 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Soft cover, 12mo, in mottled-style card wraps, a hand- lettered paper label to the spine, (measuring 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches) 33 [1] [36] plus 2 engraved foldout plates, (the first described in terms of Austro, Occidente, Oriente and Borea time; probably referring to the trans-Alpine time meridian of the Hapsburgs.)With many tables. In Italian, First edition. CONTENTS: Dedication to the current French administator of the Parma, Piacenza, and Gustalla administrative district (then under French occupation,) Médéric Louis Élie Moreau-Saint-Méry. Discussion of the eclipse in Parma. About Table I, "Position and mode of the eclipse in the sky." About Table II, "Travel of the moon across the face of the sun." Discussions of historical eclipse of 1715. Tables showing the positions of the sun and moon by month. Planetary tables. CONDITION: Good antiquarian condition. Wraps a bit worn at the corners with two half inch chips missing from spine. The remnants of a collector's printed number glued to lower spine (repeated in pencil to top of title page). Small stain rear of wraps. Grease pencil notation to front cover, initials and mathematical notation in old ink and illegible pencil to inside front. One loss to corner of p. 9, not affecting text. Foldout plates with small split at outer fold. The text block edges, and pages within are clean. Binding cracked but holding firmly. AUTHOR Pietro D. Cossali (1748 - 1815) was an Italian cleric, mathematician, meteorologist and astronomer, and Professor of theoretical physics at the University of Parma beginning in 1787. He published a number of these "astological ephemera," as well as books on the history of algebra and the Fibanaci code. In 1778, his work turned to ballooning, and he experimented with its application to meteorlogical research. Cossalli became Professor of theoretical physics at the University of Parma in 1787, amidst a period of cultural flowering of the northern Italian city, despite successive political upheavals of the times. (The complex history of this northern Italian Duchy of Parma and Piacenza during Cossali's lifetime saw successive conquest by the Imperial Holy Roman Empire, the Bourbon alliance with the Kings of Spain and the Farnese family, and finally, annexation by the French under Napoleon.). Ugo Baldini's excellent article on Cossalli in the BDI demonstrates how skillful Cossali was in negotiating the changing political realities of the times in order to pursue his mathematical and scientific passions.
Ref: SCI 7509
$95.00