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L'Homme de Rene Descartes et un Traitte de la Formation du Foetus by DESCARTES, RenŽ
Book Description
Paris: Theodore Girard, 1664. First French edition of this posthumous publication. Quarto (9 9/16 x 7 1/8 inches; 243 x 180 mm). [xlviii], 448, [8, index] pp. Woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, and fifty-three large woodcuts in the text. Contemporary French mottled calf, expertly rebacked to style. Spine gilt in compartments, edges sprinkled red. A clean and very fresh copy in a lovely contemporary French binding. The Traite de l'homme was first published in Latin in 1662, but actually dates back to the early 1630s, when Descartes was in Deventer. It was most likely intended to comprise, along with Meteors and the Dioptrique (the Optics, wherein Descartes first proposed the idea that the soul is seated in the pineal gland) part of the larger work Le Monde, a proposed publication which he abandoned after the condemnation of Galileo in 1633. In 1662, Florentino Schuyl published in Latin a translation of a poor copy of Descartes' original text, but added his translation of a splendid preface. In 1663, Claude Clerselier, Descartes' friend and executor of Descartes' last will and testament, prepared with the help of L. de la Forge the first edition of the original text of Descartes' work, and at the end of the volumes, a translation in French of Schuyl's preface to the Latin edition. This edition was duly copyrighted by Clerselier, who transferred his publication rights to Charles Agnot, Jacques and Nicholas Le Gras and Theodore Girard on December 1, 1663. and it was published for the first time on April 12, 1664.
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