Milestones of Science Books

BACON, Francis.

Historia Naturalis & Experimentis de Ventis &c.

Leiden: Apud Franciscum Hackium, 1648.

3rd Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002725

12mo (124 x 73 mm). [16], 232, [16] pp., including engraved title and index at end. 19th century three-quarter polished calf over marbled boards, spine with 5 raised bands and gilt-lettered morocco label (little rubbing to extremities). Internally quite crisp and clean with only very little occasional spotting and faint dampstaining to few pages. Provenance: Nicholas Wall (small bookplate to rear pastedown). A handsome and fresh copy. ----

Gibson 110b, Willems 1277. - SECOND LEIDEN EDITION (third edition overall). According to Gibson the second of two known variants. Contains a.o. the following chapters: Historia Naturalis & Experimentalis de Ventis; Historia Naturalis, et Experimentalis de Forma Calidi; De Motus Sive Virtutis Activae variis Speciebus; Historia vitae et mortis. Bacon's natural history of winds and a treatise on the aging process and death, forming the first 2 books of the third part of his Instauratio magna, his projected systematization of scientific knowledge. "Important as collecting all the facts and theories then known on the subject, and especially as the first to point out the deflexion of winds caused by the earth's rotation" (Sotheran, for 1st English ed.). The first edition of 1622 published under the title Historia Naturalis et Experimentalis ad condendam Philosophiam is exceedingly rare with only two copies recorded at auction in 1946 (Sotheby's) and 2010 (Swann, incomplete). - Visit our website for additional images and information.

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