Beschreibung:

[DIDEROT – D’ALEMBERT] – E ncyclopédie Méthodique, ou par ordre des matières, par une société de gens de lettres... Mathematiques. Physique. Paris: Panckoucke, 1784-1785 and Panckoucke-Agasse, 1793-1822. First edition of the two ‘divisions’ which Diderot and D’Alembert had placed at the head of their monumental architecture of knowledge: mathematics and physics. The Encyclopédie Méthodique remains a uniquely grand, intellectually and materially ambitious undertaking in editorial history and in the history of the printing press. ‘C’est à coup sûr la collection la plus vaste qu’ait jamais produit la librairie française, et nous pouvons même ajouter celle d’aucun pays. Cet ouvrage est le résultat de l’effort gigantesque, entrepris par les meilleurs scientifiques et savants de l’époque’ (Brunet II, 973). The publication, initiated by Panckoucke in 1782, was continued by Henri Agasse, Panckoucke's son-in-law, from 1794 to 1813, and then by the latter´s widow until completion in 1832. 8 volumes, quarto (295 x 215mm), including 2 vols of text and 1 of plates for mathematics and 4 vols of text and 1 of plates for physics (both series complete). (Occasional foxing or spotting, a few quires mildly browned, plates in excellent condition.) Bound uniformly (except for the volume of plates for mathematics, in modern quarter calf and marbled boards) in 19th-century tree-calf, flat spines decorated and lettered in gilt (extremities rubbed, some surface abrasions; wormtrack to front cover of first vol., spine of 19th-c plate vol. defective at head and foot, with joints cracked but holding). Provenance : contemporary paper slip glued to the first leaf of the Physics first vol. with manuscript notes on livraisons .