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Astronomy
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GALILEI, Galileo. Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti ... Rome, Giacomo Mascardi, 1613.
4to. [21.2 x 15.4 cm], (2) ff. [second numbered 4 on verso], 164 pp., including within the text 44 copper engravings and 8 woodcuts. Bound in contemporary vellum over boards, title in ink on spine. Several leaves mounted at gutter; duplicates of ff. C2, [C3] tipped in, the first of which [C3] is printed without engraving. Title page and portrait washed but genuine, repaired tears in blank gutter of H signature, text leaves lightly foxed, engraved images relatively clean. Overall good.
$33,000 First edition and an unusual copy (see below) of one of the great books in the history of science, recording Galileo’s observations of the sun. In his Letters on Sunspots, published at Rome in 1613 and illustrated with many full-page engravings of his observations, Galileo spoke out decisively for the Copernican system for the first time in print. That the sun is the center of the universe—the heliocentric system first espoused by Copernicus—was the most controversial scientific idea of the early modern era and had far-reaching consequences in human pursuits from theology to physics. Kemp has shown that the work is of art-historical interest and informed contemporary debate on the nature of perspective.
At the end of the work, Galileo included diagrams of his calculations predicting the movements of the satellites of Jupiter for March and April, 1613 (timed to be of use just as the book came off the press): the accuracy of these calculations, which could easily be verified, no doubt lent substantial credence to the argument of the work as a whole. He also included here his first published mention of the concept of conservation of angular momentum and an associated inertial concept.
This copy is unusual in containing duplicates of two leaves, pp. 19-22, where the tipped-in pair lacks the engraving of 9 sunspots on p. 22. Perhaps an early owner came across these unusual un-illustrated pages—which aside from the missing engraving are typographically identical to the standard leaves—and chose to include them in the volume for bibliophilic reasons.
* Sparrow, Milestones of Science 77; Cinti 43; Riccardi I.509.6*; Kemp, The Science of Art, pp. 93-81.
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