CASTELLI (Benedetto)

Lot 125
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Estimation :
600 - 800 EUR
CASTELLI (Benedetto)
Della misura dell' acque correnti. Bologna, HH. Del Dozza, 1660, small in-4, vellum, smooth back with title in ink, blue slices (Binding of the time). Riccardi, t. I, col. 290-291. Third edition, the most complete of this important hydraulic treatise published in 1628 in Rome. Benoît Castelli (1577-1643), a Benedictine monk skilled in mathematics and physics, was Galileo's friend and disciple: ...] he was the one who told us that the thermometer had been discovered by his illustrious friend[Galileo]. He] is best known for his Treatise on the Measurement of Running Water, which is the first didactic work where hydraulics is exposed in a scientific way. In truth, Leonardo da Vinci had composed a work on hydraulics full of ingenious observations; but this treatise, which we do not possess in its entirety, was only discovered a few years ago, and it was unknown when Castelli published his book. ...] While Galileo created the dynamics, Castelli thus laid the foundations of hydraulics. Galileo paid him a brilliant tribute, calling this work a libretto aureo, a small golden book wrote the historian, academician and bibliophile Guillaume Libri (1803-1869) in a review for the Journal des savants of 1843 (p. 186). The edition is decorated with a copper-engraved frontispiece depicting the Milvius Bridge over the Tiber, with the arms of the Barberini family hanging above each of the arches. Wetting on the entire volume, freckles, lower angle of a restored introductory sheet. Small repair at the head of the frontispiece. First custody renewed.
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