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Author: Kircher, Athanasius
Title: China Monumentis, qua Sacris qua Profanis, nec non variis naturae & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata
Place Published: Amsterdam
Publisher:Apud Joannem Janssonium a Waesberge & Elizeum Weyerstraet
Date Published: 1667
Description:

[14], 237, [11] pp. Floriated initials, tailpieces, publisher's device on title page. Copper-engraved added pictorial title, portrait of Kircher, & 23 copper-engraved plates (3 folding); 2 folding copper-engraved maps; 59 copper engravings in the text, most half-page. (Folio) 38.4x24.8 cm (15¼x10"), later speckled and gilt-ruled calf with corner fleurons, spine tooled and lettered in gilt, morocco lettering piece, raised bands, gilt-filleted edges, textblock edges stained red. First Edition.

Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was a polymath Jesuit intellectual born in Germany. He was renowned across Europe for his cabinet of curiosities or "wunderkammer", a collection of marvels gleaned from all fields of late Renaissance inquiry – including those of fellow Jesuit sinologists such as Matteo Ricci. China Monumentis, qua Sacris qua Profanis ; is one of the most influential of Kircher's forty-plus works, giving the western world a glimpse of the mysterious kingdom, both real and fanciful (see his "flugkatze" or "flying cat of Kashgar"), with a large selection of excellent illustrations. The work has much on language in an effort to establish the authenticity of the Nestorian monument discovered in Sian. To that end he produces the original Chinese and Syriac inscriptions on the monument (the Chinese text in Romanization) with a Latin translation and his explication of both the Chinese and Syriac texts. This is the true first edition, not to be confused with the pirated edition of the same date published by Jacobum à Meurs. Institutional plate on front pastedown, institutional embossment on title, engraved title, and dedication leaf.

Cracking along joint ends, some scratches and scuffs to calf, rubbing at extremities; some punctures to endpapers over hinges but with thongs holding nicely, light foxing to added engraved title; near fine internally, very good or better overall.