BORELLI, GIOVANNI ALFONSO. De motu animalium. Rome 1680-81. 18 engraved folding plates. 2 volumes, 4to, contemporary vellum, spine ink lettered; reset in binding, light worming to endpapers, light browning and staining; cloth slipcase. FIRST EDITION. Dibner 190 ("Published in the year of his death, Borelli's treatise presented the application of mechanics to the motion of the limbs of animals based largely on Galileo's mechanics. He began with the center of motion, the muscle, and then applied its forces to the linkage of bones with the same exactness as forces applied to levers..."); Garrison-Morton 762; Grolier/Horblit 13; Norman 270 ("...Borelli was the first to explain heartbeat as a simple muscular contraction..."); Heirs of Hippocrates 315. (2)