Five Uncommon Works by Angeli
Considerationi sopra la Forza di alcune Ragioni Fisicomattematiche, addote dal M.R.P. Gio. Battista Riccioli…nel suo Almagesto Nuovo & Astronomia Riformata contro il Sistema Copernicano. Espresse in Due Dialoghi…
Woodcut diagrams in the text. 4 p.l. (final leaf a blank), 134 pp. Small 4to, cont. vellum over boards. Venice: B. Bruni, 1667.
[bound with]:
—. Seconde Considerationi sopra la Forza dell’Argomento Fisicomattematico…contra il Moto Diurno della Terra… Woodcut diagrams in the text. 4 p.l., 111 pp. Small 4to. Padua: M. Bolzetta de Cadorini, 1668.
[bound with]:
—. Terze considerationi sopra Una Lettera del…Gio: Alfonso Borelli…scritta da Questi in replica di alcune Dottrine incidentemente tocche… Woodcut diagrams in the text. 4 p.l., 46 pp. Small 4to. Venice: Heirs of Leni, 1668.
[bound with]:
—. Quarte Considerationi sopra la Confermatione d’Una sentenza del Sig. Gio. Alfonso Borelli…prodotta da Diego Zerilli contro le Terze Considerationi. Woodcut diagrams in the text. 4 p.l., 87 pp. Small 4to. Padua: M. Cadorin detto Bozetta, 1669.
[bound with]:
—. Della Gravità dell’ Aria e Fluidi, esercitata Principalmente nelli loro homogenei. Dialogi Primo, e Secondo Fisico-Matematici. Woodcut diagrams in the text. 2 p.l., 79 pp. Small 4to (a few leaves browned). Padua: M. Cadorin, 1671.
An attractive collection of five of Angeli’s scientific writings, all first editions, and including his most important writings on fluids. Angeli (1623-97), studied mathematics under Cavalieri at Bologna and edited his teacher’s Exercitationes Geometricae Sex (1647). In 1663, Angeli was offered the prestigious professorship of mathematics at the University of Padua, a post that had been held by Galileo, and which Angeli filled until his death.
I-IV. These four works, a complete set, written in the style “of dialogues that reflect Galileo’s style, form a lively but cautious polemic on the problems of the Ptolemaic and Copernican cosmological systems. G.B. Riccioli, in his Almagestum novum, had formulated some arguments against the Copernican system. Angeli asserted that ‘the earth is motionless, but Riccioli’s reasons do not prove the point,’ and he devoted the first of these studies (1667) to demonstrating that Riccioli’s anti-Copernican arguments were without foundation. Angeli replied to Riccioli’s arguments with another work in 1668. G.A. Borelli, who later participated in the polemic, rejected Riccioli’s arguments, and pointed out that if Angeli’s views were correct, falling bodies should follow a vertical trajectory in the hypothesis of the earth’s motion as well.”–D.S.B., I, pp. 164-65.
V. Angeli’s Della gravità dell’aria e fluidi “is largely experimental in character. In it he examines the fluid statics, based on Archimedes’s principle and on Torricelli’s experiments. It also contains theories of capillary attraction.”–ibid., p. 165. In Angeli’s works on physics, there are many references to Galileo’s mechanics, as well as his acceptance of the experimental method.
Fine copies. Bookplate of Cassamini-Mussi.
❧ Carli & Favaro 301, 309, 310, 321, & 331. Riccardi, I, 11-15. I. Maffioli, Out of Galileo. The Science of Waters 1628-1718, pp. 102, 103-04, & 115n.
Price: $12,500.00
Item ID: 5556
