Traité de la Construction et des Principaux Usages des Instruments de Mathématique. Avec les Figures Nécessaires pour l'Intelligence de ce Traité... Quatriéme Édition. by Bion, Nicolas - 1752

Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1752. Quarto. Contemporary mottled calf, spine elaborately gilt in compartments with floral tools, brown morocco label, marbled endpapers and edges. Engraved portrait and allegorical frontispieces and 37 plates of which 2 are folding, elaborate head and tailpieces and decorative initials, royal device to title. 19th-century library ticket and 20th-century bookseller's ticket of Malcolm Gardner to the front pastedown. Upper hinge cracked, lower hinge starting, some scuffs to the boards, including a small worn spot on the upper board, front free endpaper a little loose, small area of dampstain affecting the top corner of the first half of the contents, short closed tear to final leaf of contents. Fourth edition of this important and copiously illustrated work on mathematical instruments, originally published in 1709. An attractive, unsophisticated copy, the contents quite fresh. Nicolas Bion was one of France's leading instrument makers. "Through his astronomical instruments he sought to join theory to practice, for which he was accorded the title Engineer to the King" (Kenney, Catalogue of the Rare Astronomical Books in the San Diego State University Library, 17).