SCILLA, Agostino (1629-1700). La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso. Lettera risponsiva circa i corpi marini, che petreficati si trovano in varii luoghi terrestri. Naples: Andrea Colicchia, 1670.
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SCILLA, Agostino (1629-1700). La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso. Lettera risponsiva circa i corpi marini, che petreficati si trovano in varii luoghi terrestri. Naples: Andrea Colicchia, 1670.

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SCILLA, Agostino (1629-1700). La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso. Lettera risponsiva circa i corpi marini, che petreficati si trovano in varii luoghi terrestri. Naples: Andrea Colicchia, 1670.

4° (210 x 150mm). Engraved title and 29 engraved plates, probably by the author. (Frontispiece with light stain, old repair to lower margin, and slight tears to engraved area at inner margin, plates 1-2 with a small stain, plates 26-27 browned, small hole to margin of I1, lower margin of L2r soiled.) Contemporary vellum, manuscript title along spine, later longitudinal label with case mark superimposed. Provenance: Ex libris Hieronymi Tuschi, Archidiaconi Regiensis (stamp to verso of frontispiece) – Giannalisa Feltrinelli (bookplate; The Feltrinelli Library, part VI, Christie’s London, 2 June 1998, lot 1504).

FIRST EDITION. Besides being an artist known for his church frescos, Agostino Scilla was a pioneer in the study of fossils. His searches for them in Sicily and Malta led to the publication of this work which affirmed that they were not the product of fable but the remains of living creatures trapped in mud or soil that later turned into rock. Shells, coral and ‘pesce-vaca’ are the subject of particularly interesting descriptions. The supposedly magical objects called ‘glossopetrae’ or ‘tongue stones’ are correctly identified as sharks' teeth. BL 17th-Century Italian II, p. 837; Cicognara 3338; Nissen ZBI 3780; Vinciana, Aut. Ital. del ’600 1762.

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