[Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems; Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences] Systema cosmicum [Dialogo]. In quo dialogis IV. de duobus maximis mundi systematibus. Ptolemaico & Copernicano, rationibus utrinque propositis indefinitiè ac solidè differitur. Accessit alterâ hâc editione praeter conciliationem locorum S. Scripturae cum terrae mobilitate, ejusdem Tractatus de motu, nunc primum ex italico sermone in latinum versus; [bound with ] Discursus et demonstrationes mathematicae circa duas novas scientias [Two New Sciences] pertinentes ad mechanicam et motum localem . . . Quibus accedit appendix De centro gravitatis quorundam solidorum by [Johannes Kepler] [Paolo Antonio Foscarini] GALILEI, Galileo (1564-1642) - 1699

Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: Apud Fredericum Haaring, et Davidem Severinum Bibliopolas [through 1700], 1699. Vellum. Very Good. First Leiden Edition of the Dialogo (Fourth Latin Edition, Fifth Edition overall) of Galileo's celebrated defense of the Copernican view of the solar system, bound with First Latin Edition (third overall) of the Two New Sciences. Two volumes in one. 4to: [16],494,[26]; [6],282(misprinted 826),[4], with copper-engraved portrait of Galileo, additional engraved title page (after Stefano della Bella), dated 1700, showing Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus discussing the heliocentric and geocentric models of the solar system, and numerous woodcut illustrations. In addition to Galileo's texts, this edition includes (following conclusion of the Dialogo) the introduction to "Astronomia nova" (pp. 446-454), in which Johannes Kepler argued in favor of heliocentrism based upon his ten-year-long investigation of the motion of Mars; the Latin translation of Paolo Antonio Foscarini's "Epistola R.P.M. Pauli Antonii Foscarini, Carmelitani, circa Pythagoricorum, & Copernici opinionem de mobilitate terræ, et stabilitate solis: et de novo systemate seu consitiutione mundi" (Letter concerning the Opinion of the Pythagoreans and Copernicus about the Mobility of the Earth and Stability of the Sun, and the New Pythagorean System of the World, pp. 455-487), in which Foscarini defends the Copernican theory against charges that it conflicted with Scripture, and "The judgment of the Cardinals against Galileo and his abjuration (pp. 488-494), first printed in Riccioli's "Almagestum," in 1651. Period full vellum over boards, titled in manuscript to spine, edges speckled black, plain period end papers. A handsome, unsophisticated copy, rare in this condition. Vellum soiled and stained, scattered minor foxing, some thumbing to final few leaves, but a tight, clean example. PMM 128 (Dialogo first edition) & 130 (Discorsi). Carli and Favaro 395. Dibner 8 and 141. Norman 858. Horblit (Grolier) 18c (Florence, 1632). First Leiden Edition of the Dialogo (Fourth Latin Edition, Fifth Edition overall), bound with the First Latin Edition (third overall) of the Two New Sciences. Galileo's discoveries with the telescope (described in Sidereus nuncius, in 1610), confirmed his belief that the Sun is the center of the solar system and Earth a planet, as Copernicus had argued. But by 1616, the Inquisition had pronounced Copernican theory heretical, and Galileo was admonished not to "hold or defend" it. Then in 1624, Maffeo Cardinal Barberini, friend, admirer, and patron of Galileo for a decade, was named Pope Urban VIII, and granted Galileo permission to write a book about theories of the universe but warned him to treat the Copernican theory only hypothetically. That book, the Dialogo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic & Copernican), was first published, in Italian, in 1632. In it, Galileo gathered together all the arguments (mostly based on his own telescopic discoveries) for the Copernican theory and against the traditional geocentric cosmology put forth by Ptolemy and Aristotle. (The Dialogo takes the form of a discussion between a spokesman for Copernicus, one for Ptolemy and Aristotle, and an educated layman for whose support the other two vie.) Reaction against the book was swift. The pope convened a special commission, which recommended that the Inquisition bring a case against Galileo. Galileo confessed to having overstated his case and was condemned to life imprisonment, though he never spent a day in a dungeon; the Dialogo remained on the Inquisition's Index of prohibited books until 1822. The two new sciences with which the second book deals are mechanics and motion (kinematics). Together, they underlie modern physics, and the Two Sciences is considered the "first modern textbook in physics" (Dibner), "not only because it contains the elements of the mathematical treatment of motion, but also because most of the problems that came rather quickly to be seen as problems amenable to physical experiment and mathematical analysis were gathered together with suggestive discussions of their possible solution." (Dictionary of Scientific Biography) Newton claimed he derived the first two laws of motion from this book. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed.