Folio, Front., [8 with front.], 66,[6] pp, no portrait of Kircher, 17 engraved plates (several folding) but no lost, several engraved text illustrations, numerous woodcut diagrams and figures, very minor splitting on a few plate folds, occasional some browning. Bound with: KIRCHER, Athanasius - Sphinx mystagoga sive diatribe hieroglyphic. Amstelodami, Ex Officina Janssonio-Waesbergiana, 1676. Folio, [8], 72, [6] pp, 5 engraved illustrations (2 folding), with engraved and woodcut illustrations in the text, some min. browning. Cont. blindstamped pigskin binding with one (of 2 ) clasps (a bit rubbed, bookblock a bit loose in recased binding)
1. Second edition, substantially revised and expanded from the 1678 Rome issue, and richly illustrated. One of Kircher's most important works, the Musaeum celeberrimum describes the celebrated cabinet of curiosities at the Collegio Romano, presenting antiquities, statuary, paintings, scientific instruments, fossils, natural specimens, mechanical devices, and ethnographic objects assembled under Jesuit patronage. Kircher's cataloguing of the museum is characterized by an extraordinary blend of antiquarian scholarship, scientific fascination, and imagination. Ref: Rossetti 5891
2. Rare first edition of Kircher's very influential work on Egyptology, also one of the earliest modern - erroneous - attempts to decipher hieroglyphics. Engr. ill.: 5 sm. pls in text, 2 full-page pls, 3 folding pls and many sm. woodcuts, showing pyramids, mummies, a tomb and many hieroglyphs.
Ref. DBS IV:1069:34. - Caillet 5793. - Brunet III:668
