Authors starting with Z from B & L Rootenberg Rare Books & Manuscripts

Title within elaborate architectural border, separate leaf with portrait of the author, 17 decorative woodcut initials and 8 woodcut text illustrations (5 full-page). Bound in decorative modern boards. Other than a couple of very small and mild damp stains, a lovely large copy. First edition of the first Italian book devoted exclusively to fortification of cities. It was preceded only by Durer’s Etliche underricht, zur befestigung der Stett (1527). Italian works by Valle (1521) and Cataneo and Tartagli... more information

With elaborate double-page engraved frontispiece, hand painted floral paste-downs, hand-painted maps. Calf with blue edges and gilded spine and borders on covers. First edition of Zatta’s masterpiece of the eighteenth century, the most important world atlas of the period. All maps are hand-coloured, with each title in a decorative cartouche surrounded by the architecture, animals, and landscape one was thought to encounter in that particular environment. All known areas of the world are docu... more information

With 7 engraved plates (2 folding). Contemporary half-calf over speckled boards, neatly rebacked. The text was probably washed at some period due to the poor quality of paper; a fine copy with 2 small ownership stamps on title. First edition. Zinn (1727-59), professor of medicine and anatomy at Göttingen, correctly describes "fibrae radiatae" and shows that the number of fiber bundles in the optic nerve is constant and continuous with those of the retina. In addition, he characterizes the zo... more information

Original gray publisher’s cloth, decorated in blind, in the original dust-jacket. A clean copy, with a small bookseller’s label to front fly-leaf. First edition. Published posthumously, this collection of poems is meant to be representative of Zinsser’s evolution as a poet. “Hans Zinsser . . . considered that the highest art was that of writing music . . . the only music he practiced consistently is here, among the verses that he wrote from his youth until just before he died . . . he sh... more information

Red publisher’s cloth, in original dust-jacket. First edition. Thinly veiled as a biography of a close friend, this is actually Zinsser’s autobiography, covering his life from childhood through his medical studies, to his travels around the world both on his own and while serving with the United States Army. Zinsser (1878-1940) was an American bacteriologist and professor at both Columbia and Harvard Medical School who made significant contributions to public health and bacteriology. He did extens... more information