WEB AUCTION 118 - LIBRI E AUTOGRAFI

GIAN RINALDO CARLI
Dell'Origine E Del Commercio Della Moneta, L'Aja, 1751

4°. First edition. Contemporary half calf, slightly damaged. One folding plate and two engraved plates at the end. Very good copy.

JUAN JORGE ANTONIUS ULLOA
Voyage Historique De L'Amerique Meridionale, Amsterdam-Leipzig, Charles Antoine Jombert, 1752


4°


Contemporary five-rib calf, with gilded ornaments on the spine, slightly damaged. Complete with folding plates

Giambattista Suardi (1711-1767)

Nuovi istromenti per la descrizione di diverse curve antiche e moderne e di molte altre, che servir possono alla speculazione de’ geometri, ed all’uso de’ pratici, col progetto di due nuove macchine per la nautica ed una per la meccanica…o In Brescia, dalle stampe di Gian Maria Rizzardi, 1752


§ 4to (290 x210 cm.); [8], VIII, 283, [1] pp., signature: §1-4, *1-4, A-Z1-4, Aa-Nn1-4; engraved portrait of the Doge Francesco Loredan, XXXIV engraved folding plates, large- size engraved vignette on title page, engraved head-pieces and initials. Portrait by Fortunato Pasquetti (1690-1773), vignette by Francesco Fontebasso (1707-1769), both engraved by Francesco Zucchi (1692-1764). Contemporary vellum, spine gilt. Inner hinge loose otherwise very fine copy.

First edition of this work by the Italian mathematician and inventor Giambattista Suardi. The best known of the “machines” here described is the Geometric Pen or ellipsograph, an instrument by which is possible to draw more than 1200 geometric figures, many of them taking the shape of flowers. “The Geometric Pen utilizes a vertical axle with a revolving arm, which pivots at the center of a tripod support. The revolving arm carries a second pivoting arm fitted with a writing tip. With a series of gears, the rotation of the two arms generates complex cycloidal curves. The importance of Suardi's work is made clear by the fact that it seems all subsequent devices for generating geometric curves are based on his research and inventions.” (Ornamental Turning). The book contains also two letters from Boscovich to Suardi about the latter’s mechanical description of Cartesian ovals“Bella e pregiata edizione” (Riccardi). Ref: Poggendorff II, 950; Riccardi I (2), 479.

Joachim D’Alencé (?-1707)

Trattato curioso di matematica nel quale col mezzo di tre instrumenti cioé del barometro, termometro ed igrometro, si può conoscere, misurare il peso, la leggerezza, il caldo, il freddo, la secchezza e l'umidità dell'aria.. In Venezia, appresso Gio. Battista Recurti, 1753


First Italian edition of a work first published in French in 1668, with some additions “There are added some problems of mathematical physics and some memories extracted from Bernoulli, La Hire and Cassini” (Riccardi. translated).
The present work met with an immediate success.Its scientific merits consist in the improvement in the construction of both barometers and thermometers: “His detailed description of the principal meteorological instruments of the period is enriched with several new ideas...” (Taton). As far as barometers are concerned, Dalencé was the first one to point out that certain varieties of wood possess the property of being pervious to air, but impervious to mercury, observation that allowed the construction of portable cistern barometers, which may also be placed in any position if the cistern is spherical and more than half-full of mercury, the tube ending at its center..His most durable contribution to instrument making consists however in his proposition of the first workable scale for the measurement of temperatures, taking as extremes the freezing point of water in winter and the melting point of butter in summer. This constituted a significant progress over the previous scales, as e. g. that proposed by Fabri, which used snow and the greatest summer heat as extreme points. Ref: Riccardi, I (2), 556; for ader editions: Daumal A history of scientific instruments p. 57; Bierens de Haan, n. 1065; cfr. R.Taton DSB III, 534; W. E. Knowles Middleton A history of the barometer pp. 145-147 and passim.

LEONARDO CECCONI
Storia Di Palestrina, Ascoli, Nicola Ricci, 1756

4°. Contemporary limp vellum. Very fine copy with a folding map of Palestina. First edition.

FLORIANO MALVEZZI
I Riti Nuziali Degli Antichi Romani, Bologna, Lelio Della Volpe, 1762

folio


Contemporary half-calf. Very good copy.

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
Decamerone
In Londra, presso Giovanni Nourse 1762

Engraved frontispiece depicting the poet.
Back binding in full leather with gold decorations and marbled cuts.
Defects: first two papers slightly detached but excellent copy.

JEAN BAPTISTE THIERS
La Guerre Seraphique, L'Aja, Pierre De Hondt, 1765



Complete.


Restored with contemporary and decorated hard paperboards.


Good copy.

NICOLA IGNARRA
De Palestra Meapolitana Commentarius, Napoli, Donato Campi, 1770

4°


Contemporary hard vellum. Very fine copy.

Filippo Baldini (fl. 1770 - 1797)

De odorum mechanismo in corpore humano dissertationes IV. a Philippo Baldini concinnatae. Et excellentissimo domino D. Antonino Maresca duci Serrae Capreole &c. dicatae. Neapoli, ex typographia Raymundiana, 1770


§ 8vo, [8], 73, [7] pp.; sign.: a4, A-E8., slightly later coloured paperboards, a fine and crisp copy,
First, utterly rare edition (only five copies known to be preserved in public collections) of the earliest monographic work dedicated to the anatomy and physiology of olfaction, as well as the first work published by the Neapolitan doctor Filippo Baldini, one of the leading scholars of dietetics, hygiene and public health of the late 18th century.

Exquisitely academic in their structure, the four dissertations that make up the work - allegedly constituting a reworking of Baldini’s graduation thesis -, after a brief historical excursus of the hypotheses concerning olfactory faculties, from the Epicurean theory of effluvia to speculations typical of Cartesian mechanicism, they focus on an accurate anatomical analysis of human olfaction, to which are added curious and innovative intuitions about the connection between mind and odours, not without avant-garde speculations about the existence of an olfactory memory.
The treatise knew wide success, as evidenced by the existence of a second, slightly reworked edition (Neapoli [s.d.], 1778), reprinted in the fifth volume of Baldini’s opera omnia (Saggi intorno alla preservazione, e cura dell’umana salute. Napoli, presso Giuseppe Maria Porcelli, 1787). Ref Blake (p. 29, II ed.), OCLC 33972956.

ALEXIS CLAUDE CLAIRAUT
Elementi Di Geometria, Roma, Venanzio Monaldini, 1771

8°, cobtemporary paperboards

good copy

GIOVANNI BATTISTA ALBRIZZI
Forestiero Illuminato Intorno Alle Cose Della Citta' Di Venezia, Venezia, Presso Giovambattista Albrizzi, 1772

8°.


Contemporary hard vellum. Complete with 72 engraved plates, some of them on double-page. Very good copy, with slight water stains on the upper parts of some pages.