PICCOLOMINI, Alessandro (1508-1578)

In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis paraphrasis paulo quidem plenior . Euisdem commentarium de certitudine mathematicarum disciplinarum: in quo, de resolutione, diffinitione, & demonstratione: necnon de materia, et in fine logicae facultatis, quamplura continentur ad rem ipsam, tum mathematicum, tum logicam, maximè pertinenta

Venice: apud Traianum Curtium, 1565.
8vo: A--N8 O4, ff. 108. Italic letter with Roman headings,large woodcut printers device on title, woodcut initials and numerous woodcut illustrations and diagrams in the text. Leaf size and condition: 150 x 99mm. Waterstained in a few gatherings but a fine fresh copy. Binding: Contemporary limp vellum, remains of ties. Provenance and annotation: No marks of provenance. References: CNCE 31566; Adams P1115.
Second edition (first Rome 1547). An Italian translation was published in 1582.
§ An important renaissance mechanics text, in the form of a paraphrase and commentary on Aristotle's 'Problems in mechanics', the complete text of which is included - it was the only separate edition available at the time. Piccolomini was dissatisfied with Leoniceno's translation and examined all the Greek manuscripts he could find in the libraries of Venice, Padua, Bologna and Florence. In the end he decided that rather than preparing a new text, it would be more use to write a paraphrase, incorporating the complete text as it stood, and provide a commentary. He later told Biringuccio, who translated the work into Italian, that he wished he had written it in the vernacular as it would be useful to engineers and builders. Piccolomini's work includes an important discussion of the conflicting theories of antiperistasis and impetus with regard to the problems of projectile motion and acceleration in free fall. Drake and Drabkin call this the most interesting section, saying that it shows that even an orthodox Aristotelian was aware, by mid-century, of the difficulties in this matter. The work also contains Piccolomini's essay on the philosophy of science. Literature: Drake and Drabkin Mechanics in sixteenth-century Italy, 51; Stillwell 786.

• GBP 1,000.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: 19008

• Antiquariat: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)