Books

Leyden, Ian Maire, 1637. 4to [207 x 155 mm] of 78 pages, (1) l., 413 pp., (1) p. of notice and (18) ll., the last one blank. Full fawn calf, gilt fillet on the covers, spine ribbed, mottled edges, minor restorations. Elegant contemporary Parisian binding. "Precious first edition of Descartes' masterpiece." Tchemerzine, II, 776; PMM, 129; Horblit, One hundred book famous in science, 24; En Français dans le texte n°90; Dibner, Heralds, 81 ("The Dioptrique contains the earliest statement of Willebrord Snell's law of refraction"); Norman Library, 621. After Galileo's sentence in 1633, Descartes had made a resolution not to print any book during his lifetime. From Holland where his aspiration for loneliness and isolation had driven him, the philosopher still corresponds with his nearest and dearest. It is in the face of their entreaties that he gave in and published in 1637 an anthology of his researches to which he gave the meaning of a peculiar and personal process. After having…

A work published in 1637 by René Descartes, where he introduced the concept of analytical geometry, which is the study of geometry using algebra and the Cartesian coordinate system.