Milestones of Science Books

GUERICKE, Otto von.

Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio Primùm à R.P. Gaspare Schotto ... nunc verò ab ipso Auctore Perfectiùs edita, variisque aliis Experimentis aucta. Quibus accesserunt simul certa quaedam De Aeris Pondere circa Terram; de Virtutibus Mundanis, & Systemate Mundi Planetario; sicut & de Stellis Fixis, ac Spatio illo Immenso, quod tàm intra quam extra eas funditur.

Amsterdam: Johannes Jansson a Waesberge, 1672.

1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. Item #004083

Folio (310 x 197 mm). [16], 244, [6] pp., including engraved title, letterpress title, engraved portrait of the author, woodcut initials, two double-page engraved plates, and 21 engraved text illustrations (many full-page, pl. XVIII repeated, as is correct), final leaf of errata. Bound in contemporary (unrestored) Dutch vellum, hand-lettered spine, original blank endpapers (vellum spotted and soiled, paste-downs loose and torn). Internally clean throughout with just some very light damp-staining to margin of portrait, a few short marginal tears and small paper flaws away from text area (one a few mm into plate at upper left corner of p.94); fore-margin of the portrait a trifle frayed and trimmed close but not touching print. Provenance: letterpress title with previous owner's initials P. T. W. (i.e., Peder Topp Wandell, or Wandal) dated 1754; and with old stamp from Odense Katedralskole in Denmark; a few annotations in contemporary hand; Christie's London sale, Dec. 15, 2021, lot 151. A fine, unsophisticated copy, and complete with the often-missing portrait of the author. ----

FIRST EDITION of one of the great classics of science. "A book of prime importance in electrical discovery, air-pressure and the vacuum pump" (Dibner). Guericke proved the existence of a vacuum through his famous experiment in which he demonstrated how two teams of eight horses each could not separate a pair of bronze hemispheres from which he had evacuated the air. To create the vacuum, Guericke invented a pump whose operation is clearly explained in the various engravings accompanying the text; it became fundamental to the study of the physical properties of gases. Guericke also demonstrated electrical attraction and repulsion, and built the first generator. The work also contains chapters devoted to the planets and a comparison between the thinking of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe (book one), the characteristics of the Earth (book four), the moon and comets (book five), the planetary system (book six), and fixed stars (book seven).
Bibliography & References: Dibner, Heralds of Science, 55 (pp. 30 & 67); Dibner, Founding Fathers of Electrical Science, pp. 13-14; DSB V.574-76; Evans, Exhibition of First Editions of Epochal Achievements in the History of Science (1934), 30; Horblit 44; Norman 952; Parkinson, Breakthroughs, pp. 112-3; Sparrow, Milestones of Science, p. 16; Wheeler Gift 170. - Visit our website to see more images!

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