Lettera intorno all’Invenzione degli occhiali.
4to (23 x 16 cm). 15 pp. (verso blank). Bound in old cartonnato. Ownership inscription of Alessandro Sampieri on title. Minimal foxing on a handful of leaves, otherwise excellent. Very rare enlarged edition (first ed. 1678) of what is believed to be the first printed monograph on the invention of eyeglasses. Francesco Redi, head physician of the Medici court and superintendent of the ducal pharmacy and foundry, was one of the great experimentalists of his time. His stature as a scientist was such that this thesis on the origin of eyeglasses was accepted for over two centuries. “Redi relates the discovery of a reference to their invention in a manuscript dated 1299 which he regarded as the earliest reference to the use of spectacles. Redi ascribed the invention of eyeglasses, or at least their perfection, to the Dominican friar Allessandro della Spina (d. 1313). The evidence on this subject is fragmentary: however, it would seem that eyeglasses developed from a type of reading glass which probably took the form of a plano-convex lens laid directly on a page to enlarge the letters” (Becker, Collection of Ophthalmology, 311). Francesco Redi (1626-1698) gained a place in scientific history, as well as membership in the Accademia dei Lincei, for being among the first to demonstrate through controlled experiments that living organisms, notably maggots, did not arise from spontaneous generation. He also published an important work on the effects of snakebites.
* Krivatsy 9543; Duncan 10820 (no collation): DSB XI, 342: Gamba,826.
Price: $2,450.00