AS Advertised this book is indeed ;

“Very useful work, not only for the curious, but also for Scriptural scholars, Philosophers, and Physicians.”

676J Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, S.J. 1595-1658

CVRIOSA Y OCVLTA FILOSOFIA. PRIMERA, Y SEGVNDA PARTE de las marauillas de la naturaleza, exami-nadas en varias questiones naturales. CONTIENEN HISTORIAS MUY notables. Aueriguanfe secretos, y problemas de la naturaleza, con FIlosofia nueua. Explicanse lugares dificultosos de Es-critura. Obra muy util, no solo para los curiosos, sino para doctos Escriturarios, Filo-sofos, y Medicos. 55. POR EL PADRE IVAN EVSEBIO Nieremberg de la Compañia de Iesus. A DON LORENZO RAMIREZ DE Prado, del Consejo de su Magestad, &c

En Madrid a costa de Ivan Antonio Bonet… en la Imprenta Real. 1643. $4,700

Quarto 19.5 x 15cm. Signatures ¶4,¶¶8, A-Z8, Aa-Cc8 . Third edition. This copy is bound in full contemporary limp vellum with manuscript  title on the spine. 

Juan Eusebio Nieremberg was one of the most prolific Jesuit author s He wrote and widely read authors in Europe and America during the seventeenth century. In this book Nieremberg deals with the wonders of nature, the realities of fabulous monsters, the philosopher’s stone, the substance of the sky, stars, comets, volcanoes, the sympathy and antipathy of objects, the mystery of the magnetic stone , etc. This work at the crossroads of metaphysics, science and the marvelous, constitutes a curious testimony to Renaissance thought.


Juan Eusebio Nierenberg’s and Athanasius Kircher’s approaches and explorations into the supernatural or unexplainable are differ from many of their contemporaries, who in part consider the unexplainable as an expression of the devil. Nierenberg and Kircher search for explanations where current discoveries in science are inspired by God and are to be used to embrace the inexplicable. Yet, as ever the unexplainable survives and Nierenberg, places these anomalies with Natural History.

At the Colegio Imperial of Madrid he taught humanities and natural history for sixteen years and Sacred Scripture for three. As a director of souls he was much sought, being appointed by royal command confessor to the Duchess of Mantua, granddaughter of Philip II. Remarkable for his exemplary life, and the heights of prayer to which he attained, he was an indefatigable worker, and one of the most prolific writers of his time. His works are distinguished for their erudition, those in Spanish being characterized according to Capmani, by nobility and purity of diction, terse, well-knit phrases, forcible metaphors, and vivid imagery, certain defects mar his style, at times inelegant and marked by a certain disregard for the rules of grammar and a too pronounced use of antithesis, paronomasia, and other plays upon words. His books Include : “Del Aprecio y Estima de la Divina Gracia” (Madrid, 1638), “De la Diferencia entre lo Temporal y Eterno” (Madrid, 1640), “Historia naturae maxime peregrinae Libris XVI, distincta” (Antwerp, 1635), “De la afición y amor de Jesus . . . Idemde Maria” (Madrid, 1630), “Obras Christianas espirituales y filosóficas” (Madrid, 1651, fol. 3 vols.), “Obras Christianas” (Madrid, 1665, fol. 2 vols.

De Backer & Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, vol. V, col.1730-1731. Nº8