Milestones of Science Books

VARIGNON, Pierre.

Nouvelle mecanique ou statique, dont le projet fut donne en M. DC. LXXXVII. Ouvrage posthume de M. Varignon, des Academies Royales des Sciences de France, d'Angleterre et de Prusse, lecteur du Roy en philosophie au College royal, et professeur des mathematiques au College Mazarin.

Paris: Claude Jombert, 1725.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002988

Two parts bound in two volumes. 4to (254 x 187 mm). [28], 387 [1]; [4], 478, [2] pp. 65 engraved folding plates (including additional plate 49bis), woodcut device on title-pages, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, without the engr. portrait of the author present in some copies Bound in contemporary French mottled calf, spines with 5 raised bands, compartments gilt-decorated and with gilt-lettered red and green spine labels, red-dyed edges, marbled endpapers (slight rubbing, minor repair to hinges, spine ends and corners). Text and plates generally crisp and clean with only little age-toning and very minor occasional spotting, light occasional dampstaining mainly to blank margins of text and plates (final two plates in vol. II affected stronger), gutter of first title page with tear and paper-reinforcement. Still very good copy. ----

Sotheran I 5041; Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca mechanica, p.338; Honeyman 3033; DSV XIII, p. 585. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with the dedicatory epistle to the Académie Royale, but without the (second issue's) frontispiece portrait. Our copy has the extra plate 49bis found only in some copies. The most important work by Pierre Varignon, professor of mathematics at the Collège Mazarin and Collège Royal, posthumously published since he had died in 1722. First announced in Varignon's Projet d'une nouvelle mechanique of 1687, but left unfinished at his death. While the text was prepared for publication by Fontenelle and Camus, the dedication and preface are those prepared by Varignon himself. The work contains in the second volume, p. 174, Bernoulli's famous letter to him, written in 1717, and formulating Bernoulli's principle of virtual velocities, which he had developed since the publication of the Projet. "In this matter Varignon deserves credit on two counts: for preparing the way for and eliciting Bernoulli's statement, and for attempting to provide the broadest justification of the principle.Thus the period between the Projet of 1687 and the Nouvelle mechanique witnessed the development of what appeared a century later to be the very foundation of classical mechanics" (DSB). - Visit our website for additional images and information.

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