Milestones of Science Books

BORELLI, Giovanni Alfonso.

Elementa conica Apollonii Paergei et Archimedis opera nova & breviori methodo demonstrata.

Rome: apud Mascardum, 1679.

2nd Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002016

12mo (141x75 mm). [12], 283 [5] pp., including separate half title to Archimedes' Opera, final blank and 8 folding engraved plates at end. Contemporary limp vellum, a few leaves a little browned. Provenance: Bibliotheca Podolin (ink inscription to title). Good copy of a rare work printed on strong paper. ----

Bibliotheca Mechanica, p.42; Riccardi I, 44; Smith, History of Mathematics, I, 368; DSB II, p.308-9 (Florence ed.). - The Rome edition of Borelli's treatise on conic sections, published in the year of his death. "His edition of book V, VI, and VII of Apollonius' conic sections first appeared in Florence in 1661. In 1672 Borelli was forced to fly Messina with a price on his head as the result of political upheavals there; his redaction of Maurolico's edition of Archimedes, in press at that time, was confiscated by the hostile regime. Borelli was also responsible for an edition of Euclid, Euclides restitutus, Pisa, 1658. (Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca Mechanica, p.42).

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