Details
FERMAT, Pierre de (1601-1665). Varia opera mathematica. Edited by Clment-Samuel de Fermat. Toulouse: Jean Pech, 1679.
2o (342 x 218 mm). Engraved portrait of author by F. Poilly, woodcut initial on title, 2 engraved head-pieces, woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces, 5 engraved plates (small repair and small tears to folds of portrait, faint spotting and browning throughout, lacks blank 2E2). Later half calf, gilt spine, marbled boards (boards scuffed, minor repairs to spine ends, extremities worn). Provenance: Jean Etienne Montucla (1725-1799), mathematician and author of Histoire des mathematiques [Paris, 1758] (manuscript note on front free endpaper recording that this copy was bought at the sale of Montucla's library, and that the marginal notes are in his hand; marginal annotations; 2 autograph letters from Montucla, one dated Grenoble, 1762, and addressed to M. de la Condamine, and 2 pages of mathematical notations laid in).
FIRST EDITION, the first publication of many of Fermat's papers, including his important researches in analytic geometry, the methods of maxima and minima, and the theory of numbers and probability, together with his correspondence with Pascal, Gassendi, Mersenne, Robertval and other mathematicians. Fermat was reluctant to allow any of his work to appear in print, and it was only after his death that his son, Clment-Samuel, was able to circulate his father's important mathematical contributions.
This copy contains Horblit's 2nd state of the title (with woodcut ornament) and his first state of leaves 2r and 2r (with engraved vignettes). The portrait of the author (not present in the Norman, Horblit or Honeyman copies) is present. Dibner Heralds of Science 108; Grolier/Horblit 30; Norman 778.
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FIRST EDITION, the first publication of many of Fermat's papers, including his important researches in analytic geometry, the methods of maxima and minima, and the theory of numbers and probability, together with his correspondence with Pascal, Gassendi, Mersenne, Robertval and other mathematicians. Fermat was reluctant to allow any of his work to appear in print, and it was only after his death that his son, Clment-Samuel, was able to circulate his father's important mathematical contributions.
This copy contains Horblit's 2nd state of the title (with woodcut ornament) and his first state of leaves 2r and 2r (with engraved vignettes). The portrait of the author (not present in the Norman, Horblit or Honeyman copies) is present. Dibner Heralds of Science 108; Grolier/Horblit 30; Norman 778.