FONTANA, Francesco.

Novae coelestium terrestriumque rerum observationes et fortasse hactenus non vulgatae.

1646. Engraved title, engraved portrait of the author, one folding engraved plate, 27 engravings of the Moon, & 26 woodcuts of planets. [3] leaves, 151 pp., [2] leaves of index. Small 4to, antique vellum, recased. Naples: Gaffaro, 1646.

First edition of a great and important treatise on astronomy and optics. Using his newly invented telescope, Fontana (ca. 1585-1656) made groundbreaking observations of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars, and published them one year before Hevelius’ Selenographia. The author’s portrait is the only confirmed portrait of Fontana that we are aware of.

The book features the earliest known detailed image of Mars, along with important accounts of the transit of Venus, Saturn’s rings, and Jupiter’s belts. Preceding Galileo, Fontana had invented a telescope containing two convex lenses in 1608. By 1629, he was producing continuous visual records of his observations of the Moon, in contrast to his contemporaries’ inconsistent documentation; eventually this program extended to observations and illustrations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, which are all depicted with woodcuts in the present book. Pp. 145-51 concern the microscope that Fontana devised in 1618, and claimed that it was the first.

A very nice copy of the author’s only book. Title and engraved portraits with four small wormholes.

❧ D.S.B. XIII, p. 437 (mentioned in the entry on Torricelli)

King, History of the Telescope, p. 46.