Details
BORELLI, Giovanni Alfonso (1608-1679). De vi percussionis liber. Bologna: Giacomo Monti, 1667. 4° (214 x 156mm). Half-title, 5 engraved plates. (First plate trimmed close at lower margin just into plate mark, tears to half-title, title and +3 expertly repaired, light dampstaining.) Contemporary vellum, early manuscript to spine (flaw to lower cover, edges lightly rubbed, light soiling). Provenance: Richard Short, Rome (early ink inscription on title) -- Earls of Macclesfield (bookplate and blindstamps, sale Sotheby's, 10 June 2004, lot 386).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, of this early work on the laws of percussion. 'Borelli discusses percussion in detail, some general problems of motion, gravity, magnetism, the motion of fluids, the vibrations of bodies, and pendular motion' (DSB II 311). He intended this work as a preliminary to his forthcoming study on the movement of animals. His approach was derived from the research on percussion carried out by Galileo: Galileo had first given consideration to this subject in the early 1590s, and had returned to it when writing the Two New Sciences. Borelli's conclusions met with criticism from Stefano degli Angeli and Michelangelo Ricci; the later issue of this work contains his Risposta to these objections, as noted by Cinti. Carli-Favaro 72 (303); Cinti 287 (147); De Caro 52; Honeyman I 396; Riccardi I 159; Wellcome II 204.
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, of this early work on the laws of percussion. 'Borelli discusses percussion in detail, some general problems of motion, gravity, magnetism, the motion of fluids, the vibrations of bodies, and pendular motion' (DSB II 311). He intended this work as a preliminary to his forthcoming study on the movement of animals. His approach was derived from the research on percussion carried out by Galileo: Galileo had first given consideration to this subject in the early 1590s, and had returned to it when writing the Two New Sciences. Borelli's conclusions met with criticism from Stefano degli Angeli and Michelangelo Ricci; the later issue of this work contains his Risposta to these objections, as noted by Cinti. Carli-Favaro 72 (303); Cinti 287 (147); De Caro 52; Honeyman I 396; Riccardi I 159; Wellcome II 204.
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