Fundamental work in the history of scientific thought and precursor of modern atomic theory

BOSCOVICH, Roger Joseph.

Theoria philosophiae naturalis redacta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium. Editio Veneta prima ipso auctore praesente, et corrigente.

Venice: Remondini, 1763.

3rd Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Item #001669

4to (261 x 203 mm). xl, 311, [4] pp.; title printed in red and black and with engraved vignette, 4 folding copper plates. 3 bookplates on inner front cover. The 4 leaves (Rr) at end with the "Catalogus operum P. Rogerii Josephi Boscovich", errata on leave Rr4 verso, quire Qq misbound. Large paper copy, internally quite fresh and clean. Contemporary vellum, title in gilt on spine. Some foxing, head of spine a little worn. Provenance: bookplate Charles Atwood Kofoid (American Zoologist); George Wilbraham of Delamere House, Northwich Cheshire (bookplate); Verne Roberts, Bibliotheca Mechanica (bookplate) and Andreas Gedeon. (bookplate), Christie's sale 5442, April 23, 2008. ---

Riccardi I/1, 180; Honeyman Coll. 428; Roller-G. I, 146; de Backer-S. I, 1841; see PMM 203 and Norman 277 for 1st edition. - Third (first Venetian) edition of Boscovich's fundamental work in the history of scientific thought, a precursor of modern atomic theory by the eminent Dalmatian Jesuit mathematician and polymath. "Boskovich's theory influenced the position of nineteenth-century field physics with regard to the relations between space and matter; it was employed by Faraday and Kelvin, and J. J. Thomson used its curve of forces to introduce the earliest concepts of atomic physics" (Norman). The bookplate of Charles Atwood Kofoid (1865-1947) is interesting; there are planktonic organisms about to be hauled into the plankton net being towed by the research vessel. Kofoid was born in Illinois in 1865, did his undergraduate work at Oberlin College, and received his PhD in Zoology from Harvard in 1894. He was at the University of Michigan for a year, and for five and a half years, he was Superintendent of the Illinois Biological Station, where he wrote numerous articles and books, including the massive The Plankton of the Illinois River 1894-1899. He next went to the University of California at Berkeley where he was a leading member of the faculty for twenty-five years. Look at the upper left end of the bookplate; the campanile (bell tower) seen outside the window is the one on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Kofoid was one of the leading investigators in protozoology and limnology, and was the developer of what came to be known as the Kofoid Bucket, a device used in the collection of planktonic samples. The associates of Professor Kofoid are said to have been always impressed by the succession of arrivals of packages of books, which did not cease until his death in 1947. A few months before his death, he gave the University more than 40,000 volumes, including many rare works in the history of science and medicine.

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