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Details
MONTE, Guidobaldo del (1545-1607). Mechanicorum liber. Pesaro: for Hieronymus Concordia, 1577.
2° (322 x 116mm). Woodcut title vignette of a globe on a lever, 265 woodcut diagrams and illustrations, large historiated initials. (Occasional scattered spots and stains, some marginal waterstaining on bottom corner of 2D2-2D4.) 17th-century limp vellum, manuscript title label pasted spine, remains of ties, red edges (lightly soiled). Provenance: Wolfgang Engelbert, Graf von Auersperg (1610–1673), of Carniola (in modern Slovenia; neat inscription on title dated 1655) — Fürstlich Auerspergsche Fideicommisbibliothek zu Laybach (Ljubljana; bookplate).
FIRST EDITION of the author’s first work, ‘regarded by contemporaries as the greatest work on statics since the Greeks’ (DSB). Guidobaldo was Galileo’s patron and friend for twenty years and was possibly the greatest single influence on his mechanics; the two scientists discussed projectile motion and conducted experiments together on the trajectories of cannonballs. Monte was inspector general of fortifications in Tuscany, and a friend of the mathematicians Baldi and Commandino. He was instrumental in securing Galileo's first post at the University of Padua. His first work was ‘intended as a return to classical Archimedean models of rigorous mathematical proof and as a rejection of the “barbaric” medieval proofs of Jordanus de Nemore... which mixed dynamical principles with mathematical analysis’ (DSB). Adams U-7; DSB IX, 487-488; Houzeau and Lancaster 2912; Riccardi I, 178 (‘raro… bella edizione’); Bib. Mechanica p.229 (citing colophon date of 1587).
2° (322 x 116mm). Woodcut title vignette of a globe on a lever, 265 woodcut diagrams and illustrations, large historiated initials. (Occasional scattered spots and stains, some marginal waterstaining on bottom corner of 2D2-2D4.) 17th-century limp vellum, manuscript title label pasted spine, remains of ties, red edges (lightly soiled). Provenance: Wolfgang Engelbert, Graf von Auersperg (1610–1673), of Carniola (in modern Slovenia; neat inscription on title dated 1655) — Fürstlich Auerspergsche Fideicommisbibliothek zu Laybach (Ljubljana; bookplate).
FIRST EDITION of the author’s first work, ‘regarded by contemporaries as the greatest work on statics since the Greeks’ (DSB). Guidobaldo was Galileo’s patron and friend for twenty years and was possibly the greatest single influence on his mechanics; the two scientists discussed projectile motion and conducted experiments together on the trajectories of cannonballs. Monte was inspector general of fortifications in Tuscany, and a friend of the mathematicians Baldi and Commandino. He was instrumental in securing Galileo's first post at the University of Padua. His first work was ‘intended as a return to classical Archimedean models of rigorous mathematical proof and as a rejection of the “barbaric” medieval proofs of Jordanus de Nemore... which mixed dynamical principles with mathematical analysis’ (DSB). Adams U-7; DSB IX, 487-488; Houzeau and Lancaster 2912; Riccardi I, 178 (‘raro… bella edizione’); Bib. Mechanica p.229 (citing colophon date of 1587).
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