PECKHAM, John, GALLUCCI, Giovanni Paolo.

by John, GALLUCCI, Giovanni Paolo Peckham

£2,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

A good copy of the first edition of the first Italian translation of this fundamental optics manual a rare book (Riccardi I/1, 570), rarer according to Guglielmo Libri than the original work ( Catalogo , 1861, n.5656). Giovanni Paolo Gallucci (1538-c.1621) was a renowned mathematician and cosmographer, with interests in astrology; he was also a frequent translator of medical and scientific works, including I tre libri . This was a major optics manual written by the English Franciscan John Peckham (c.1230-92), student at Paris under St Bonaventure, and later professor at Oxford and archbishop of Canterbury. Inspired by the theories of Francis Bacon, whom he met either in Paris or Oxford, his Perspectiva communis (1279) was said to be so named as it was widely used. In the following centuries it was the most popular book on this subject as well as the text-book until as late as about 1600 , when Kepler published the first modern study of optics (ten Doesschate, Oxford , 334). Gallucci s vernacular translation made this fundamental yet concise work available to a broader audience. Perspectiva was an explanation of the Arab mathematician Alhazen s theories in 100 propositions, most followed by Gallucci s brief commentary and illustrated with diagrams. Alhazen explored refraction, double vision and the physical circumstances that give rise to visual perception; he was the first recorded scientist to mention refraction by curved surfaces (ten Doesschate, Oxford , 323). Gallucci s g

• Binding: Hardcover

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