Gnomonics.- Marci (Jan Marek)

Index horarius in tres libros distributus, quo construendorum horologiorum praecepta, non traduntur modo, sed etiam demostrantur…, FIRST and ONLY EDITION, last leaf blank, woodcut diagrams and construction plans for a broad range of sundials, browning, library stamp ed early unidentified signature on title, leaves untrimmed, contemporary limp vellum, soiled, [OCLC 5894538911], 8vo, William Leybourn, London, 1662.

*** One of the rarest and most obscure works on gnomonics of the second half of the 17^th century. The treatise includes detailed plans for the construction of portable sundials preceding later works, such as the ‘Méthode générale pour tracer des cadrans sur toute sorte de plans’ (1685) by Jacques Ozanam. The ‘Index horarius’ ends with an appendix dedicated to calculation methods for land surveying (pp. 271-277). Marci was a pupil of Athanasius Kircher and one of the owners of the notorious Voynich manuscript. His intellectual production spans from physiology to mechanics and optics.