Descripción
First edition, rare, of the first history of mathematics written by a European. Probably completed in 1596, the 'Cronica' arranges its brief biographical entries as a genealogical account of the restoration of mathematics from Ancient Greece (beginning with Euphorbus) to contemporary Italy (ending with Guidobaldo del Monte), including an impressive list of Arabic practitioners. It was an attempt to do for mathematics what Vasari had done for art. A polymath of remarkable range who left a large corpus of writings, Baldi (1553-1617) was a serious mathematician and translator of mathematical works (including Hero of Alexandria); he was a friend of Guidobaldo and fellow-disciple of Federico Commandino. His 'In mechanica Aristotelis problemata exercitationes' built on Guidobaldo's mechanics and constituted another attempt to demonstrate the harmony between Archimedean and Aristotelian approaches to mechanics and thus the integrity of the ancient tradition. The 'Cronica' includes Baldi's assessment of Copernicus. "This mathematician, immersed in the Archimedean purism of Commandino's school and imbued of Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation culture, celebrated 'De revolutionibus' as a great Ptolemaic achievement and a very noble book, but at the same time he rejected the paradoxical assumption that the Earth could be moved" (Omodeo, Copernicus in the Cultural Debates of the Renaissance, p. 122). The printer's motive for publishing the 'Cronica' in 1707 was to prepare an audience for the more detailed - if less inclusive - two volume 'Vite' [Lives] which never followed. Rediscovered only in 1972, the voluminous 'Lives' has meant that the less detailed 'Cronica' has received little attention. But as the printer Monticelli points out, rather than being merely an abridgment of the larger project, the 'Cronica', with 366 biographical entries, is over half again as large as the 'Vite' and represents a different but related project for the construction of a history of mathematics. Giovanni Maria Crescimbeni (1663-1728) described the genesis of the 'Cronica' in his biographical notice on Baldi, written about 1704, just before its publication: "After finishing the 'Vite' he noted that even before Thales there were mathematicians, whose lives could not be written due to the loss of sources, but whose names survived and were worth recalling. Moreover, he thought that the vastness of the 'Vite' he had written might make reading the work a little unwieldly and cumbersome, and lastly that after Clavius others had lived who were worth mentioning, so after a while he was persuaded to make a succinct chronology of these same Professors, starting with Euphorbus instead of Thales, and ending with Guidobaldo de' Marchesi del Monte . . . He certainly intended such a useful and beautiful work for the press, as we see both volumes [of the 'Vite'] along with the 'Cronica' carefully transcribed in his own hand, but, whether distracted by something else, or prevented by death, he left them unprinted." RBH lists 3 copies in the last 30 years (one, the Macclesfield copy, apparently lacking the half-title). Riccardi I, 68. 4to, pp. [xvi, including half-title], 156, engraved title vignette with view of Urbino. Contemporary vellum with black lettering-piece on spine (recased with new endpapers, spine ends and top edge of front cover worn). Provenance: Signature of the mathematician Walter Bowman (1699-1782) on verso of half-title. A fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and later the Royal Society, Bowman travelled extensively over the course of five decades in Italy, where this book was probably acquired. Bowman's will writes that "in a long course of years both at home and abroad I have at a considerable expense and trouble collected an useful though small Library of Books in good condition with my Name on each in my own handwriting" (National Archives PROB11/1088/285). The Andrade copy of Newton's 'Method of Fluxions' (1736) was Bowman's. N° de ref. del artículo ABE-1586533635141
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