SCIENCE AND LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE.

- Large 8vo, tan cloth (rear joint split; bumped; small dents to bottom edge of front cover) titled in purple, in dw (soiled & chipped with small pieces out; dw spine darkened & torn; tear to rear panel). xvii & 552 pp. (soiling to front endpaper). B&W illustrations from wood engravings. Very good internally. Originally published in 1878, this compilation of text and more than 400 illustrations assembled by the 19th-century bibliophile, librarian and amateur historian Paul Lacroix unfolds "an unusual panorama of the life of the period, putting the reader into closer touch with the scholars and surgeons, the magicians, rulers and actors who peopled these centuries. It was an age of slowly widening horizons for scientists and philosophers, yet an age of stubborn superstition, when sorcerers flourished in pacts with demons and scholars pursued their studies alert to accusations of influence by evil spirits."--From the dw.