Jo. Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis Perspectiva communis.

PECKHAM, John

Venice, Giovanni Battista Sessa Sessa, 1504. *** Premiere edition donnee par Luca Gaurico, avec ses commentaires et un epitre dedicatoire date de Padoue, Mars 1504. Elle est illustree par un beau bois grave sur le titre et 77 gravures, la plupart dans les marges. Probablement ecrit entre 1277 et 1279, la Perspectiva communis a ete le texte sur l'optique le plus utilise du debut du XIVe jusqu'a la fin du XVIe siecle. Il reste aujourd'hui le meilleur resume de ce que la communaute scientifique connaissait sur le sujet. Leonard de Vinci fait reference dans ses carnets au livre de Peckham, qu'il a manifestement etudie. Marque de Sessa (un chat et une souris) sous la gravure du titre et au colophon. L'exemplaire a ete annote a la plume, en latin, a l'epoque, par un italien, qui a indique le prix d'achat du livre sur un feuillet de garde "Costo..." La premiere edition a ete imprimee a Milan vers 1482-83. Brunet suppl. 188 : "Ce volume, fort rare, n'est cite par aucun bibliographe et il en vaut la peine. Les figures sont remarquables." *** In-folio de 20 ff. Veau brun, decor estampes sur les plats. (Reliure du XXe.) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - First edition edited by Luca Gaurico, with his commentaries and a dedicatory epistle dated from Padua, March 1504. It is illustrated by a large woodcut on title and 77 woodcuts, most in margins. This copy was contemporary annotated in Latin by an Italian, who indicated the purchase price of the book on end paper : "Costo ...." Leonardo da Vinci makes reference in his notebooks to Peckham's book, which he obviously studied. The first edition was printed at Milan around 1482-83. "The work on which Pecham's fame has chiefly rested is the Perspectiva communis, probably written between 1277 and 1279 during Pecham's professorship at the papal curia. In the first book Pecham discussed the propagation of light and color, the anatomy and physiology of the eye, the act of visual perception, physical requirements for vision, the psychology of vision, and the errors of direct vision. In book II he discussed vision by reflected rays and presented a careful and sophisticated analysis of image formation by reflection. Book III was devoted to the phenomena of refraction, the rainbow, and the Milky Way... It was used and cited by many medieval and Renaissance natural philosophers, including Dominicus de Clavasio, Henry of Langenstein, Blasius of Parma, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Brudzewski, Francesco Maurolico, Giambattista della Porta, Girolamo Fabrici, Johannes Kepler, Willebrord Snellius, and G.B. Riccioli. ... The Perspectiva communis was the most widely used of all optical texts from the early fourteenth until the close of the sixteenth century, and it remains today the best index of what was known to the scientific community in general on the subject." D.S.B. 11, 475. Printer mark of Sessa (a cat and a mouse) under the title's woodcut and on colophon. Vagnetti Db8. Essling, Les livres a figures venitiens 2, 1427. Mortimer, Harvard Catalogue 367. - -. Item #17022

Price: 15,000.00 €