PATIN (Charles). Traité des tourbes combustibles. Paris, Jea - Lot 130

PATIN (Charles). Traité des tourbes combustibles. Paris, Jean du Bray and Pierre Variquet, 1663. Small in-4, [9] ff (including title and preface), 122 pp, [3] ff (table), attractive typographical mark on title. Contemporary vellum, title in ink on spine. Rare. First edition of the first work in French devoted to peat, nicknamed the "poor man's coal". In it, Charles Patin explains the value of this resource as an alternative to firewood, the scarcity and cost of which were of concern to the French government. Dedicated to Guillaume I de Lamoignon, the work mentions a royal patent and letters patent of 1658-1659 granting Sieur de Chambré a monopoly on peat extraction within a radius of twenty-five leagues of Paris. Son of epistolary physician Guy Patin, Charles Patin (1633-1693), physician and numismatist, was forced into exile in 1667 following accusations of "scholarly libertinism" and trafficking in forbidden books. He settled in Padua, where he taught medicine and surgery. A member of the Ricovrati and Leopoldina academies, he also devoted himself to archaeology. Provenance: Period handwritten bookplate on the flyleaf: "Enguehard" (possibly the physician Jean Enguehard or his son, also a physician, Jean-Baptiste). Handwritten inscription on first flyleaf: "Dono auctoris De[...]cenne 1663". Kress no. 1116; Brunet IV, 438. Discrete restoration to title, slight wear. PROTO-INDUSTRY.