Hero, Belopoeeca, Augsburg, 1616, calf, Rawlinson copy

HERO

Belopoeeca hoc est telifactiva [edited by Bernardino Baldi]. Augsburg: David Franck, 1616

4to (195 x 153mm.), woodcut initials and headpieces, woodcut illustrations, parallel text in Greek and Latin, near-contemporary English calf, upper joint cracking

FIRST EDITION. Baldi studied with Guidobaldo del Monte and Federico Commandino and produced editions of Hero's work on automata and Aratus's Phaenomena; this was his last publication. Belopoiika deals with artillery weapons and engines, and was designed for the lay reader rather than the specialist (another tract called Belopoiika, by Philo, on the construction of artillery engines, was for specialists).

LITERATURE:

VD17 23:255234L

PROVENANCE:

Thomas Rawlinson; Richard Rawlinson, presentation inscription on flyleaf to J. Cocke dated 1743; Thomas Francis Fremantle, armorial bookplate

Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755), a noted book collector, bought heavily at the sales of the library of his brother Thomas (1681-1725) in 1726-1727; this volume has "C&P" (for "collated and perfect") in red ink on the inside front cover of the book, which Thomas Rawlinson put in all his books.

A copy of this work was purchased from Pickering & Chatto, 14 November 1901, for 16s, which could be either the present volume or the next.