CHAUVIN, Étienne Lexicon Philosophicum... ita tum recognitum & castigatum; tum varie variis in locis illustratum, tum passim quammultis accessionibus auctum & locupletatum, ut denuo quasi novum opus in lucem prodeat... Leeuwarden, F. Halma, 1713
Folio (400 x 249 mm), pp [xii including frontispiece] 719, with engraved frontispiece, vignette on title, portrait, and 30 folding plates; some minor marginal dampstaining on last few plates, a very good copy in contemporary Dutch calf. £1450
This is the second edition of the Lexicon rationale sive thesaurus philosophicus (1692), extensively revised so as to constitute a new work as the title states. Chauvin's Lexicon was one of the earliest scientific encyclopaedias. Chauvin (1640-1725) was a Cartesian philosopher and the successor of Bayle in Rotterdam, whose own Dictionnaire historique (1695) may well have been inspired by the present work. Both the philosophy and physics of Chauvin are thoroughly Cartesian.
Thorndyke (VIII pp. 299-301) gives an extensive analysis of the subject matter of the Lexicon, noting the absence of interest in the magical and marvellous characteristic of earlier encyclopaedias and the increasing attention to experimental science.
The fine frontispiece, drawn and engraved by A. Schoonebeek, is an allegory of the 'confrontation of philosophers with the results of instrumental science' (William Ashworth jr). There are figures representing Plato and Aristotle facing Descartes and examining an airpump; Descartes, who denied the existence of a vacuum, is resting his hand on a set of Magdeburg spheres, such as were used by Guericke to demonstrate the existence of the vacuum. There is another figure who may be Hero of Alexandra, examining a Torricellian tube, and a geographer in classical garb seated at a globe. An astronomer examines the heavens with a telescope, and behind him is an observatory. Various scientific apparatus is displayed around a plinth which supports a figure of the many-breasted Diana of Ephesus as Goddess of Nature, flanked by Apollo with his lyre.
The airpump is one made by Johan van Musschenbroek for Wolferd Senguerd; an earlier version appears in Senguerd's own Philosophia naturalis, 1680.
Roller and Goodman I p 225
£1450
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