Il Saggiatore nel quale con bilancia esquisita si ponderano le cose contenute nella Libra Astronomica ... di Lotario Sarsi.
4to (22 x 16.5 cm). [7] ff., including engraved title, preliminary dedication leaf to the Pope Urbano VIII, engraved portrait of Galileo signed Villamoena, and 4 leaves of verses by Faber and Stelluti; 236 pp.; 18 engraved diagrams in text; and 16 lines of errata on Ff6v (last text page). Occasional light browning to a few quires; very light water stain to quire C; small worm track affecting upper portion of text of a dozen leaves. Marginal small clean tears restored on a few leaves; minor marginal repair to Aa2. Bound in late 19th-century vellum over pasteboard, with earlier calf lettering-piece preserved. Generally an attractive, genuine and very good copy. First edition, first issue (with shorter errata), and complete copy of an outstanding document in the history of science. Il Saggiatore is often called Galileo’s “scientific manifesto,” and is certainly one of the most celebrated polemics in the history of physical science. It is the first of Galileo’s works written after the Inquisition’s warning not to propound or defend the Copernican theory, which of course he does, albeit in covert form. The work grew out of the appearance of three comets in the autumn of 1618 and articulates the principal arguments of whether they were atmospheric or celestial phenomena. “Galileo’s masterful polemic on the new science was written in response to Orazio Grassi, mathematician at the Jesuit Roman College, who in 1619 had published, under the pseudonym Lotario Sarsi, an attack on Galileo after the latter had criticized his views on comets. Unable to defend the Copernican doctrine, declared heretical in 1616, Galileo avoided all discussion of the world’s movement in his response, addressed to a young admirer named Virginio Cesarini, concentrating instead on a general discussion of the proper scientific approach to the investigation of celestial phenomena. The crux of his argument was that no theory of comets could be advanced unless it could be proven that they were concrete moving objects rather than mere optical effects of solar light, a proof that he considered impossible. In advancing this thesis he set forth some fundamental axioms of the modern scientific method” (Christie’s 1998 catalogue description for this copy). Il Saggiatore is intimately connected with, if indeed it did not originate, the rift between Galileo and the Jesuits, which ultimately saw the astronomer imprisoned by the Inquisition after the publication of the Dialogo in 1632. “In the course of his argument, Galileo distinguished physical properties of objects from their sensory effects, repudiated any authority in any matter that was subject to direct investigation, and remarked that the book of nature…could be deciphered only by those who knew mathematics” (Drake in DSB). The engraved illustrations in Il Saggiatore include some of the earliest published descriptions of the rings of Saturn, Mars in inferior and superior conjunction, and the phases of Venus (Ee1 recto). Il Saggiatore was dedicated at the last minute to the new Pope Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini, Galileo’s friend and a patron of science and the arts. Galileo was in Florence during the printing and could not supervise the corrections, so this first issue contains a list of only 16 errata. This copy includes the often lacking four preliminary leaves (signature a4) containing commendatory verses by Johannes Faber and Francesco Stelluti. According to Mario Biagioli (Galileo Courtier, p. 297), the edition had a press run of fewer than 400 copies. PROVENANCE: Ink inscription of Giacomo d’Ambrosa, doctor of medicine and philosopher, 1680, on the top margin of the title page, who most likely is a descendant or close relative of Jean D’Ambroise (1514-1584), royal surgeon to five French kings — Christie’s (New York), Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine, Part 2, June 15, 1998, miscatalogued as containing a facsimile portrait, which has been a corrected by Professor Nick Wilding, whose updated expertise is available.
* Cinti 73; Riccardi I.511, 628; De Backer-Sommervogel III.1684-86; L’Accademia dei Lincei e la cultura europea nel XVII secolo, 14 (Grassi), 15 (Galileo) and generally pp. 75ff.; Drake & O'Malley, The Controversy of the Comets of 1618, p. vi.; DSB, vol. 5-6, p. 243: Christie’s Catalogue for the Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine, Part 2, June 15, 1998.
Price: $65,000.00