Clias,P.H.

Beginning of gymnastics or gymnastic art. Bern, Burgdorfer 1816. 8°. Title, VI, IV, 167 p. with engraved mont. Frontispiece & 8 folded. plates in pen lithography. Typogr. OPbd. (Partly more dusty, dusted and rubbed). Meuss 3006, Weissbein/Roth 133 - First edition. - Early work of the gymnastics movement by the Swiss gymnastics teacher P. H. Clias (1782-1854). The book appeared in the same year as the "Deutsche Turnkunst" of the gymnastics father Jahn and made its author one of the founders of gymnastics instruction in Switzerland. - The early pen lithographs with a view from a gymnastic hall and numerous gymnastic exercises. - Clias, son of a Nidwaldner Käslin, who emigrated to America in 1770, was a gymnastics teacher in Bern and built a gymnastics center with the necessary facilities below the Kleine Schanze and a bathing facility in the Marzili. - St.a.T., the illustration of the gymnasium with rep. tears, the plates somewhat stained, throughout some foxing.