pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

Binding: Rather clumsily rebound with blind ruled calf sides,
presumably from the original binding, laid down.
Provenance: Edward Synge (1614–78, see below) with inscription on
title, ‘Edw: Synge Ep[isco]pus Corcagi[ensi]s’.
First edition. Another edition was printed at Paris in 1637. Wellcome
1236; Krivatsy 2088.
One of Campanella’s chief works, ‘Four Books of the Sense in
Things and Magic’, expounds his view that all nature is sentient.
On this basis he discusses natural divination, natural magic and
occult marvels. Campanella here ‘sharply criticizes Aristotle,
repeats views of Telesio, and further brings to mind Giordano
Bruno’s De rerum principiis and De magia of the previous
century’ (Thorndike). In discussing Campanella, Thorndike
devotes most of his attention to this work with an extended
analysis of its contents (Thorndike VII, pp. 291–301).
From 1599 to 1626 Campanella was imprisoned in Naples
on charges of hatching a revolt in Calabria and for heresy
and the book was edited by Tobias Adam. The splendid
engraved title border (unfortunately in rather poor state in
this copy) incorporating a bell, referring to Campanella’s
name (Latin Campana, bell) was used again by Tampach two
years later in Campanella’s Apologia pro Galileo (1622). ‘Like
Galileo, Campanella held that natural truth was not revealed
in Scripture, but in the physical world. Thus the study of
natural phenomena was seen as an important step toward
theological understanding... While Galileo was essentially
satisWed with an understanding of natural, physical reality,
Campanella endeavoured to go beyond this and to Wnd the
ultimate metaphysical truth of things’ (Charles B. Schmitt,
DSB 15:69b).
This copy has an interesting Irish provenance having
belonged first to Edward Synge (1614–1678) bishop of Cork,
Cloyne, and Ross, who was associated with the second Earl of
Cork, Robert Boyle’s brother. It is listed in the catalogue of the
library of Synge’s grandson, Edward Synge junior (1691–1762),
at Kevin Street, Dublin. He inherited the library from his father, archbishop
Edward Synge (1659–1741), who, appropriately enough, had an interest in
the science of perception. A few books from the Synge library were sold singly
in the 1930s, the remainder at auction in two sales in 1954, one conducted
by Town and Country Estates Ltd, Dublin, on 2 February, the other by
Christies in London.
Marie­Louise Legg (now Jennings), ‘Whose Books? The Synge library catalogue
of 1763’ in Muriel McCarthy and Ann Simmons, eds Marsh’s Library. A Mirror
on the World: Law Learning and Libraries 1650–1750 (Dublin 2008). I am grateful
to Marie­Louise Jennings for this reference to her article, and for checking the
1763 catalogue.