Figuratio Aristotelici Physici auditus. Ad illustrem admodum atque reuerendum dominum D. Petrum Dalbenium Abbatem Belleuillae. Paris, Pierre Chevillot, 1586. [bound with:] Idem. Dialogi duo de Fabricii Mordentis Salernitani propè diuina adinuentione ad perfectam cosmimetriae praxim

Bruno, Giordano (1548-1600)

Verlag: Paris Pierre Chevillot 1586

Two works in one volume, 8° (163x101 mm). I. Collation: ã8, A-E8, F2, 2A-B8. [8], 14, [2] leaves. The copy is incomplete, and contains the preliminary quire ã8 (title-page, dedicatory epistle to Pietro Dalbene, Iordanus Brunus Nolanus de Quindecim imaginibus auditionis physicae figuratiuis, the woodcut on fol. ã6v, and the Divisio Universae Philosophiae), and 2A-2B8 (Iordani Bruni Nolani De Physico auditu Aristotelis liber quintus ad septimum e octauum illius, including 2B7 2B8 blanks). Lacking are quires A-E8, and F2, with the text of Iordani Brun. Nolani De physico auditu, Arist. propositum. De intentione, e ordine octo librorum Physicae auscultationis: item de eiusdem intentionis e ordinis ratione. Roman and italic type. Woodcut printer's device on the title-page. One half-page woodcut on black ground on the verso of fol. ã6. Woodcut headpieces and decorated initials. II. Collation: ã4, A-B8, C4. [4], 20 leaves. Roman and italic type. Woodcut printer's device on the title-page. Three half-page woodcuts on black ground on fols. B2r, B6r, and C4r, illustrating the compass. Woodcut headpieces and decorated initials, on seven lines the one on fol. ã2r. Contemporary vellum over pasteboards. Smooth spine, title inked vertically. A volume in good condition. Leaves of the first edition browned, and waterstained; title-page with old repairs (not affecting the text) and minor loss to the blank lower corner; the outer blank margin of fol. A2 damaged, without any loss. In the second bound edition pale waterstains, slight foxing. Some bibliographical notes on the verso of the front flyleaf, in different hands.Provenance: Jean Viardot (see Binoche et Giquello, Paris, Livres précieux – Bibliothèque Jean Viardot, 1 June 2016, lot 22). This exceptional, miscellaneous volume – presented in its contemporary binding – contains two of the scarcest works by the celebrated Italian philosopher, the Figuratio Aristotelici Physici auditus, and the Dialogi duo de Fabricii Mordentis Salernitani. No copy of the Figuratio has come up at auction since the early nineteenth century (see below), while the Dialogi duo has never appeared on the market before this copy. The Figuratio Aristotelici Physici auditus deals with Aristotle's physics and was likely published by Bruno at the beginning of 1586, during his second stay in Paris (for his first Parisian stay see no. 154). Only four copies of the Figuratio are recorded in the institutional libraries: those preserved in the National Library in Turin, the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC; the copies in Paris and in Turin are both imperfect. The copy of the Figuratio presented here contains on fol. ã6v the famous woodcut designed by Bruno himself. This illustration enlists a curious mnemonic iconography based on ten loci to depict – albeit in rough form – the geometrical schema of a human body. The design reveals the influence of the famed homo ad quadratum by Vitruvius, along with other contemporary pictorial models, an iconographic tradition originally re-interpreted by Bruno, transforming the different parts of the body into triangles, squares, and other geometrical shapes. The second work bound here is even rarer: in fact, the Dialogi duo de Fabricii Mordentis Salernitani prope diuina adinuentione is known by only two copies, one in the National Library in Turin and the other at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris – in both cases the work is bound, like the present miscellany, with a copy of the Figuratio Aristotelici Physici auditus. In the Dialogi duo, which appeared in Paris in April 1586, Bruno praises the proportional eight-pointed compass invented by Salerno mathematician Fabrizio Mordente (1532–ca. 1608), who had provided a detailed description of his invention in his Compasso con altri istromenti mathematici, published in Antwerp in 1584. Mordente's instrument is considered to be. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 0000000008260

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Figuratio Aristotelici Physici auditus. Ad ...
Verlag: Paris Pierre Chevillot 1586
Einband: Hardcover
Art des Buches: Book