La Dioptrique oculaire, ou la theorique, la positive, et la mechanique, de l'oculaire dioptrique en toutes ses especes. Par le Pere Cherubin d'Orleans, Capucin
THE ESSENTIAL XVIIc WORK OF OPTICS
Paris: Chez Thomas Jolly & Simon Benard, 1671. (Colophon: printed by Jean Cusson, 1670.) First edition.
Folio in 4s (13 9/16” x 9 1/8”, 345mm x 231mm): binder’s blank, π4(π1 blank) ẽ4 ĩ4 õ4 ũ4 ãã4 A-Fff4 Ggg2 Hhh-Kkk4 Lll4(–Lll4) [$3 signed]. 249 leaves, pp. [48] (2pp. blank, title, 4pp. dedication, 3pp. to the reader, 3pp. plan of the work, 2pp. approbations, 25pp. table of contents, privilege, to the binder, errata, 4pp. preface to the first part), 1-419, [31]. With 58 engraved plates: an engraved title-page, 1 folding plate and 5 double-page plates.
Bound in contemporary stabbed vellum. On the spine, author and title ink manuscript. Shelf-mark in ink manuscript at the tail. All edges of the text-block speckled red.
Patches of loss to the vellum at the front lower fore-corner, rear hinge and rear lower fore-corner. A little soiling generally, with bumped corners. A little foxing, with isolated passages of heavily tanned leaves, i.e., a consequence of paper-manufacture rather than of storage. Manuscript correction to the numeration of several plates. Armorial bookplate of (with “L/P/No”) to the front paste-down, with the bookseller’s ticket of the (Libreria A)ntiquaria (N. Ma)cchiavelli(?) in Milan covered by a green German postage stamp at the bottom edge. Collated complete against the list of plates in the notes to the binder (numbered to 60 but in fact 57; the position of the engraved title need not have been specified), and against the Cambridge UL and NY Academy of Medicine copies.
François (in some accounts, Michel) Lasséré (1613–1697) was Capuchin friar who published under the religious name (i.e., that adopted upon the consecration of his life to the order) Chérubin d’Orleans. The author was at the court of Louis XIV, who owned at least four of the instruments Chérubin made. Whereas Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 raised the wrath of the Church, Chérubin’s Dioptrique oculaire — exploring the theory and manufacture of telescopes and (binocular) microscopes; “dioptrics” is the refractive subfield of optics (mirrors being the preserve of “catoptrics”) — was welcomed. The heavens’ imperfection had become absorbed into orthodoxy, and Chérubin’s binocular telescopes (as well as microscopes) gave unprecedented views of heavenly bodies. La dioptrique became the standard work on optics generally, including on corrective vision (Chérubin invented opera glasses).
The armorial bookplate is probably continental; the division of the field with the dexter base corner argent (silver) against a field of azure (blue) is not British. The coronet is that of a lower nobleman. It is not clear that the letters (L, P, No) are the initials of the owner; likelier they indicate column, shelf and individual inventory number.
Duncan 2360; Krivatsy-NLM 2427; Poggendorff I.430; Wellcome II.335.
Item #JLR0501
Price: $8,000