Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell’Accademia del Cimento sotto la protezione del Serenissimo Principe Leopoldo di Toscana e descritte dal segretario di essa accademia
“THE BEGINNING OF MODERN PHYSICS”
UNSOPHISTICATED IN WRAPS
Florence: Giuseppe Cocchini, 1666 [but 1667]. First edition, first issue.
Folio (14 3/16” x 10”, 361mm x 2563mm): π-2π2 ✠4 A-Ll4 *6 χ2 (χ2 blank) [$2 signed; –A2, C1, C2, D2, E2, F1, F2, G1, G2, H1, H2, I2, K1, K2, L1, L2, N2, O1, O2, V2, Aa1, Aa2, Bb1, Bb2, Cc1, Cc2, Dd1, Dd2, Ee2, Kk1; +*3]. 152 leaves, pp. [16] (half-title, blank, title in red and black, blank, 4pp. dedication, 7pp. preface, blank) I-CCLXIX [19] (blank, errata, blank, 2pp. contents, 10pp. index, imprimatur, register, 2pp. blank). [=xvi, 269, xix] With an engraved portrait of Ferdinand II Grand Duke of Tuscany by François Spierre after Justus Sustermans and 75 engravings integral with the text.[1]
Bound in contemporary stabbed stiff wrappers. On the spine, title in ink manuscript (“Esperien/ze / del/ Cimento”). All edges of the text-block un-trimmed.
A little soiled, with some bumps and rubbing. Remarkably fresh and unsophisticated, with the odd spot of foxing or mild tanning. Ink manuscript attribution to the title-page in an XVIIIc hand: “L’autore è Magalotti Lorenzo Conte.”
To an English-speaker, the title of the work contains enough false cognates to merit rendering in full: “Essays of empirical experiments made in the Academy of Trial under the protection of his excellecy Prince Leopold of Tuscany, and described by the secretary of that academy.” In that sentence, four words — “saggi,” “naturali esperienze” and “cimento” — all refer more or less directly to what makes the Accademia del Cimento so celebrated: its absolute commitment to empirical data derived from repeated and repeatable experiments. For this rigor, the short-lived body (ca. 1657–1667, with the present work being its sole publication) is preeminent — surpassing even the Accademia dei Lincei, whose most famous member, Galileo Galilei, was the teacher of several members of the Cimento — in the history of science.
The Accademia del Cimento (“trial”) flourished under the patronage of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II de’ Medici and his brother Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici. Unlike the Lincei, which had formal rules and a vast membership, the Cimento had no written charter and just ten members, including Giovanni Borelli, Francesco Redi and Vincenzo Viviani (Galileo’s great pupil). In the decade following their establishment, they designed apparatus and repeatedly carried out experiments in strict conditions in order to determine what might now be considered the fundaments of physics (Leonard Bruno in his Tradition of Science writes “many regard this collaborative work as the beginning of modern physics;” “natura” is the rough Latin equivalent of Greek “physica”): the development of the barometer, the development of the thermometer, measuring the volume of containers, compression of water (i.e., hydraulics), static electricity from amber, the diffraction of light in fluids and the measurement of the speed of sound. Whereas some of these essential investigations might be attributed to Boyle or Galileo, the Cimento eschewed the philosophical musings of those great minds in favor of what could be observed and repeated.
Dedication to that very modern standard of scientific objectivity cause the present work to be delayed in press by nearly five years (the essential account of the Cimento and the publication of the Saggi remains Middleton’s 1971 Experimenters). Indeed, most of the experiments had been designed and carried out by 1662, but the members of the Cimento — filtered through the seemingly endless toil of their secretary, the young Count Lorenzo Magalloti (1637–1712) — were determined to demonstrate for their patron and to have confidence in their results through controlled repetition. Wary also of the church’s response to Galileo, Magalotti was charged with submitting the work to the censors in Florence and in Rome in order to obtain their imprimatur.
Particularly thrilling is the detailed illustration of scientific apparatus — depicted even in the initials and head- and tail-pieces — which of course had to be designed and manufactured by the experimenters. The 30 images (of which 19 are repeated for a total of 64 plates) are remarkable for their total lack of ornament or decoration; Magalotti’s letters show a violent opposition to the baroque curlicues and mythological supports so common to the era and in the aristocratic milieu to which the publication belongs. Instead, Modiana (after drawings probably by Stefano della Bella) is urged to show the apparatus itself clearly, with a focus on mechanisms and the actions of the experiments.
The work was not circulated until October 1667, but a small number, as the present volume has, bear the optimistic publication date of 1666. Most of the examples — Middleton records that 800 copies were ordered, but that many were spoiled in press — were distributed gratis to cognoscenti and aristocrats throughout Europe (and often bound splendidly; the survival of the present volume in its dun card wraps is remarkable). Its effect was enormous, and stood as an example to the Enlightenment, and the forerunner of the modern research laboratory.
Middleton, The Experimenters 1; Dibner 82; Riccardi II.407; Norman 485.
[1] The following pages’ engravings are made from a single plate: (III, VI, VIII, XIII); (XVII, XIX, XXI); (XXVII, XXIX); (XXXV, -VII, -IX, -XI); (XXXXIII, -V, -VII, -IX); (LI, -III, -V, -VII); (LXI, LXIII); (LXIX, LXXI); (LXXIII, -V); (LXXXI, -III); (LXXXV, -VII, -X); (CI, -III, -V, -VII, -IX, CXX, -II, -IV); (CXXXVIII, CXXXX); (CXXXXVIII, CXXXXXI, CLV); (CLXXX, -III, -V, -VII); (CLXXXIX, CLXXXXI, -III); (CLXXXXXIX, CCI, -III, -V); (CCIX, -XI, --XIII, -XV); (CCXIX, -XXI, -XXIII, -LVII). 11 plates are printed once, and these 19 a total of 64 times.
Item #JLR0842
Price: $14,800