Barptolomaei Coclitis Bononiensis, naturalis philosophiae ac medicinae doctoris, physiognomie & chiromantiae compendium. Bound with works by George of Trebizond and Adamantius

Adamantius (fl. 5th century CE). Physiognomicon, id est de naturae indiciis cognoscendis libri duo, per Ianum Cornarium medicum physicum latine constripti. 8vo. 203, [5]pp. Basel: Robert Winter, 1544. [With:] Cocles, Bartolommeo della Rocca (1467-1504). Physiognomiae et chiromantiae compendium. 8vo. [214]pp. Numerous text woodcuts of chiromancy. Strasbourg: Apud Ioannem Albertum, 1536. [With:] George of Trebizond (1396-1486). Georgii Trapezuntii in Claudius Ptolemaei centum aphorismos commentarius . . . item ab eodem, cur astrologorum iudicia plerumque fallant . . . Additus est dialogus Ioannis Pontani, in quo doctissime disputatur, quatenus credendum sit astrologiae. 8vo. [208]pp. Cologne: Ioan. Gymnicus, 1544. Together 3 books in 1 volume. Blindstamped pigskin, a few wormholes, lower portion of spine repaired, original leather ties lacking. Dimensions needed. Occasional spotting, light toning but very good. Library stamp removed from title verso. Very good to fine copies. Old woodcut bookplate; 20th-century owner's stamp on the front pastedown.

First Edition of Cornarius's Latin translation of Adamantius; later editions of Cocles's and George of Trebizond's treatises. Adamantius, a fifth-century Graeco-Jewish physician, was a native of Alexandria; he converted to Christianity after the patriarch of the city expelled the Jews in 415. His Physiognomicon is essentially an abridgement of Antonius Polemon's treatise on physiognomy from the second century CE, a work that survives today only in a 14th-century Arabic translation. This Latin translation by the German humanist Janus Cornarius (ca. 1500 - 1558) includes Adamantius's original Greek text as well as Cornarius's De utriusque alimenti receptaculis dissertatio, contra quam sentit Plutarchus.

Bartolommeo della Rocca, also known as Cocles, was a Bolognese scholar of chiromancy, physiognomy and astrology; he was assassinated in 1504 by Bolognese nobleman Ermes Bentivoglio for predicting that Ermes would die in battle. Cocles's treatise on physiognomy and chiromancy (palm-reading), his main work, was originally published in 1504 under the title Chyromantiae ac physiognomiae anastasis; the work first appeared under the present title in 1533. It consists of a preface by Cocles, an anonymous handbook of physiognomy and Andrea Corvo's 15th-century treatise on chiromancy, the latter two illustrated with numerous woodcuts.

The final work in this volume is a later edition of George of Trebizond's commentary on pseudo-Ptolemy's Centiloquium, a medieval collection of one hundred aphorisms about astrology and astrological rules. This edition includes a brief work on astrology by the Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano (1426-1503).