Details
GALILEI, Galileo (1564-1642). Il saggiatore nel quale com bilancia esquisita e giusta si ponderano le cose contenute nella libra astronomica e filosofica di Lotario Sarsi ... Rome: Giacomo Mascardi, 1623.
Small 4° (222 x 162mm). Engraved title and portrait by Villamena, engraved diagrams in the text, 16 lines of errata on p.236, (occasional light waterstaining). Contemporary limp vellum gilt, g.e. (ties and lettering-piece lacking).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, on thicker paper with the short list of errata. This copy does not have the four leaves of introductory verses by Faber and Stelluti (signed a4), but these were clearly never present: cf. the note in the Honeyman catalogue (Sotheby's, 5 November 1979 lot 1405), suggesting that they are not required in this issue. Cinti 73; Riccardi I,511; Norman cat. 857. One of the most celebrated polemics in science arose from the controversy over the nature of comets between Galileo and Orazio Grassi, who had published a work under the pseudonym of Lothario Sarsi in 1619, attacking Galileo. "Galileo avoided the question of the earth's motion: instead he set forth a general scientific approach to the investigation of celestial phenomena" (DSB V, p.243).
Small 4° (222 x 162mm). Engraved title and portrait by Villamena, engraved diagrams in the text, 16 lines of errata on p.236, (occasional light waterstaining). Contemporary limp vellum gilt, g.e. (ties and lettering-piece lacking).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, on thicker paper with the short list of errata. This copy does not have the four leaves of introductory verses by Faber and Stelluti (signed a4), but these were clearly never present: cf. the note in the Honeyman catalogue (Sotheby's, 5 November 1979 lot 1405), suggesting that they are not required in this issue. Cinti 73; Riccardi I,511; Norman cat. 857. One of the most celebrated polemics in science arose from the controversy over the nature of comets between Galileo and Orazio Grassi, who had published a work under the pseudonym of Lothario Sarsi in 1619, attacking Galileo. "Galileo avoided the question of the earth's motion: instead he set forth a general scientific approach to the investigation of celestial phenomena" (DSB V, p.243).