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GALILEO GALILEI (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° (215 x 160mm). Engraved title and portrait by Francesco Villamena, engraved diagrams in the text, 16 lines of errata on p.236. (Frontispiece and A4 repaired in inner margin, a few small mostly marginal repairs, dampstains, occasional light spotting and browning.) Contemporary vellum, spine titled in manuscript (lacking ties, shrunk at foredges, some spotting and browning, endpapers with light worming, some tracks repaired). Custom-made blue cloth clamshell box. Provenance: 18th-century reader (inscription on front endpaper).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, on thicker paper with the short list of errata. One of the most celebrated polemics in science, written in response to Orazio Grassi who had published, under the pseudonym Lotario Sarsi, an attack on Galileo after the latter had criticized his views on comets. Unable to defend the Copernican doctrine, declared heretical in 1616, Galileo avoided all discussion of the world's movement in his response, concentrating instead on a general discussion of the proper scientific approach to the investigation of celestial phenomena. The crux of his argument was that no theory of comets could be advanced unless it could be proven that they were concrete moving objects rather than mere optical effects of solar light, a proof that he considered impossible. In advancing this thesis he set forth some fundamental axioms of the modern scientific method: he 'distinguished physical properties of objects from their sensory effects, repudiated authority in any matter that was subject to direct investigation, and remarked that the book of nature, being written in mathematical characters, could be deciphered only by those who knew mathematics' (DSB). The engraving on 2E1r is the earliest published illustration of the ring of Saturn, the planet Mars in inferior and superior conjunction, and the phases of Venus. According to Mario Biagioli (Galileo courtier, p. 297), the edition had a print-run of fewer than 400 copies.
Il Saggiatore was dedicated at the last minute to the new Pope Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini, Galileo's friend and a patron of science and the arts. Galileo was in Florence during the printing and could not supervise the corrections, so the first issue contains only 16 errata; Galileo had an additional errata leaf printed for the second issue, which was revised to a total of 137 errata for the third and final issue. 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. Carli and Favaro 95; Cinti 73; DSB V, p.243; Riccardi I,511; Norman 857.
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° (215 x 160mm). Engraved title and portrait by Francesco Villamena, engraved diagrams in the text, 16 lines of errata on p.236. (Frontispiece and A4 repaired in inner margin, a few small mostly marginal repairs, dampstains, occasional light spotting and browning.) Contemporary vellum, spine titled in manuscript (lacking ties, shrunk at foredges, some spotting and browning, endpapers with light worming, some tracks repaired). Custom-made blue cloth clamshell box. Provenance: 18th-century reader (inscription on front endpaper).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, on thicker paper with the short list of errata. One of the most celebrated polemics in science, written in response to Orazio Grassi who had published, under the pseudonym Lotario Sarsi, an attack on Galileo after the latter had criticized his views on comets. Unable to defend the Copernican doctrine, declared heretical in 1616, Galileo avoided all discussion of the world's movement in his response, concentrating instead on a general discussion of the proper scientific approach to the investigation of celestial phenomena. The crux of his argument was that no theory of comets could be advanced unless it could be proven that they were concrete moving objects rather than mere optical effects of solar light, a proof that he considered impossible. In advancing this thesis he set forth some fundamental axioms of the modern scientific method: he 'distinguished physical properties of objects from their sensory effects, repudiated authority in any matter that was subject to direct investigation, and remarked that the book of nature, being written in mathematical characters, could be deciphered only by those who knew mathematics' (DSB). The engraving on 2E1r is the earliest published illustration of the ring of Saturn, the planet Mars in inferior and superior conjunction, and the phases of Venus. According to Mario Biagioli (Galileo courtier, p. 297), the edition had a print-run of fewer than 400 copies.
Il Saggiatore was dedicated at the last minute to the new Pope Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini, Galileo's friend and a patron of science and the arts. Galileo was in Florence during the printing and could not supervise the corrections, so the first issue contains only 16 errata; Galileo had an additional errata leaf printed for the second issue, which was revised to a total of 137 errata for the third and final issue. 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. Carli and Favaro 95; Cinti 73; DSB V, p.243; Riccardi I,511; Norman 857.
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