danish polymath, who was widely travelled and who had studied at a range of different European universities. Like many of the great intellectuals of the Early Modern era, Worm's primary occupation was as a physician, for which he gained wide renown. He later became court doctor to King Christian IV of Denmark. In 1621, Worm had become professor of physics, but already the year before, in 1620, had he begun the famous collection that would become one of the greatest cabinets of curiosites in Europe (and one of the first museums) and which would earn him the position as the first great systematic collector (within natural history) in Scandinavia. It was his then newly begun collection that enabled him, as professor of physics, to introduce demonstrative subject teaching at the university, as something completely new. He continued building and adding to his magnificent collection, now known as ""Museum Wormianum"", throughout the rest of his life. Worm's fascination for antiquarian subjects not only resulted in his famous ""Museum Wormianum"", but also in a deep fascination with early Scandinavian and runic literature and the history and meaning of runestones. These monuments found throughout Scandinavia, were carved with runic inscriptions and set in place from about the fourth to the twelfth centuries. In most cases, they are burial headstones, presumably for heroes and warriors.Worm published works on the runic calendar, translations of runic texts and explications of folklore associated with the runestone histories. By far his most extensive and important work was the ""Danicorum Monumentorum"", which was the first serious attempt at scientifically analyzing and recording all 144 then known runestone sites in Denmark. With the King's blessing and support, Worm contacted bishops all over the country who were instructed to provide details and drawings of the barrows, stone circles and carved inscriptions in their regions.Many of the monuments recorded in this splendid work have since disappeared. Some of them appeared in the fire of Copenhagen, to which they were brought at the request of Worm himself. The book thus contains highly valuable data about missing sites in Scandinavian archaeology and is an invaluable source to anyone studying runes and runic monuments. Included in the work are Worm's three earlier, small treatises on runes, here collected for the first time and set into a systematic an scientific context, among them his 1641 treatise on the Golden Horn. For Danes, the Golden Horns, discovered on 1639 and 1734 respectively, with their amazing, complicated, and tragic story, constitute the Scandinavian equivalent to the Egyptian pyramids and have been the object of the same kind of fascination here in the North, causing a wealth of fantastical interpretations, both historical, literary, mystical, linguistic, and artistic. The two golden horns constitute the greatest National treasure that we have. They are both from abound 400 AD and are thought to have been a pair. A span of almost 100 years elapsed between the finding of the first horn and the finding of the second. Both findings are now a fundamental part of Danish heritage. In 1802 the horns were stolen, and the story of this theft constitutes the greatest Danish detective story of all times. The thief was eventually caught, but it turned out that he had melted both of the horns and used the gold for other purposes.Before the horns were stolen, a copy of the horns was made and shipped to the King of Italy, but the cast which was used to make this copy was destroyed, before news had reached the kingdom of Denmark that the copies made from the cast were lost on their way to Italy, in a shipwreck. Worm's work constitutes not only the earliest description of the seminal first horn, but also the most important source that we now have to the knowledge of the horn. It is on the basis of the description and depiction in the present work that the later copies of the first horn were made. Both horns were found in Gallehus near Møgeltønder, the first in 1639, by Kirsten Svendsdatter, the second in 1734, by Jerk (Erik) Lassen.Kirsten Svendsdatter made her discovery on a small path near her house, initially thinking that she had stumbled upon a root. When she returned to the same place the following week, she dug up the alleged root with a stick, and took it for an old hunting horn. She brought it back home and began polishing it. During the polishing of it, a small piece broke off, which she brought to a goldsmith in Tønder. It turned out that the horn was made of pure gold, and rumors of Kirsten's find quickly spread. The horn was eventually brought to the King, Christian IV, and Kirsten was given a reward corresponding to the gold value of the horn. The king gave the horn to his son, who had a lid made for it so that he could use it as a drinking horn. An excavation of the site where the horn was found was begun immediately after, but nothing more was found - that is until 95 years later when Jerk Larsen was digging clay on his grounds - merely 25 paces from where Kirsten had found the first horn. The year was now 1734. The horn that Larsen found was a bit smaller in size and was lacking the tip, but it still weighed 3,666 kg. As opposed to the first horn, this second horn had a runic inscription. After the horn had been authenticated, it was sent to King Christian VI, where it was placed in a glass case in the royal art chamber, together with the first horn. Before being placed here, a copy was made of both horns. These copies were lost in a ship wreck, however, and the casts had already been destroyed. In the fatal year of 1802, the gold smith and counterfeiter Niels Heldenreich broke in to the royal art chamber and stole the horns. By the time the culprit was discovered, the horns were irrevocably lost - Heldenreich had melted them and used the gold to make other things, such as jewellery. A pair of ear rings that are still preserved are thought to have been made with gold from the horns, but this is all that we have left of the original horns. New horns were produced on the basis of the descriptions and engraved illustrations that were made after the finding of the horns. And thus, the plate used in the present works constitute our main source of knowledge of the appearance of the first horn. ""The longest of the golden horns was found in 1639 and described by Ole Worm in the book 'De Aureo Cornu', 1641 (a treatise which is also included in his greater ""Danicorum Monumentorum""). The German professor at Soro Academy Hendrich Ernst, disagreed with Worm’s interpretation of the horn. Ernst believed that the horn came from Svantevits temple on Rügen, while Worm interpreted it as a war trumpet from the time of Frode Fredegods, decorated with pictures, calling for virtue and good morals. Worm immediately sent his book to Prince Christian and the scholars at home and abroad. You can see in his letters, that not only did the horn make an impression, but also the letter and the interpretation. In that same year there were such lively discussions on the horn among the scholars of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad!In 1643 Worm reiterated the description of the golden horn in his great work on Danish runic inscriptions, 'Monumenta Danica'. In 1644, his descriptions of the horn reached for scholars and libraries in Schleswig, Königsberg, London, Rome, Venice and Padua. Several learned men wrote poems for him, and the golden horn was mentioned in an Italian manus. Map Cartoonist Johannes Meyer placed the finds on several of his map of South Jutland. When the Swedish commander Torstensson attacked Jutland in 1643, Peter Winstrup wrote a long poem in Latin addressed to the bishop of Scania (which at that time still belonged to Denmark), the poem was called 'Cornicen Danicus'. It was immediately translated into Danish, entitled 'The Danish Horn Blower'. He interpreted the horn and its images as an warning of war, and his interpretations were very hostile to the Swedish. Paul Egard and Enevold Nielssen Randulf were among some of the other scholars who interpreted the Golden Horn In the 1640s. They were both deans in Holstein, and had a more Christian interpretation of the horn.All these works were illustrated with copies of Worms depictions of the horn. The Golden Horn remained known throughout the 1600s, both in terms of interpretations of the horn and designs. The found of the short golden horn in 1734 renewed the interest of the meaning of the horns."" (National Museum of Denmark). Thesuarus: 727 & 733 Rejersen: Holmens chef Wedege: Regiments-Quarteer-Mester
Kapital. Kritika politicheskoj ekonomii. Perevod c nmetskago. Tom pervoej. Kniga I. Protschess proizvodstva Kapitala. (Russian, = The Capital. Critique of the Political Economy. Translated from German. Volume One. Book I [all].). - [FIRST TRANSLATION INTO ANY LANGUAGE OF ""THE BIBLE OF MARXISM""]
S.-Peterburg, N.I. Poliakov, 1872. Large 8vo. In a nice recent half calf binding with gilt lettering to spine and five raised bands. First few leaves with light soling and a closed tear and a few marginal repairs to title-page. pp. 11-18 with repairs to upper outer corner. Closed tears to last leaf, otherwise a fine copy. XIII, (3), 678 pp. (wanting the half-title).
First Russian edition (first issue, with the issue-pointers), being the first translation into any language, of Marx' immensely influential main work, probably the greatest revolutionary work of the nineteenth century.Marx' groundbreaking ""Das Kapital"" originally appeared in German in 1867, and only the first part of the work appeared in Marx' lifetime. The very first foreign translation of the work was that into Russian, which, considering Russian censorship at the time, would seem a very unlikely event. But as it happened, ""Das Kapital"" actually came to enjoy greater renown in Russia than in any other country"" for many varying reasons, it won a warm reception in many political quarters in Russia, and it enjoyed a totally unexpected rapid and widespread success. The first Russian translation of ""Das Kapital"" came to have a profound influence the economic development of of Russia. It was frequently quoted in the most important economic and political discussions on how to industrialize Russia and the essential points of the work were seen by many as the essential questions for an industrializing Russia. "" ""Das Kapital"" arrived in Russia just at the moment that the Russian economy was recovering from the slump that followed Emancipation and was beginning to assume capitalist characteristics. Industrialization raised in the minds of the intelligentsia the question of their country's economic destiny. And it was precisely this concern that drew Mikhailovsky and many of the ""intelligenty"" to ""Das Kapital""."" (Resis, p. 232).The story of how the first printing of the first translation of ""Das Kapital"" came about, is quite unexpected. As the ""triumph of Marxism in backward Russia is commonly regarded as a historical anomaly"" (Resis, p. 221), so is the triumph of the first Russian edition of ""Das Kapital"". The main credit for the coming to be of the translation of ""Das Kapital"" must be given to Nicolai Danielson, later a highly important economist in his own right. The idea came from a circle of revolutionary youths in St. Petersburg, including N.F. Danielson, G.A. Lopatin, M.F. Negreskul, and N.N. Liubavin, all four of whom participated in the project. Danielson had read the work shortly after its publication and it had made such an impact on him that he decided to make it available to the Russian reading public. He persuaded N.I. Poliakov to run the risk of publishing it. ""Poliakov, the publisher, specialized in publishing authors, Russian and foreign, considered dangerous by the authorities. Poliakov also frequently subsidized revolutionaries by commissioning them to do translations for his publishing house. Diffusion of advanced ideas rather than profit was no doubt his primary motive in publishing the book."" (Resis, p. 222). Owing to Danielson's initiative, Poliakov engaged first Bakunin, and then Lopatin to do the translation. Danielson himself finished the translation and saw the work through press. It was undeniably his leadership that brought Marx to the Russian reading public. In fact, with the first Russian edition of ""Das Kapital"", Danielson was responsible for the first public success of the revolutionizing work. ""Few scholars today would deny that ""Das Kapital"" has had an enormous effect on history in the past hundred years. Nonetheless, when the book was published in Hamburg on September 5, 1867, it made scarcely a stir, except among German revolutionaries. Marx complained that his work was greeted by ""a conspiracy of silence"" on the part of ""a pack of liberals and vulgar economists."" However desperately he contrived to provoke established economists to take up ""Das Kapital""'s challenge to their work, his efforts came to nought. But in October 1868 Marx received good news from an unexpected source. From Nikolai Frantsevich Danielson, a young economist employed by the St. Petersburg Mutual Credit Society, came a letter informing Marx that N. P. Poliakov, a publisher of that city, desired to publish a Russian translation of the first volume of ""Das Kapital""" moreover, he also wanted to publish the forthcoming second volume. Danielson, the publisher's representative, requested that Marx send him the proofs of volume 2 as they came off the press so that Poliakov could publish both volumes simultaneously. Marx replied immediately. The publication of a Russian edition of volume 1, he wrote, should not be held up, because the completion of volume 2 might be delayed by some six months [in fact, it did not appear in Marx' life-time and was only published ab. 17 years later, in 1885]" and in any case volume 1 represented an independent whole. Danielson proceeded at once to set the project in motion. Nearly four years passed, however, before a Russian translation appeared. Indeed, a year passed before the translation was even begun, and four translators tried their hand at it before Danielson was able to send the manuscript to the printers in late December 1871."" (Resis, pp. 221-22). This explains how the book came to be translated, but how did this main work of revolutionary thought escape the rigid Russian censors? ""By an odd quirk of history the first foreign translation of ""Das Kapital"" to appear was the Russian, which Petersburgers found in their bookshops early in April 1872. Giving his imprimatur, the censor, one Skuratov, had written ""few people in Russia will read it, and still fewer will understand it."" He was wrong: the edition of three thousand sold out quickly"" and in 1880 Marx was writing to his friend F.A. Sorge that ""our success is still greater in Russia, where ""Kapital"" is read and appreciated more than anywhere else."" (PMM 359, p.218). Astonishingly, Within six weeks of the publication date, nine hundred copies of the edition of three thousand had already been sold.""Under the new laws on the press, ""Das Kapital"" could have been proscribed on any number of grounds. The Temporary Rules held, for example, that censorship must not permit publication of works that ""expound the harmful doctrines of socialism or communism"" or works that ""rouse enmity and hatred of one class for another."" The Board of Censors of Foreign Publications was specifically instructed to prohibit importation of works contrary to the tenets of the Orthodox Church or works that led to atheism, materialism, or disrespect for Scriptures. Nor did the recent fate of the works of Marx and Engels at the hands of the censors offer much hope that ""Das Kapital"" would pass censorship. As recently as August 11, the censors of foreign works had decided to ban importation of Engels' ""Die Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England"", and, according to Lopatin, the censors reprimanded Poliakov for daring to run announcements on book jackets of the forthcoming publication of ""Das Kapital"". By 1872 the censors had prohibited the importation and circulation of all works by Marx and Engels except one - ""Das Kapital"". The book, as we shall see, had already won some recognition in Russia shortly after its publication in Germany. Not until 1871, however, did the censors render a judgment on the book, when the Central Committee of Censors of Foreign Publications, on the recommendation of its reader, permitted importation and circulation of the book both in the original language and in translation. The official reader had described the book as ""a difficult, inaccessible, strictly scientific work,"" implying that it could scarcely pose a danger to the state. [...] The length and complexity of the book prompted the office to divide the task of scrutinizing it between two readers, D. Skuratov, who read the first half of the book, and A. De-Roberti, who read the last half. Skuratov dutifully listed objectionable socialist and antireligious passages, taking special note of Marx's harsh attack on the land reforms General Kiselev had instituted in the Danubian Principalities. But in his report Skuratov dismissed these attacks as harmless, since they were imbedded in a ""colossal mass of abstruse, somewhat obscure politico-economic argumentation."" Indeed, he regarded the work as its own best antidote to sedition. ""It can be confidently stated,"" he wrote, ""that in Russia few will read it and even fewer will understand it."" Second, he said, the book could do little harm. Since the book attacked a system rather than individual persons, Skuratov implied that the book would not incite acts threatening the safety of the royal family and government officials. Third, he believed that the argument of the book did not apply to Russia. Marx attacked the unbridled competition practiced in the British factory system, and such attacks, Skuratov asserted, could find no target in Russia because the tsarist regime did not pursue a policy of laissez faire. Indeed, at that very moment, Skuratov stated, a special commission had drafted a plan that ""as zealously protects the workers' well-being from abuses on the part of the employers as it protects the employers' interests against lack of discipline and nonfulfillment of obligations on the part of the workers."" Repeating most of Skuratov's views, De-Roberti also noted that the book contained a good account of the impact of the factory system and the system of unpaid labor time that prevailed in the West. In spite of the obvious socialist tendency of the book, he concluded, a court case could scarcely be made against it, because the censors of foreign works had already agreed to permit importation and circulation of the German edition. With the last barrier removed, on March 27, 1872, the Russian translation of ""Das Kapital"" went on sale in the Russian Empire. The publisher, translators, and advocates of the book had persevered in the project for nearly four years until they were finally able to bring the book to the Russian reading public."" (Resis, pp. 220-22). The Russian authorities quickly realized, however, that Skuratov's statement could not have been more wrong, and the planned second edition of the Russian translation was forbidden"" thus it came to be published in New York, in 1890. That second edition is nearly identical to the first, which can be distinguished by the misplaced comma opposite ""p. 73"" in the table of contents (replaced by a full stop in the 2nd ed.) and the ""e"" at the end of l. 40 on p. 65 (replaced by a ""c"" in the 2nd ed.). A third edition, translated from the fourth German edition, appeared in 1898. Volumes 2 and 3 of ""Das Kapital"" appeared in Russian translation, also by Danielson, in 1885 and 1896.See: Albert Resis, Das Kapital Comes to Russia, in: Slavic Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), pp. 219-237.
De naturalium effectuum causis, sive de Incantationibus, Opus abstrusioris philosophiae plenum, & brevissimis historiis illustratum atque ante annox XXXV compositum, nunc primum uerò in lucem fideliter editum. Adiectis breuibus scholijs à Gulielmo Gra... - [ESTABLISHING THE ENLIGHTENMENT]
Basel, [Per Henrichum Petri, 1556 - on colophon]. An absolutely lovely copy of the exceedingly scarce first edition, first printing, of one of the most influential and important works in the history of modern thought. A work that has for a long time been overlooked due to the gross neglect of the history of Renaissance philosophy, but which has nonetheless been seminal to the development of scientific and philosophical thought from the 16th century and onwards. With a purely naturalistic and immanent view of the natural process, Pomponazzi here frees man's thought from the bounds of religion and provides modern thinkers and scientists with pure empiricism and naturalism. ""Er will das ""Wissen"" and die Stelle des ""Glaubens"" stellen"" - ""die ""dämonische"" Kausalität des Glaubens weicht der Kausalität der Wissenschaft"" (Cassirer, p. 110 + 111). 8vo. Contemporary full limp vellum, with vellum cords to hinges. Remains of vellum ties to boards. A bit of brownspotting, but all in all a lovely, completely unrestored copy in its first binding. Five large woodcut initials and large woodcut printer's device to verso of last leaf. (16), 349, (3). Adams: P-1827" Wellcome: I:5153" DSB: XI:71-74.A.H. Douglas: ""The Philosophy and Psychology of Pietro Pomponazzi"", 1910.M.L. Pine: ""Pietro Pomponazzi: Radical Philosoper of the Renaissance"", 1986.Thorndyke: ""A History of Magic and Experimental Science"", Vol. V, 1966 (4th printing)P.O. Kristeller: ""Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance"", 1965.J.H. Randall, in: ""The Renaissance Philosophy of Man"", 1956 (4th impression).B.P. Copenhaver & C.B. Schmitt: ""Renaissance Philosophy"", 1992.E. Cassirer: ""Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der renaissance"", 1969 (3. Aufl. - orig. 1927).See also: Kristeller: ""Renaissance Thought and its Sources"""" ""Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning"""" ""Renaissance Thought II, Papers on Humanism and the Arts"". ""Pomponazzi's thought and reputation were extremely influential in the centuries after his death. Even before it was printed, his treatise ""On incantations"" circulated widely in manuscript among philosophers, physicians and early modern naturalists (see Zanier 1975). Due to his mortalist theory of the soul, 17th-century ""free thinkers"" regarded Pomponazzi as one of their own, portraying him as an atheist (see Kristeller 1968"" Paganini 1985). Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century pushed to extremes his distinction between natural reason and faith, while 19th-century positivists, such as Ernest Renan and Roberto Ardigò, saw in Pomponazzi a forerunner of their own beliefs and a champion of naturalism and empiricism."" (SEP).
Exceedingly scarce first edition of Pomponazzi's seminal ""De Incantationibus"", perhaps the most original work of natural philosophy of the Renaissance and arguably the first work of what comes to be the Enlightenment. The work, which is one of Pomponazzi's most important productions (along with his treatise on the immortality of the soul), constitutes a forerunner of Naturalism and Empiricism and could be considered the first true Enlightenment work ever, causing Pomponazzi, our greatest Renaissance philosopher, to be generally considered ""The last Scholastic and the first man of the Enlightenment"" (Sandy, Randall, Kristeller). The appeal to experience is the main concern of the work, and its strict and completely novel way of treating the subject matter resulted in a hitherto unattained elevated position of philosophy in the Latin West, providing to philosophy a new method that remains dominant to this day and without which we would scarcely be able to imagine modern philosophy. Proclaiming the victory of philosophy over religion, the ""de Incantationibus"" changed the entire history of philosophy - philosophy being to Pomponazzi the supreme truth and the final judge of all phenomena.""Pomponazzi's conclusion [in the ""De Incantationibus] results from a dramatic change in method which in turn is based on a profoundly new attitude toward philosophical inquiry. Medieval theologians and philosophers as well as most Renaissance thinkers were content to limit the role of reason in nature because they sincerely believed that the Christian God intervened in the natural order to create miraculous occurrences. As we have seen, this belief prevented their scientific convictions from destroying Christian doctrine by exempting central Biblical miracles from natural process. Even those who held that Christian revelation and Aristotelian science were irreconcilable maintained a sincere fideism which allowed each universe to remain intact, each standing separate from the other. But once Pomponazzi applied the critical method of Aristotelian science to all religious phenomena, Christian miracles were engulfed by the processes of nature. Absorbed by the ""usual course of nature"", the miracle could no longer be the product of divine fiat. Indeed Christianity itself became merely another historical event, taking its place within the recurring cycles of nature, and destined to have a temporal career within the eternal flow of time."" (Pine, p. 273).""De Incantationibus"" constitutes one of the single most important works of the Renaissance. Bringing everything in the world under the general laws of nature, the history of religion as well as all other facts in experience, ""De Incantationibus"" gives us, for the first time in the history of philosophy an outline of a philosophy of nature and of religion, an outline that came to be seminal in the history of philosophy and science throughout the following centuries. With the main aim of the work being to determine the fact that there is no such thing as ""supernatural"", no magic, no omens, no witchcraft, no divine intervention, no apparitions, etc., etc. - all marvelous events and powers observed in experience or recorded in history have their natural, scientific explanation, they are all within the scope of principles common to all nature -, it is no wonder that it was placed on the index of forbidden books immediately upon its publication, as the only of Pomponazzi's works ever. The analysis of the history of religions and the theory of the nature and use of prayer that Pomponazzi here develops is hugely interesting and so far ahead of its time that one hardly believes it. E.g. the notion that religious doctrines all aim, through fables and myths (which he disproves), to preserve the social order rather than to discover the truth, is not something you will find in any other work of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. ""[H]e brings the whole phenomena of religious history - the changes of religious belief, and the phases of thaumaturgic power - under certain universal laws of nature. Of these facts as of all others, he suggests, there is a natural and a rational explanation" in them the powers that are at work in all nature are still operative" and they are subject to the laws and conditions that govern nature generally - the laws of change, of development, of growth and decay, and transformation in decay."" (Douglas, p. 299).""In regard to the religious issue, I have tried to show that he makes a claim for the absolute truth of philosophy and relegates religion to the purely practical function of controlling the masses. Religious doctrines contain a kind of truth because they can persuade men to act so as to preserve the social order. But religious doctrine has social value rather than speculative veracity. [...] rational truth is the only truth. It is really compatible only with complete disbelief. And I think that this is the statement that Pomponazzi makes. The only doctrines that he accepts are those of philosophy. Philosophy rejects the personal Christian God acting within history and eliminates the miracles of religion. Philosophy reduces to the absurd the notion of a life after death. And finally philosophy destroys revelation itself by viewing it as the product of heavenly forces rather than the act of divine will."" (Pine, pp. 34-35). The work was originally written in 1520, but was not published in Pomponazzi's life-time. It circulated in manuscript form, however, and was also as such widely noted. In 1552, 27 years after Pomponazzi's death, the manuscript was brought to Basel by Pomponazzi's student Guglielmo Gratarolo, who had had to flee Italy due to his anti-religious views. Here, in Basel, he had the book printed for the first time, with a foreword written by himself, in 1556. This was the very first time that the book was published, as it had also not been included in the standard edition of Pomponazzi's collected works, published at Venice the year after his death, 1525 - presumably due to its dangerous and revolutionary views.In his preface, Gratarolo expresses fear that someone may think him either over curious or less Christian for publishing this book. He furthermore explains that he had purchased the manuscript 20 years earlier and brought it with him North when leaving Italy 6 years previously. ""Granting, however, that there may be something in the work which does not entirely square with Christianity, Gratarolo thinks that it should not be suppressed or withheld from the scholarly public, since it contains more solid physics and abstruse philosophy than do many huge commentaries of certain authors taken together."" (Thorndyke, V, p. 99-100). Come the Renaissance, the idea of eliminating demons and angels and attempts at a showdown with magical transformations and the like were not completely novel in themselves. Much scientific thinking of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance carried such beliefs that had in some form or other been current for a long time. But up until Pomponazzi's treatise, these ideas had always been surrounded by hesitance and a clear aim at still protecting the miraculous nature of Christianity itself, not leading the theories forward and not letting them bear any relevance. ""Let us pause here a moment to estimate the place of this radical treatise [i.e. ""De Incantationibus""] in the history of European rationalism. [...] It was Pomponazzi's achievement to go beyond these earlier hesitations and qualifications, particularly in regard to the astrological determination of religious belief. By dramatic shifts of emphasis and the extension of certain ideas to their logical limits, Pomponazzi utterly transformed the context in which these earlier views occurred. In their newly radicalized form, they challenged the supremacy of revelation by elevating philosophy to a position hitherto unattained in the Latin West"". (Pine, p. 268).""[...] Even this brief sketch makes clear that Pomponazzi came at the end of a long scientific tradition which had absorbed, and to some degree, subordinated Aristotelian-Arabic science and astrology to the Christian universe. But if we look at each strand of this tradition, we can see how Pomponazzi carried these concepts to their furthest limits."" (Pine, pp. 268-72). Pomponazzi clearly sought to explain all miraculous cures, events, etc. through natural powers. All sequences and concoctions which could seem magical or supernatural are within the same framework as other observed sequences and concoctions in nature. We may not be able to explain all of them (although Pomponazzi does attempt in the treatise to provide specific and elaborate natural, physical explanations of a large number of ""magical"" and ""supernatural"" events), but that is merely a lack in our intellect or understanding and by no means because these occurrences or events are not governed by nature and the physical laws of nature. ""This whole mode of explanation of the marvelous in nature and history is constantly pitted against the orthodox theory which attributed magic and miracles to the agency of angels or demons. The book ""De naturalium Effectuum Causis"" is a uniform polemic against that theory, as essentially a vulgar superstition. It is the tendency of the vulgar mind, he says, always to ascribe to diabolic or angelic agency events whose causes it does not understand."" (Douglas, p. 275). ""These fictions are designed to lead us to truth and to instruct the common people who must be led to the good life and turned away from evil just like children, that is to say, by the hope of reward and the fear of punishment"" and it is by these vulgar motives that they are led to spiritual knowledge, just as children pass from delicate nourishment to more solid nourishment. Hence it is not far from my concept or from the truth that Plato taught the existence of angels and demons not because he believed in them but because it was his aim to instruct the ignorant."" (Pomponazzi, ""De Incantationibus"", 10, pp. 201-202).In order to understand the monumental accomplishment of Pomponazzi's ""De Incantationibus"", one must realize which tradition he is inscribed in, namely that of Italian Aristotelianism (as opposed mainly to the Renaissance Platonism). It is within this long tradition that he effects a revolution. ""In the Italian schools alone the emerging science of nature did not mean a sharp break with reigning theological interests. To them it came rather as the natural outcome of a sustained and co-operative criticism of Aristotelian ideas. Indeed, that mathematical and mechanical development which by the end of the sixteenth century produced Galileo owes very little to the Platonic revival but received powerful stimulus from the critical Aristotelianism of the Italian universities."" (Ren. Phil. of Man, p. 12).Pomponazzi stood at a crossroad in the history of Aristotelianism. He still studied the great logicians and natural philosophers of the 14th century, which his Italian humanistic colleagues had given up (focusing instead on ""man"" and his place in the universe), but at the same time he had a highly original approach to the teachings of Aristotle and a unique uninhibited approach to the nature of the universe, and he responded philosophically to the achievements of humanism, always seeking the truth and the ""naturalist"" explanation. Of that critical Aristotelianism which sought to find the true meaning of the works of Aristotle, lay them bare, and develop them further to find the true nature of the universe, to explain how the world functions without any preconceived notions (like the belief in Christ, etc.), Pomponazzi was a forerunner. With his ""De Incantationibus"", this ""last scholastic and the first man of the Enlightenment"" paved the way for the Enlightenment of the centuries to come, for rational free thinking. His quest against the theologians and ""his scorn for all comfortable and compromising modernism in religion, and his sober vision of the natural destiny of man"" (Randall, p. 268) combined with his refusal to leave the bounds of the Aristotelian tradition, his meticulous use of the medieval method of refutation, and his thorough rationalism, enabled him to revolutionize the Aristotelianism of the 16th century - and indeed the entire trajectory of philosophy of the ages to come - and invoke the period of scientific free-thinking that breaks free of Christian doctrines and which later comes to be the Enlightenment. ""Against Pico's denial of astrology as incompatible with human freedom, he tried to make an orderly and rational science of the stars, opposed to all superstition - the naturalist's answer to the Humanist"". (Randall, p. 277).""During the twelve decades or so between Pomponazzi's arrival (1484) and Galileo's departure in 1610, the learned community that Shakespeare called ""fair Padua, nursery of arts"", achieved a distinction in scientific and medical studies unmatched elsewhere in Europe. Thus, Pomponazzi's career in northern Italy brought him close to the most exciting advances of his time in science and medicine. In keeping with the nature of his university appointments, he approached Aristotle from a perspective quite distant from Bruni's humanism or Lefèvre's theologizing. [...] Pomponazzi's Aristotelianism developed entirely within the framework of natural philosophy"". (Copenhaver & Schmitt, p. 105). ""With this final explanation, Pomponazzi has discovered natural causes for all miraculous events and hence has eliminated the miracle as a category for understanding the process of nature. [...] As we have seen, Pomponazzi's theory offers three fundamental natural explanations of events which Christianity ascribes to the miraculous intervention of angels and demons. [...] Here Pomponazzi's method takes its most radical turn. Biblical miracles are now also found to have natural causes. Moses, we learn, performed his task by natural means. The ""dead"" revived by the prophets were not really dead. And the acts of Christ and the Apostles can be explained ""within natural limits""."" (Pine, pp. 254-56).""The histories of other religions record miracles similar to those of Christianity, and Pomponazzi justifies his frequent citation of historians in a philosophical work as authorities for past natural events of rare occurrence. Such is the most detailed and carefully worked out, the most plausible and at the same time most sweeping expression of the doctrine of astrological control over the history and development of religions that I have seen in any Latin author."" (Thorndyke V, pp. 108-9).FULLER DESCRIPTION AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST-
El Capital. Resumido y acompanado de un estudio sobre el socialismo científico por Gabriel Deville. Primera edición [Marx / Deville] (+) Socialismo Utopico y Socialismo Cientifico [Engels] (+) La Ley de Los Salarios y Sus Consecuencias [Guesde]. - [FIRST SPANISH EDITION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ABRIDGED VERSION OF ""THE CAPITAL""]
Madrid, Ricardo Fé, 1887. 8vo. Contemporary brown half calf with gilt lettering and ornamentation to spine and red paper covered boards. Most leaves evenly browned (due to the quality of the paper) and some brownspotting to last few leaves. Overall a very good copy indeed of this otherwise fragile book. [Socialismo Utopico... :] pp. (1)-91, (1) + frontispiece of Engels" [La Ley de Los Salarios... :] pp. (1)-44 + frontiespiece of Guesde" [El Capital:] pp. (I)-LVI, 263 pp.
The exceedingly scarce first Spanish edition of the most important abridged version of Marx's Capital ever to have appeared, published in the same year as what is generally accepted as the first Spanish edition of ""Das Kapital"" (Zafrilla's abridged version - defectively translated from Roy's French version - which was published in newspaper installments 1886-87).This Spanish translation was made from the French of Gabriel Deville (1854 -1940), the great French socialist theoretician, politician and diplomat, who did more than almost anyone else to raise awareness of Karl Marx's theories of the weaknesses of capitalism - most effectively through the present work, which came to have a profound influence upon the spreading of Marxist thought throughout the Spanish speaking part of the world. ""The epitome, here translated, was published in Paris, in 1883, by Gabriel Deville, possibly the most brilliant writer among the French Marxians. It is the most successful attempt yet made to popularize Marx's scientific economics. It is by no means free from difficulties, for the subject is essentially a complex and difficult subject, but there are no difficulties that reasonable attention and patience will not enable the average reader to overcome. There is no attempt at originality. The very words in most cases are Marx's own words, and Capital is followed so closely that the first twenty-five chapters correspond in subject and treatment with the first twenty-five chapters of Capital. Chapter XXVI corresponds in the main with Chapter XXVI of Capital, but also contains portions of chapter XXX. The last three chapters-XXVII, XXVIII, and XXIX-correspond to the last three chapters-XXXI, XXXII, and XXXIII-of Capital."" (ROBERT RIVES LA MONTE, Intruductory Note to the 1899 English translation).The Spanish translator of the work is Antonio Atienza, a typographer and translator at the press of Ricardo Fé, who in 1886 volunteered his work at the newly founded ""El Socialista"", the Spanish flagship publication of Marxist socialism. It was also in 1886 that Atienza translated the present work, with the publication following in 1887. This translation happened almost simultaneously with the ""translation"" by Zafrilla, which appeared in weekly installments in the rival newspaper ""La Républica"", and the two first versions of ""Das Kapital"" to appear in Spanish tell the story of more than just the desire to spread Marx's ideas in Spain. Both versions were part of an ongoing struggle between political parties vying for the loyalty of Spain's workers (see more below). THE WORK IS OF THE UTMOST SCARCITY, WITH MERELY THREE COPIES LISTED ON OCLC (two in Bristish Library and one in Bibliothèque Nationale) and none at auction over the last 40 years at least.Backgrund for the publication:Among the numerous nascent political organizations that sprouted in the last half of 19th century Spain, many of them as a result to the tumultuous years after the so-called ""Glorious Revolution"" of 1868, was the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE). The party was founded by Pablo Iglesias in 1879, and it was the second socialist party in Europe, preceded only by the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD). Notably, of the original twenty-five founding members sixteen were typographers. March of 1886 was a turning point for the PSOE, as they began to publish a weekly newspaper, ""El Socialista"", in order to reach a wider audience throughout Spain and thus advance the Marxist socialist agenda, of which the paper became the flagship. (To this day, it is the official paper of the PSOE, the present ruling party in Spain, although it was suppressed during the years of Franco's dictatorial regime and published sporadically in exile, in France, or clandestinely in Spain. It was again published regularly since 1978. The PSOE gave up Marxism in 1979 in favor of Democratic Socialism.)In 1886 the translator of the present work, Antonio Atienza, was a typographer and translator at the press of Ricardo Fé. At the same time, he volunteered his work at the newly founded El Socialista, as the PSOE funds were quite limited-he wouldn't have a paid position in the paper until 1913. He translated articles by Engels, Guesde, and Buechner, among others.""Das Kapital"" had been published twenty years earlier. That it took so long to reach Spain in book form reveals, among other things, that up to that moment most of Marx's thoughts had filtered through to the workers' unions and parties by way of the writings of his followers as they were interpreted and explained by the intellectuals in charge of these organizations. It is also evident that the complexity of the book wouldn't be of much use to the average worker, factory and otherwise. Enter Deville's abridged version, which was more accessible in that some of the most basic ideas of Marx were digested and re-explained. The point was not to publish a book that could only be only be understood by economists and philosophers, but one that could be given to the workers. A rival party leftist party, considered by the PSOE as bourgeois, was the Partido Republicano Federal. One of its members, Pablo Correa y Zafrilla, undertook the task of translating the first volume of Das ""Kapital"". Quite usual for Spain at the time, the translation was published in weekly instalments to subscribers of their newspaper, ""La República"", starting in 1886 and ending in 1887. The paper then sold the cloth binding to its subscribers and offered to collect the installments to have the book bound for its customers. According to the ad in ""La República"" (22/1/1886), the translation is purportedly from the German original, but it has been clearly demonstrated that it is a defective translation from the French translation of Roy (Ribas). It seems very plausible that when the PSOE found out that someone else in Spain was beginning to publish a translation of the first volume of ""Das Kapital"", El Socialista decided to publish Deville's translation. In fact, the publication of El Capital by ""La República"" was briefly mentioned once in ""El Socialista"", and not in flattering terms (7/10/1887). That a Marxist newspaper disparaged against the first Spanish publication of ""Das Kapital"" reveals, among other things, that they were not terribly excited about some other party's publication producing a defective rendering of their guiding principles. On the other hand, that ""La República"" had decided to publish the book was probably brought about by the foundation of ""El Socialista"", as they saw that the PSOE now had the means to spread their ideas throughout the country. It is in no small way possible that the haste to publish the book brought about the many defects in the translation from the French of Roy as Correa hurried to finish it.José Mesa y Leompart, a typographer, translator, and Marxist ideologue and activist, had experienced the upheavals of the Commune of Paris during his exile after the 1868 revolution. He developed a friendship with Marx's son in law, Paul Lafargue, and his wife, Laura Marx-who themselves had been in exile in Spain during 1871-72-, as well as with Engels, with whom he shared much correspondence, and many other figures of the Marxist movement. He also met both Marx and Engels during their exile in London. His friendship with Pablo Iglesias was a major driving force behind the formation of the PSOE, and he collaborated with El Socialista both as a writer and as a financial supporter. Mesa writes to Engels in April of 1887 lamenting that some Spanish thinkers were using Marx's theories and the policies of the German Socialist Party to deny the concept of class struggle, despite the fact that ""we have […] proven to them that you and Marx have always said the opposite, and having quoted to them the very clear statements of the German Socialist Party"" [but] they remain unmovable, and at some point they even wanted to publish the abridged Capital by Deville, without the preface, and with notes interpreting the meaning in their own way-which we have impeded-(the Resumen [abridgement] of Deville will soon be published, faithfully translated into Spanish.""Therefore, as early as April of 1887 the present translation was already in progress, and in fact, according to Mesa, soon to be published, so it was apparently very advanced. It is then quite possible that Antonio Atienza was commissioned to translate the Deville's abridgement a few months earlier, and not unlikely as far as 1886, when ""La República"" was still publishing installments of the Correa translation. The PSOE is obviously trying to obscure and minimize Correa's translation by publishing the Deville book, as the task of translating ""Das Kapital"" from the original would be lengthy and costly, and it would have come out too late to ascertain their political hold on Marx's ideas. This translation of Deville, then, sees the light is in the very midst of the bickering between leftist parties, and is in fact a product of the confrontations between leftist ideologies. It was finally published about nine months after Mesa's letter to Engels. The first announcement in ""El Socialista"" appears in their November 11th, 1887 issue. The price is four pesetas, or about the cost of an entire year's subscription to the paper, although subscribers could purchase it at half price. Still, given that many subscribers were workers of scarce means, less than three hundred copies were sent out to the main Spanish cities, and that the total edition was probably about a thousand copies at most.The scarcity of this book can be underlined if one considers the virulent war that was waged against all socialist and Marxist literature during and after the Spanish Civil War by the dictatorial regime of Francisco Franco. Book purges and burnings were considerable throughout Spain since the onset of the war, in 1936. It is not that books were burnt sporadically and occasionally, but rather they were destroyed in a systematic and terrifyingly efficient manner. As early as September of 1936 official orders were given to all civil governors, mayors, school inspectors in the nationalist areas to purge all ""harmful"" books, such as pornography and books of a communist or Marxist content. Teachers, librarians, and private citizens, often purged their own libraries, public or personal, of such works in order to comply with the official orders. Countless people were summarily executed for owning certain books that revealed their political tendencies. Obviously, owning actual edition of a book by Marx was reason enough to be deemed guilty and likely executed. As the war advanced, many other such official orders were issued, and unfathomable numbers of books were burnt. To this is added that many libraries were burnt down during the bombardments that took place throughout the country, and that all the libraries of the leftist parties were systematically destroyed. The end of the war, in 1939, only made it official throughout the entire country that communist and socialist literature was banned. So even the few copies that might have survived the fires and the purges were surely disposed of by their owners. It is no small wonder that this particular copy did manage to survive.Withbound in the present volume is the first Spanish translation of Engels' ""Socialism: Utopian and Scientific"" and Jules Guesde's work on the Law of Wages. See:Ribas, Pedro. ""La primera traducción castellana de El capital, 1886 - 1887"", in Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Madrid, junio de 1985, pp. 201-210.Castillo, Santiago. ""Marxismo y socialismo en el siglo XIX español"", in, Movimiento sociales y estado en la España contemporánea, Manuel Ortiz et al (coord.), Universidad de Castila-La Mancha, 2001Boza Puerta, Mariano, and Sánchez Herrador, Miguel Ángel. ""El martirio de los libros: una aproximación a la destrucción bibliográfica durante la Guerra Civil."" In Boletín de la Asociación Andaluza de Bibliotecarios. Año nº 22, Nº 86-87, 2007, págs. 79-96Tur, Francesc. https://serhistorico.net/2018/04/04/el-bibliocausto-en-la-espana-de-franco-1936-1939/
