Vita e Commercio Letterario di Galileo Galilei.
2 vols., large 4to (26.3 x 18.9 cm). Vol. 1: engraved portrait of Galileo by R. Morghen after Calendi after the portrait by Titi, xv, 471 (i.e. 466) pp., 2 plates and 1 large folding genealogical table. Vol. 2: engraved portrait after Susterman, [2] ff., 473-964 pp., 7 plates. Total of 12 plates. Bound in 19th century half calf and patterned papers over boards with calf corners, spine in five compartments with title label gilt. With the ex-libris and ownership signature of Luis (i.e. Ludwig) Merzbacher. Occasional dampstaining and foxing, heavy at times, but in the main a very fresh, clean copy. First edition of the most detailed eighteenth-century biography of Galileo, “particularly important and authoritative because Nelli had discovered Galileo’s papers and had at his disposal an impressive collection of sources” (The Cambridge Companion to Galileo). Nelli’s 18th century biography stands as a comprehensive feat which would not be equaled in Galileo scholarship until the mid-19th century. Building on the anti-clerical sentiments of the Italian Enlightenment, Nelli’s work is an important contribution to the historiography of Galileo as a martyr of science: “the Pope, the Inquisition, the friars, the ignorant peripatetics, with the utmost extravagance, found unheard of ways to torment the spirit of that unfortunate philosopher…” (p 558). The work otherwise celebrates the life of the famous scientist, defending him against allegations of illegitmacy (contra D’Alembert) and covering the early period in Galileo’s life (his conflicts with Baldessar Capra over the proportional compass), the events leading up to the trial of 1633, and indeed the funerary arrangements and tributes paid to him upon his death in 1642. Nelli often refers to and occasionally reproduces the manuscript sources in his possession, sometimes in large footnotes. Volume 2 traces the genesis of each of Galileo’s instruments, from his pendulum-regulated clock to his dabblings in agriculture, architecture, and music. Presumably drawing on the archive in his possession, Nelli also includes a chapter devoted to Galileo’s European-wide correspondents and their activities during the final years of his life. The work includes two engraved portraits of both a young and an elderly Galileo from Nelli’s personal collection as well as a large genealogical table and several figures illustrating Galileo’s instruments. Giovanni Battista Clemente de’ Nelli (1725-1793), a Florentine nobleman, scholar, and senator, was the first to bring to light a large number of scientific manuscripts by Galileo, Viviani, Toricelli, and Borelli, purchased between 1750 and 1754. The origin of this trove defies credibility but was evidently as follows: Nelli one day noticed that his butcher had begun wrapping his sausages in Galileo manuscripts; the Florentine senator eventually traced the source of this waste-paper to Viviani’s nephews, and bought the lot for 88 scudi (cf. Fahie, p. 428 for an account of this incident). In the present work he judiciously refers to these nephews as “Goths and Vandals” (p. 765).
* Cinti 182; see also Machamer (ed)., The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, p. 395; Fahie, Galileo: His Life and Work (London, 1903).
Price: $1,750.00