FINE, Oronce (1495-1555)

Quadratura circuli , tandem inventa & clarissimè demonstrata. De circuli mensura, & ratione circu[m]ferentiae ad diametrum, demonstrationes duae. De multangularu[m] omniu[m] & regulariu[m] figuraru[m] descriptine, liber hactenus desideratus. De invenienda longitudinis locorum differe[n]tia, aliter quàm per lunares eclipses, etiam dato quovis tempore, liber admodum singularis. Planisphaerium geographicum, quo tum longitudinis atq[ue] latitudinis differe[n]tiae, tum directae locorum deprehenduntur elongationes

Paris: apud Simonem Colinaeum, 1544.
Folio: [vine leaf]6 A--B6 C--E8 F--H6, 60 leaves. Roman letter, title within a strapwork woodcut border; headpiece and 10-line initial 'D' incorporating Finé's name 'ORONTIVS' on [vine leaf]2r; tailpiece on [vine leaf]2v; 9-line initials and headpieces on A1r, C1r, D1r, F1r and G4v; also a series of 6-line initials and a series of 3-line initials; and 42 woodcut illustrations. Leaf size and condition: 296 x 212mm. Wormhole in title with slight loss in the woodcut border, light foxing and browning, mostly confined to the margins; a clean and fresh copy. Binding: Contemporary limp vellum, manuscript lettering on spine and lower edge. Some light wear, wormholes to lower cover, ties lacking. Provenance and annotation: Old circular library stamp in blank margin of title erased; bookseller's ticket of Malvasia, Milan. References: Mortimer 229; Adams F479; Norman 795; Renouard Colines pp. 393--395; Morison, Four centuries of fine printing, figs 109--114.
First edition.
§ A collection of treatises on circle squaring and scientific instruments. This is a fine copy of one of the monuments of French sixteenth-century typography. It comes late in the output of Simon de Colines (d. 1546), 'one of the key figures in the transformation of the printed book ... His books show a refreshing awareness of type and related typographic decoration and an overall artfulness in book design' (Joseph Blumenthal, Art of the printed book (1973) p. 15). Oronce Finé himself designed the illustrations and some of the decorations and initials, while other initials are probably by Geoffroy Tory (1480--1533). Woodcuts. The criblé title-border of strapwork ornament is similar in style to that designed by Finé for Colines first used on the Arithmetica of Martinez Siliceo in 1526. The block for this 1544 border passed to Michel de Vascosan and occurs on his Le Féron of 1555. The ornamentation includes an initial D containing the Dauphiné arms encircled by Finé's name, 'Orontivs', first used in his 1536 edition of Euclid. There are also: a criblé dolphin headpiece possibly also by Finé; the Colines criblé initials attributed to Geoffroy Tory; and a second head and tailpiece in another style. There are 42 woodcut illustrations, mostly diagrams decorated with florets, but including 8 large cuts of instruments. The florets, the birds in the cut on F6v and the sleeping dog on H2r are all characteristic of Finé's illustrations for his own books (Mortimer). >>Although he made few original contributions to science, Finé's numerous scientific works helped to popularize the traditional mathematics and Ptolemaic astronomy taught in the universities of his day. In the first two of the five treatises in this collection Finé attempted to find a more precise value of [pi]; the remaining three deal with the geometry of various polygons, the determination of longitude from lunar data, and the geography of the planisphere. >>Norman Library Catalogue 795. Literature: A. F. Johnson, 'Oronce Fine as an illustrator of books', Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (1928) 107--109.

• GBP 7,500.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: 15074

• librero: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)