Arifmetika; Sirech nauka chislitel'naia. 1703

MAGNITSKY, Leontii Filipovich (1669-1739). Arifmetika; Sirech nauka chislitel'naia. [Arithmetic, called the computational science]. Moscow: Sinodal'na, 1703.

First edition of one of the most famous books printed during the reign of Peter the Great, and the first guide to mathematics published in Russia. It served as the basic textbook on the subject for over half a century; Lomonosov called it, along with Smotritskii's grammar, 'our gateways to learning'. Arifmetika is a landmark of printing in Russia, and the first Russian publication to use Arabic numerals instead of the traditional Cyrillic alphabetic numbers. Besides arithmetic it also includes algebra, geometry, mechanics, and some navigation. Drage 390; Fekula 4950; Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennaia Biblioteka 160; Smirnov-Sokol'skii, Moia Biblioteka, 7; Sopikov 99; Zernova-Kameneva 15.

Folio (302 x 191mm). Printed in red and black within typographic borders. Frontispiece, 2 engraved plates, woodcut diagrams, 3 double-page tables (frontispiece remargined, possibly supplied, last leaf re-margined, ff. 1, 2 and 11 repaired at gutter, title thumbed, some soiling, heavier in the first and last leaves, some spotting and dampstaining, f. 30 misbound after 33). 19th-century Russian blind-stamped calf with brass catches and clasps century binding, imitating the 16th-/17th-century design of the Moscow printing house bindery, with additional rectangular stamps bearing the title, cornerpieces with the lion and unicorn, reprising the seal of Tsar Ivan IV, and a centrepiece with an eagle fighting a snake; the decorations of the panel structure are reminiscent of the Trinity-St Sergius Monastery bindings (Klepikov, ‘Russian Bookbinding to 1750’, p. 419; joints cracked but holding, spine repaired at head, repaired tears to lower side, endpapers renewed). Provenance: an early reader (some marginalia).

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