The greatest scientific and philosophical work of the Middle Ages

BACON, Roger.

Opus majus. Nunc vero diligenter recusum. Accedit prologus galeatus in reliqua opera ejusdem autoris.

Venice: Franciscum Pitteri, 1750.

2nd Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Item #001660

4to (278x191 mm), xl, 367 pp., 2 folding engravings and 1 folding table. Contemporary vellum with lettering piece to spine (spotting, corners bumped, inner hinge starting), some marginal spotting and browning to text. Good, unsophisticated copy. ----

Ebert 1484. Sotheran 5913. Ferchl 18. Wheeler Gift 280. Graesse I, 271: "Infiniment rare." Vgl. Poggendorff I, 85 (EA 1733), Dibner (EA 1733). - SECOND EDITION. "The greatest scientific and philosophical work of the Middle Ages ... He stated as the fundamental principle that the study of natural sciences must rest solely on experiment; and in the fourth part he explained in detail how astronomy and physical sciences rest ultimately on mathematics, and progress only when their fundamental principles are expressed in a mathematical form. Mathematics, he say, should be regarded as the alphabet of all philosophy" (Sotheran). Written in the 13th-century, this encyclopaedic work contains the results of Bacon's researches, and stands as one of the most important scientific and philosophical works of the Middle Ages. "Bacon wrote on optics, stating the laws of reflection and, in a general way, of refraction and the rainbow. He also described magnifiying glasses and a vacuum-globe balloon. He wrote on chemistry and advocated use of chemistry in medicine; he described gun-powder. He stressed the importance of experiment as the fundamental principle in the study of nature and the use of mathematics in explaining astronomy and physics" (Dibner).

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