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Details
CAMPANELLA, Tommaso (1568-1639, baptised Giovan Domenico). Apologia pro Galileo. Frankfurt: E. Kempfer for G. Tampachius, 1622.
4° (185 x 150mm). Title within engraved allegorical border, folded to fit at margins. With final blank. (Some browning, a few catchwords just shaved.) Later vellum, spine titled in manuscript (a remboîtage). Provenance: 'J.H.C.' (engraved bookplate).
FIRST EDITION. Campanella was imprisoned in Naples in 1599 for joining a movement to expel the Spanish, and published this influential defense of his friend, Galileo, whilst still a prisoner. 'Like Galileo, Campanella held that natural truth was not revealed in Scripture, but in the physical world. Thus the study of natural phenomena was seen as an important step towards theological understanding ... Campanella stressed -- unfortunately for him, counter to the dominant opinion of his fellow Italians -- the necessity of libertas philosophandi. He was perhaps the first to use this particular formulation, later popularized by Spinoza and others' (DSB). However, in his animistic, Neo-Platonic approach to nature he also differed from the more empirically-minded Galileo. His Apologia, recognised as rare by Brunet and 'rarissimo' by Riccardi, is difficult to acquire. ABPC records no auction sale since 1979. Brunet I, 1520; Riccardi I, 217; not in Norman or Waller.
4° (185 x 150mm). Title within engraved allegorical border, folded to fit at margins. With final blank. (Some browning, a few catchwords just shaved.) Later vellum, spine titled in manuscript (a remboîtage). Provenance: 'J.H.C.' (engraved bookplate).
FIRST EDITION. Campanella was imprisoned in Naples in 1599 for joining a movement to expel the Spanish, and published this influential defense of his friend, Galileo, whilst still a prisoner. 'Like Galileo, Campanella held that natural truth was not revealed in Scripture, but in the physical world. Thus the study of natural phenomena was seen as an important step towards theological understanding ... Campanella stressed -- unfortunately for him, counter to the dominant opinion of his fellow Italians -- the necessity of libertas philosophandi. He was perhaps the first to use this particular formulation, later popularized by Spinoza and others' (DSB). However, in his animistic, Neo-Platonic approach to nature he also differed from the more empirically-minded Galileo. His Apologia, recognised as rare by Brunet and 'rarissimo' by Riccardi, is difficult to acquire. ABPC records no auction sale since 1979. Brunet I, 1520; Riccardi I, 217; not in Norman or Waller.
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