An attractive and genuine example – with all volvelles present – of this copiously illustrated Paris edition (1553) of one of the most important astronomical and geographic texts of the Renaissance, Petrus Apianus’ Cosmographia. The work’s large, cordiform world map contains the most influential 16th-century representation of the New World..... More
Very rare first edition, second issue of this understudied work, “apparently the earliest Italian imprint to depict and discuss the Copernican system” (Gingerich) by the Cologne-born Professor of Mathematics at Padua. The work includes a printed diagram of the geo-heliocentric system of Martianus Capella (41r) as well as a diagram..... More
Rare first edition of Alessandro Lamo’s (1546-1610) illustrated evaluation of the life and work of the Cremonese painter Bernardino Campi (1522-1591). The Discorso, in addition to being the principal source for Campi’s biography, is considered the first critical writing to examine a still-living artist through the lens of regional art..... More
![Item #4827 Tractatus Primus [-Secundus -Tertius] Instrumentorum Mechanicorum. Joost BÜRGI,...](https://martayanlan.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/4827.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1508790319)
Scarce first Latin edition (following the original German by a year) of one of the most widely diffused Northern European surveying and drafting books, of great interest for the history of scale drawing, architectural drafting, and precision instrumentation, by the Flemish-born polymath and instrument maker Levinus Hulsius (1546-1606). The third..... More
Very rare first and only edition of the mathematician Pierre Vernier’s (1580-1637) landmark work introducing his invention of an ingenious new scale – here illustrated with a fold-out engraving – designed to greatly increase the accuracy of mensuration instruments. The scarcity of this treatise belies its broad impact on many..... More
Extremely rare first edition of Pierre Gassendi’s (1592-1655) important illustrated treatise on inertial mechanics. Written in the form of two letters addressed to the scholar and keeper of the king’s library Pierre Depuy (1582-1651), the De motu impresso “contains the first precise published formulation of the principle of inertia” as..... More
A superlative copy of the scarce third edition of Le Operazioni del Compasso Geometrico, containing an enlarged illustration of Galileo’s sector for measuring and swiftly computing distances and mathematical problems. The original edition, published in 1606 and Galileo’s first printed book of significance, did not contain an illustration of his..... More
Scarce augmented edition of this work on the theory of machines and the nature of gravity by the young Jesuit Paolo Casati. The work imaginatively envisions a Latin dialogue between three great physicists of the preceding generation, all recently dead in the 1640s: Galileo; Marin Mersenne, his greatest champion outside..... More
Rare, anonymously authored German-language treatise on the art of surveying, first published in 1616, with copious practical information on measuring any type of terrain. Extensively illustrated with more than 100 woodcut geometrical diagrams and woodcut images of surveying instruments, the work shares much in common with the popular German manuals..... More
Rare first and sole edition of this university thesis on the pendulum published just a year after Huygens' Horologium Oscillatorium, and mentioned by the author. Most of the thesis is devoted to medical applications (heart rate, etc.). More
Rare first and sole edition of this description of a sundial of the author's invention, which functioned as an astronomical perpetual calendar: determining for any day of the year the sun's rising, noon, setting, and mid-night, place of the sun in the Zodiac, etc. The work explains how to take..... More
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..... More
First edition of 12 collected lectures composed for the Academia della Crusca, posthumously published; “an important summary of Torricelli’s theories,” including reprints of his important letters on the barometer. Torricelli (1608-47) was Galileo’s pupil and secretary, succeeding him as professor of mathematics at Florence. Calling himself “a Galileist by profession..... More
Extremely rare first edition of an instruction manual for a new nautical instrument that determines “l’angolo di deriva,” i.e. a ship’s drift angle (a result of yaw). At times Micheli’s tract also recounts the public success of his previous inventions: in 1774 he was commissioned by the Grand Duchy of..... More
Rare first Italian edition and first edition in any vulgate language of “the first handbook of modern systematic mineralogy” (Horblit/Grolier, Latin no. 1546). “Agricola’s most important work...after De re metallica itself, was De Natura Fossilium which was the first systematic mineralogy... The De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum is considered the..... More
First edition, and a fine copy, of one of the great classics of science. Complete copies, such as ours, have become difficult to find on the market. This book is notable for its importance in the fields of electricity and air pressure and for its account of the discovery of..... More
Extremely rare 18th-century pamphlet listing and describing 13 machines recently invented by Carlo Castelli (active 1780-1810s), emeritus professor of physics, member of several learned scientific academies, and Provost of the Collegiata della Sta. Maria Fulcorina in Milan. The 4-page prospectus notes that these inventions are available for order from the..... More