Polymathy
FINÉ, Oronce.
Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da Cosimo Bartoli … et gli specchi, tradotti dal cavalier Ercole Bottrigaro … nuovamente poste in luce. Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587.
4to, ff. [8], 81, [1, blank], 84, 126, 88, 18, [2]; woodcut printer’s device to title, woodcut initials and numerous woodcut diagrams and illustrations in text, letterpress tables (of which many folding), several errors in foliation; occasional light foxing, aaa and aaa2 browned, one single small wormhole to blank outer margin of first few leaves, old repair to outer margin of *6, *8, and A2; nevertheless a very good copy in eighteenth-century Italian vellum over boards, spine lettered directly in gilt; lower board a little soiled.
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Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da Cosimo Bartoli … et gli specchi, tradotti dal cavalier Ercole Bottrigaro … nuovamente poste in luce.
First edition in Italian of the works of Oronce Finé, including the translations of his Protomathesis (1532) on arithmetic, geometry, cosmography, and sundials, and De speculo ustorio (1551) on burning mirrors, the only time all five texts appear together in any vernacular language.
Among the most influential scientific scholars of the sixteenth century, in over three decades at the Collège Royale Oronce Finé (1494–1555) made considerable contributions to various branches of mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic to astronomy and geography, including cartography.
The woodcuts here are copied from those designed by Finé himself for his Protomathesis and continued to be used until 1670: ‘his work as a designer is closely related to his major fields of mathematics, astronomy, and geography, and his contribution to book production is particularly interesting in extending beyond the illustration to the ornamentation of scientific texts’ (Mortimer).
EDIT16 19063; USTC 829603; Adams F459; Mortimer 187.