Books

Augsburg: typis Davidis Franci, 1611. FIRST EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in contemporary vellum, manuscript title to spine (slightly worn, lightly soiled, small loss to spine). A very good copy with intermittent foxing and a small stain to the upper margin. A slim worm-trail has been discreetly filled in the upper blank margin of the opening leaves. 17th c. owner’s inscription to title-page. Complete with the errata leaf and the leaf added after p. 26 referring to ‘propositio’ LXIV. First edition of the foundation work that “changed the course of optics”(DSB), containing both the first accurate theory of lenses and the formation of images by the eye. The book is a direct result of the recently published “Sidereus Nuncius” (1610), in which Galileo announced his observations made with the telescope, among them that the Moon, thought to be smooth, was in fact mountainous and craggy; and that Jupiter had moons of its own. “In order that the enormous possibilities…