pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

First edition. Riccardi I, i, col. 630; Albert, Norton and Huertes 919;
Sommervogel III, col. 1833; Becker Collection 162.3.
One of the classics of optics, reporting Grimaldi’s discovery of the diVraction
of light and in which he makes the Wrst scientiWc attempt to establish the wave
theory of light. Robert Hooke performed his Wrst diVraction experiments in
1672 after reading an account of Grimaldi’s book in the Philosophical transactions.
Newton Wrst learnt of diVraction from the work of Honoré Fabri,
but he acknowledged and discussed Grimaldi’s work in Book III part 1 of the
Opticks.
Grimaldi was professor of mathematics at the Jesuit college in Bologna.
This is his only work, edited by the Bolognese bookseller Girolamo Bernia.
Grimaldi built astronomical instruments for Riccioli and drew at least one of
the plates for his Almagestum novum (1651).
Most copies have two titlepages, one with a short title and the dedicatee’s
arms and with the statement ‘aliisque sequenti pagina indicatis’, the other with
the fuller title ‘aliisque adnexis libri duo, in quorum primo asseruntur nova
experimenta... in secunda autem dissolvuntur argumenta in prima adducta’.
Only the former is present in this copy. It seems that the long title was printed
on a1 and the short title, perhaps printed later, on a bifolium with a conjugate
blank. Here the short title simply replaces the long title, as was the case in
William Jones’ copy in the MacclesWeld Library.
73
GRuITHuISEN, Franz von Paula (1774–1852)
Analekten für erd­und himmelskunde. Herausgegeben vom Fr. v.
P. Gruithuisen [prelims only, with:] Fünftes – Siebentes Heft [and:]
Neue Analekten für erd­und himmelskunde... Ersten Bandes erstes
Heft. (Alter Reihe achtes Heft).
Munich: In der Joh. Palm’schen Buchhandlung, [last part:] In der E. A.
Fleischmann’schen Buchhandlung, 1830–1832.
8vo: Prelims to volume I: lithographed portrait and pp. 4; Fünftes Heft:
pp. [4] 88; Sechstes Heft: pp. [4] 96; Siebentes Heft: pp. [4] 108; Neue
Analekten... Ersten Bandes Erstes Heft: pp. [4] 72. The prelims to part 1
bound after the prelims to part 6.
195 x 115mm.
Binding: Contemporary marbled boards. Spine ends and corners worn.
First edition. OCLC: 46910961.
Prelims to volume I and parts 5–8 only of 15 of this short lived and very rare
astronomical journal edited by Baron von Gruithuisen.
Gruithuisen had studied and taught medicine before turning to astronomy.
He is known for his contributions to urology and methods for the removal
of bladder stones. His observations on the moon, which he believed was
inhabited, were published in 1824.
The titlepage to volume I, dated 1830, with a portrait and introduction is
here bound with part 6 with which it was presumably issued. The complete