Lot 90: RAMON LULL (c. 1232-1315)

RAMON LULL (c. 1232-1315) De secretis naturae, o della quinta essentia libri duo...De cose minerali, & metalliche libri quinque. [Edited by Pietro Lauro]. Venice: Giovambattista and Marchio Sessa, 1557. 8° (155 x 100mm). Woodcut device on title, woodcut illustrations including two full-page, woodcut initials. (Occasional waterstaining and browning, few small clean tears.) Contemporary limp vellum, manuscript title on spine, contemporary printer's waste in binding (somewhat worn). A translation of Ryff's edition (see previous lot). Pietro Lauro was a prolific translator into Italian of texts for Venetian printers and his own collection of letters was published in 1552 revealing his reformist tendencies. In the late 1550s he produced numerous translations of alchemical and medical works. Together with two other works by the same author: Codicillus seu vade mecum (Cologne: heirs of Arnold Birckman, 1572) and Opera ea quae ad adinventam ab ipso artem universalem (Strassburg: heirs of Lazarus Zetzner, 1617).