Lot 447
Bacon, Roger
Rare Books, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: Rare Books, Manuscripts & Photographss | 10 May 2007
Description
Speculum mathematica: in qua de specieum multiplicatione, earundemque in inferioribus virtute agitur. Liber omnium scientiarum studiosis apprime utilis, editus opera & studio Iohannis Combachii … Frankfurt: Wolffgang Richter for Antonius Hummius, 1614. First edition, woodcut diagrams in the text, contemporary sheep, rebacked, edges rubbed, loss of imprint from the titlepage, two early ownership inscriptions on the titlepage, paper discoloured throughout and with some marginal water stains, early MS notes at the end
Footnote
Note: Poggendorff I 468, BM, STC 17th Century German Books B52
First edition of one of the most important scientific works by the mediaeval natural philosopher and mathematician Roger Bacon (ca. 1220-ca. 1292). It forms a part of his Opus maius, the great encyclopaedia and organon of the 13th century, and at the time was the only part of it to be published. "Part IV contains an elaborate treatise on mathematics, the "alphabet of philosophy", maintaining that all the sciences rest ultimately on mathematics, and progress only when their facts can be subsumed under mathematical principles. This fruitful thought he illustrates by showing how geometry is applied to the action of natural bodies, and demonstrating by geometrical figures certain laws of physical forces." (Enc. Brit.) The German editor, Johann Combach (1585-1651), was professor at the University of Marbach..