![COSMOLOGY – [?Cesare CREMONINI (1550-1631)]. Cosmological treatise, ‘Disputatio ultima; De Coelo et Mundo’, [17th century, after 1630], in a somewhat eccentric Italian hand, with scattered cancellations and emendations. 19 ink diagrams, two pasted in, two woodcut illustrations pasted in as a replacement for a diagram lost to ink acidification.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2016/CKS/2016_CKS_12140_0381_000(cosmology_cesare_cremonini_cosmological_treatise_disputatio_ultima_de082141).jpg?w=1)
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COSMOLOGY – [?Cesare CREMONINI (1550-1631)]. Cosmological treatise, ‘Disputatio ultima; De Coelo et Mundo’, [17th century, after 1630], in a somewhat eccentric Italian hand, with scattered cancellations and emendations. 19 ink diagrams, two pasted in, two woodcut illustrations pasted in as a replacement for a diagram lost to ink acidification.
In Latin, c.71 leaves, 4to (200 x 130mm), (some worming to pages at the beginning and end of the manuscript, scattered ink acidification repaired in places). Contemporary card (some worming to the top and bottom covers). Box. Provenance: indistinct library stamp.
An unpublished 17th-century treatise on cosmology, apparently a partial correction of Cesare Cremonini’s Disputatio de coelo of 1631. Cremonini, colleague and rival of Galileo, was one of the foremost philosophers of his age: he found a patron in Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, and was said to be paid a salary twice that of Galileo in his position at the University of Padua. The present manuscript seems to represent a move away from his absolute adherence to the philosophy of Aristotle in relation to the heavens as set out in Disputatio de coelo. In fact, it was this commitment to Aristotelian thought that had brought Cremonini and Galileo into contention: when the latter offered him the chance in 1610 to observe the mountains of the Moon through his telescope, Cremonini refused, citing Aristotle’s proof that the Moon must be a perfect sphere. That Scheiner’s Rosa Ursina sive Sol is cited here means the manuscript must postdate its 1630 publication: its unknown authorship opens up certain intriguing possibilities.
In Latin, c.71 leaves, 4to (200 x 130mm), (some worming to pages at the beginning and end of the manuscript, scattered ink acidification repaired in places). Contemporary card (some worming to the top and bottom covers). Box. Provenance: indistinct library stamp.
An unpublished 17th-century treatise on cosmology, apparently a partial correction of Cesare Cremonini’s Disputatio de coelo of 1631. Cremonini, colleague and rival of Galileo, was one of the foremost philosophers of his age: he found a patron in Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, and was said to be paid a salary twice that of Galileo in his position at the University of Padua. The present manuscript seems to represent a move away from his absolute adherence to the philosophy of Aristotle in relation to the heavens as set out in Disputatio de coelo. In fact, it was this commitment to Aristotelian thought that had brought Cremonini and Galileo into contention: when the latter offered him the chance in 1610 to observe the mountains of the Moon through his telescope, Cremonini refused, citing Aristotle’s proof that the Moon must be a perfect sphere. That Scheiner’s Rosa Ursina sive Sol is cited here means the manuscript must postdate its 1630 publication: its unknown authorship opens up certain intriguing possibilities.
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