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Details
KIRCHER, Athanasius (1602-1680). Itinerarium exstaticum quo mundi opificium. Rome: Vitalis Mascardi, 1656. 4° (220 x 165 mm). Woodcut head- and- tail pieces and initials. (Light soiling to title.) 18th-century speckled calf, red speckled edges (rebacked to match, extremities lightly rubbed).
FIRST EDITION OF KIRCHER'S ONLY WORK DEVOTED ENTIRELY TO ASTRONOMY. Merrill calls it one of Kircher's 'most curious works', a treatise in the form of a narrative with its protagonist caught up in a dream vision, guided through heaven by a spirit named Cosmiel. In the first dialogue, Kircher describes a journey to the moon, found scarred with mountains and craters in opposition to the Aristotelian view. He flies on to Venus, discovers elements and then visits other planets. Kircher rejects the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmologies in favour of the model proposed by Tycho Brahe. The second part of the work takes up the Tychonian and Copernican systems and deals with the creations of the earth. Kircher cites authorities such as Johannes Hevelius, Gottfried Wendelin and Galileo. Merrill 11.
FIRST EDITION OF KIRCHER'S ONLY WORK DEVOTED ENTIRELY TO ASTRONOMY. Merrill calls it one of Kircher's 'most curious works', a treatise in the form of a narrative with its protagonist caught up in a dream vision, guided through heaven by a spirit named Cosmiel. In the first dialogue, Kircher describes a journey to the moon, found scarred with mountains and craters in opposition to the Aristotelian view. He flies on to Venus, discovers elements and then visits other planets. Kircher rejects the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmologies in favour of the model proposed by Tycho Brahe. The second part of the work takes up the Tychonian and Copernican systems and deals with the creations of the earth. Kircher cites authorities such as Johannes Hevelius, Gottfried Wendelin and Galileo. Merrill 11.