Archimedes | Tetragonismus ..., Venice, 28 August 1503, first edition, including the first appearance in print of any work by Archimedes

[Archimedes]

Tetragonismus; idest circula quadrata per Campanum archimedem Syracusanum atque boetium ... adinventa. Venice: [Jacopo Pencio da Lecco, for] Giovanni Battista Sessa, 28 August 1503

First edition, including the first appearance in print of any work by Archimedes.

His treatises included in this short work, Quadratura paraboli and Quadratura circuli, are in the Latin translation of William of Moerbeke made in the thirteenth century. In the latter work he correctly approximated the value of pi as falling between 3.140845 and 3.142857. Gaurico, the editor, was teaching astrology at the University of Padua in 1503; he subsequently produced numerous works on prognostications and astrology. A full edition of Archimedes had to wait until the 1544 Basel edition containing both the original Greek and a Latin translation (see preceding lot). The tracts are accompanied by similar works by the thirteenth-century Campanus of Novara and by Boethius on the quadrature of the circle.

4to (216 x 146 mm). Large woodcut on title of Archimedes standing in the center of the world with Sessa's cat-and-mouse device beneath, another device at end, 48 woodcut diagrams in the text, numerous 2-, 5-, and 8-line woodcut initials, some cropped early modern marginalia; skillful restoration to title-page, marginal stains or soiling on a few leaves, waterstain on inner corner of A2–3. Nineteenth-century half vellum, leather lettering-piece; a bit soiled, dealer's notes pasted or laid in.

REFERENCES

BL/Isaac 12551; BL STC/Ital. 292 (2 copies); Cambridge/Adams C470 (Trinity only); Clagett "Archimedes in the Middle Ages: The 'De mensura circuli,'" Osiris 10 (1952) 587–618; Honeyman sale 1:130; Riccardi 1.i 40–41, no. 1 ("assai raro"), 220; Sander 1574; Stillwell Science 142, 170; USTC 818222; Edit16 CNCE 8810; cf. Printing and the Mind of Man 72 (on the 1544 Basel edition but also citing the present edition)

PROVENANCE

S. S. Dunham — Robert S. Dunham (bequest of his father, 1945, pencil acquisition note to front pastedown; Sotheby's New York, 11 December 1992, lot 634)