Kircher, Athanasius

Itinerarium Exstaticum quo Mundi Opificium ...ad serenissimam Christinam ... Suecorum ...Reginam. Rome: Vitalis Mascardi, 1656



4to (8 5/8 x 6 ¼ in.; 220 x 158 mm). Title lightly soiled. Contemporary speckled calf, blind-ruled with floral blindstamps at four corners, red edges; rebacked with gold-stamped morocco title label.

Merrill 11; see H. Siebert, Die grosse kosmologische Kontroverse (2006), 20 ff.

First edition of Kircher's cosmological dialogue, his only published work in cosmology.

Dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden who, on coming to Rome in 1651, had shown an interest in Galileo's Dialogo (1632),  Kircher's own dialogue treated many of the same issues and with the same sympathy for them, though it concludes by supporting the Tychonic System, the system widely held by the Jesuits. The discussion is cast as a dream (a common literary trope for the discussion of sensitive topics) in which the protagonist Theodidactus, journeys through the heavens guided by the angel Cosmiel. There is a journey to the Moon which is found full of mountains and craters. He continues on to Venus and then to each of the other planets and to the region of the fixed stars. In his second dialogue, Kircher deals with the creation of the earth, its position in the universe, and its eventual destruction.

The work was, nevertheless, examined by the Jesuit censors in Germany as its position on matter (and other topics) apparently contradicted the Ordinatio pro studiis superioribus of 1651 which listed 65 proscribed theses. This required a new revised edition, published under the guidance of the author's friend and disciple Gaspar Schott (1660) who appended 27 pages of apologetics in defense of the author. "This controversial work was especially popular with Kircher's American readers and spawned several imitations in Brazil and New Spain" (P. Findlen, The Last Man who Knew Everything, 2004, p. 337).

The first edition is quite rare—OCLC records 43 copies of the second edition but no copies of the first; there are no copies in GBV or VD17.