blackwell rare books
Item 28
28.
The introduction of logarithms into Italy Cavalieri (Bonaventura) Trigonometria Plane, et Sphaerica, Linearis et Logarithmica. Bologna, Vittorio Benacci, 1643, FIRST EDITION , with an engraved frontispiece and one engraved plate (attached to fore-edge of last leaf and folding), first gathering of text a little browned, a little bit of spotting here and there, pp. 16, 71, [104, tables], 4to, contemporary vellum, very good (Riccardi II, 328, No. 9; Cinti 111) £2,400 A fundamental work of trigonometry and without doubt the best text on the subject published in Italy during this period. The work is also a Galileianum, thoroughly described in Cinti. Cavalieri was among the first mathematicians to understand the practical applications logarithms held for astronomers and was the first Italian to do so. In addition to chapters on the basics of plane and spherical trigonometry, this work contains one hundred pages of logarithmic tables which were widely used throughout the seventeenth century, most notably by Cassini. Cavalieri’s theory of indivisibles was his most outstanding contribution to mathematics. In the preface to the present work, he replies to attacks by Paul Guldin in the third volume of his Centrobaryca and explains how his method differs from that of Kepler.
29.
16
Celsus (Aulus Cornelius) De re medica. Libri octo. Ex recensione Leon. Targae ... editio secunda, accuratissime emendata, opera et studio Georgii Frederici Collier. Simpkin and Marshall, 1831, four leaves of plates (one folding), folding plate lightly offset to title, a few marginal pencil annotations, pp. xl, 342, [2], 8vo, contemporary