from Hacker News

"Bookfind of the century" sells for $2.23M

by clouddrover on 2/4/24, 11:19 AM with 34 comments

  • by dr_dshiv on 2/6/24, 10:23 AM

    I am doing some work with the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. It's a rare book library with some of the most incredible and beautiful books about esoteric philosophy. I love it. Also know as “The Embassy of the Free Mind”

    As you walk into the library, there is a big bronze statue of Marisilio Ficino. Ficino was peak Renaissance — he was head of the academy in Florence and hired by the Medici's to translate greek texts like Plato and the Hermetica into Latin, for the first time. He wrote a book called "De Mysteriis" (the mysteries) that is totally bananas.

    Published 1497, it has never been translated. It contains a chapter on Ficino’s own philosophy on pleasure “De Voluptate”

    The book got me to start collecting. My copy contains all kinds of marginalia… I’ve been translating the whole book with a scholar at Oxford. I’ve since built up a collection at the intersection of early science and philosophical magic. For instance, dellaporta’s “natural magic,” a book called “mathematical magic” from one of the founders of the Royal society, “arithmology” (a book about divine mathematics by Athenaus Kircher), “Secrets of Nature” by Anton von Leeuwenhoek (inventor of microscope), a book on “artificial curiosities” showing illustrations of steam powered autonomata from the mid 1500s, etc etc etc.

    I think the themes of these books — consciousness, magic, intelligence, mathematics — all bring a peculiar perspective on our current AI Renaissance… so I want to use AI to help make these books more accessible and understandable

  • by Jun8 on 2/6/24, 1:22 AM

    One big reason I go to estate sales is to perhaps one day find a treasure like this; unfortunately many a rich home has either very few books or if they do have books they are mostly junk (estate sales being homes of older folks, the book selection invariable is heavily loaded towards WW2 history) or not of interest to me (coffee table books, cookbooks, etc.)

    My biggest find so far? Four volumes of the six volume set of Scribner's Sun Rise Edition for $10 apiece: https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Sun-Rise-Edition-6-Vo....

  • by rotifer on 2/6/24, 9:03 AM

    The January 16, 2024 edition of the CBC radio show "As It Happens" has an interview with Gerry Vogrincic, the doctor who bought the book in 2007 and just sold it.

    There's a transcript of the interview here [1]. Search for "Old Anatomy Book".

    The audio for the entire episode is here [2]. I don't recall how far into it this interview occurs. (I've sometimes found their interviews split into separate clips, but if that's the case here I don't know where to find it.)

    [1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/the-aih-transcript-for-...

    [2] https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-2-as-it-happens/clip/...

  • by hinkley on 2/6/24, 12:57 AM

    The punchline here is that the book is full of the author's own copy-edit notes for a hypothetical 3rd edition of the human anatomy book.

    I didn't get a clear indication from the story whether anyone thought it would be worth pursuing finishing that project and publishing a new edition.

  • by gwern on 2/6/24, 2:26 AM

    "As much as such prices might set a gold digger's heart racing, they are not usually what motivates book collectors, whose relationship to their objects of desire is varied and complex. At a Boston fair in October, I heard a dealer with an impressive selection of dust jacket art say, "Don't judge a book by its content." However tongue-in-cheek, this twisted aphorism exposes the curious fact that many collectors don't actually read their books." https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/collecting/2008-01-18-aliso...

  • by lofatdairy on 2/6/24, 1:31 AM

    Wow, I love how the physical copies of Fabrica are as interesting as their author and their historical context and importance to Western medicine.

    Another interesting copy is the one bound in human skin at Brown.

  • by TomK32 on 2/6/24, 6:47 AM

    With those annotations there must be enough material to publish a revised third edition of Vesalius' book.

  • by m3kw9 on 2/6/24, 1:25 AM

    Anyone trying to score like this has better luck buying a lottery