Information
Venetiis, Apud Ioannam Guerilium, 1622 - 1623. In 4°, three parts in one volume, each with its own title page and typographical mark, pp. (52)-410-(2) continuous numbering. Restoration of the third frontispiece. Slight foxing, slightly trimmed at the upper margin, some stains, browning, coeval binding in full parchment, defects, calligraphic title.
Specialist Notes
Very rare original edition of the first printed work representing the rings of Saturn. The subtitles of Liceti's work dated 1622 and the Dedication dated 1 July 1622 demonstrate that this is the first pictorial representation of Galileo's first observation of Saturn's rings. Poggendorff I, 1451; Riccardi I 38; Carli-Favaro 93 (p. 20). Fortunio Liceti, (Rapallo, 1575 - Padua, 1657) professor of philosophy and medicine in Bologna, was one of the most prolific Italian scientists of the 17th century. He was an opponent but also a respected friend of Galileo, with whom he had an intense exchange of letters. Of an eminently Aristotelian background, Liceti wrote with expertise on medicine, astronomy, natural sciences, archeology and literature. In his astronomical works, Liceti attempted to defend Aristotelian cosmology and geocentrism against the new ideas of heliocentrism proposed by Galileo and his followers. With the appearance of the famous comets of 1618 (which later gave rise to Galileo's work, “The Assayer”), Liceti published a series of works that supported the Aristotelian view that comets occurred in the sphere of the highest levels. These works included “De novis astris, et cometis” (1623), “Controversiae de cometarum quiete, loco boreali sine occasu, parallaxi Aristotelea, sede caelesti, et exacta theoria peripatetica” (1625), “Ad ingenuum lectorem scholium Camelo Bulla” ( published as an appendix to his 1627 work “De intellectu AGENT”), “De regulari motu minimaque parallaxi cometarum coelestium disputationes” (1640) and finally the “De Terra unico centro motus singularum caeli particolar disputationes” (1640). Liceti used these studies primarily to attack the views of G. C. Gloriosi (who had succeeded Galileo as president of the mathematics faculty at the University of Padua) and S. Chiaramonti, both of whom published aggressive counterattacks on Liceti's views.
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