Porta, John Baptista. [Giambattista Della Porta]; Natural Magick By John Baptista Porta, a Neapolitane: in Twenty Books. 1. of the Causes of Wonderful Things. 2. of the Generation of Animals. 3. of the Production of New Plants. 4. of Increasing Household-Stuff. 5. of Changing Metals... Wherein Are Set Forth All the Riches and Delights of the Natural Sciences. London: Printed for Thomas Young, and Samuel Speed; and are to be sold at the Three Pigeons and at the Angel in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1658. FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. Small folio, pp. 8, 409, 6 pages of table of contents, title in red and black, also illustrated with engraved half title page showing a portrait of Porta and representations of the Four Elements, Chaos and of Art and Nature by R. Gaywood. Text with woodcuts and diagrams throughout.

The work is complete and in contemporary calf boards with a later matching calf spine with raised bands gilt titles and borders. Binding is tight and clean. Light soiling to last page of contents, light toning to title page and margins of some text pages. Armorial book plate of William P.H. Pollock on paste down with later owner’s book plate below. Over all in very good condition.
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A mathematician and naturalist, Porta (1538-1615) is best known for his popular sixteenth century work on magic and the sciences. The work was first published in four books in 1558. Porta expanded the work to 20 books in 1589 and the above first English translation is based on that 1589 edition. The 1658 edition contains books on cosmology, geology, optics and lens making, plant products, medicines, poisons, cooking, transmutation of metals and chemical transformations, distillation, artificial gems, the properties of magnets, women's cosmetics, fires, gunpowders and Greek fire, enamels and pottery colouring, invisible writing etc. Of primary interest are the works discussing metals, gems, gold, lodestone, fossils, and "chaos" which includes the history of the earth. Porta includes investigations of the magnet and most especially his contributions to the study of optics. Although he did not anticipate Galileo in the invention of the telescope, Porta was the first to add a concave lens to the aperture of the camera obscura, and his comparison of the camera lens to the pupil of the eye provided an easily understood demonstration that the source of visual images lay outside the eye, thus ending a century’s old controversy. The work is considered one of the most popular treatises published during the Late Renaissance.