Ars magna generalis et ultima quaruncunque artium et scientiarum assecutrix et clavigera...(Lyon Jacques Mareschal for Simon Vincent,

FOLDING PLATE WITH VOLVELLES INTACT

Title and verso of A4 printed in red and black, title with large woodcut serving as printer's device of SS. Peter and Paul holding the 'Vera Icon' (smaller version on verso of last leaf), an initial and a woodcut border on two sides; folding plate with woodcuts and letterpress, diagrams and tables, some full-page, numerous woodcut initials of various sizes; double columns.

Sm. 4to (190 x 135mm). [4], cxxiiii ff. 19th century German/Austrian glazed marbled boards, gilt label on spine.

The first edition to be edited by the Franciscan Bernard de Lavinheta (d. c. 1530), who was widely regarded as the greatest Lullist of the early 16th century. Composed between 1305-1308, this is the third edition following the first of Venice, 1480.

Unusually, this copy has a folding plate which contains woodcuts of two concentric discs to be cut out and used as volvelles for the "Quarta figura", with four lines of printed instructions to the binder above. The discs are printed with 9 symbolic letters (B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K) around the circumference.

"A Catalan encyclopedist, Lull invented an "art of finding truth" which inspired Leibniz's dream of a universal algebra four centuries later... The most distinctive characteristic of Lull's Art is clearly its combinatory nature, which led to both the use of complex semimechanical techniques that sometimes required figures with separately revolving concentric wheels - "volvelles", in bibliographical parlance - and to the symbolic notation of its alphabet. These features justify its classification among the forerunners of both modern symbolic logic and computer science, with its systematically exhaustive consideration of all possible combinations of the material under examination, reduced to a symbolic coding" (R.D.F. Pring-Mill in Dictionary of Scientific Biography).

Provenance: Inscriptions on title-page of 'Josephi Trivellini Veneti' and 'Dr Franz Jachimowicz [1]870', Dr Jachimowicz seems to have been a homoeopathic doctor in Vienna. 

Title-page neatly repaired in gutter, a2 repaired at foredge just touching a few letters, f. xvi repaired at blank lower margin.

Palau 143693. Rogent & Duran, 65. Baudrier XI, 393. Adams L1697. BMSTC (French), p. 292.

John N. Crossley, "Ramon Llull’s contribution to computer science" in Ramon Llull: From the Ars Magna to Artificial Intelligence, edited by Alexander Fidora and Carles Sierra (Barcelona 2011), pp.39-60.

Stock Code: 247449