Amusement Microscopique... contenant cinquante estampes dessinées d'apres nature... [AND] Deuxiéme cinquantaine... [AND] Troisiéme cinquantaine... [WITH] Suplement aux Amusemens Microscopiques... accompagnée d'une observation exacte de sa façon d'une mouche de chambre

Nuremberg (Nürnberg): Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt / Christian de Launoy, 1764. First edition in French. Hardcover. Very good. Three volumes (the last in two parts), bound in one. Large quarto (24.3 by 19 cm). Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and 152 finely-detailed engraved plates (2 folding), all hand-colored. [8], 126, [4]; 138, [2]; [8], 118, [2]; 23, [1] pp. Full title-pages for each of the three main parts; supplement with dated half-title. Contemporary marbled calf, borders stamped in blind, gilt-tooled spine with raised bands and lettering piece, gilt dentelles; all edges painted in floral motif (somewhat darkened and faded). Intermittent light toning, with occasional faint foxing. Hairline crack at upper joint (cords holding strong) else a very good copy with clean plates. Lacks the 16-page Traité phisique et microscopique de l'asbeste (1775) which, according to Brunet, is often missing.

First French-language version of this three-volume (1764; 1766; 1768) microscopical treatise by the lawyer and natural scientist, Martin Frobenius Ledermüller (1719-1769). The original German edition was also published at Nürnberg under the title Mikroskopische Gemüths- und Augenergötzungen (Microscopic Pleasures for the Mind and Eyes), and issued in monthly installments beginning in 1759. The boldly colored engraved illustrations with remarkably subtle details were prepared from the author's drawings. They offer a cross-section of nature accessible by microscopic inspection: minerals, seashells, plants and flowers, insects and mollusks, along with human hair, urine, and blood. Ornately wrought microscopes and their component parts, along with other scientific paraphernalia are presented as well. The fold-out engraving of the common house fly which appears in the Supplement is stunningly rendered.

Born at Nürnberg, Ledermüller studied law at Jena and served as procurator at the Nürnberg city and marriage court until 1760. During this period he published Physicalische Beobachtungen derer Saamenthiergens (Physical Observations of the Spermatazoa, 1756) and Versuch zu einer gründlichen Vertheidigung derer Saamenthiergen (An Attempt at a Thorough Defense of the Spermatazoa, 1758). In these brief illustrated treatises Ledermüller defended the existence of spermatazoa against the sceptical opionion of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788). In 1761, Ledermüller was made an assistant (and later, inspector) at the natural history cabinet of Bayreuth by Friedrich, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1711-1763), to whom the first edition of Microscopic Pleasures was dedicated. A noted patron of art and science, Friedrich had established the University of Bayreuth in 1742. "Ledermüller has rightly been called a popularizer of the natural sciences, but this does not take sufficient account of his erudition, his polymathic interests, his microscope constructions and his critical investigations" (NDB).

A note on the engraver: At the title of the first volume of the original German edition the engraver is named: mit farben nach der natur erleuchtet und in Kupfer gebracht, von Georg Paul Nussbiegeln Kupferstechern in Nürnberg (illuminated with colors based on nature and engraved in copper by Georg Paul Nussbiegel [1713-1776], engravers in Nürnberg) and his signature appears on the first fifty plates. In the present edition, his name has disappeared from the title and the signature of the engraver and publisher Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt (1733-1796) now appears on all of the plates. References: Brunet 3: 918-19; Clay & Court, The History of the Microscope, pp. 154, 182-183; NDB 14 (1985), pp. 43-44 (online); VD18 14493063 & 90949943. (Inventory #: 54536)