La Dioptrique Oculaire, ou La Theorique, la Positive, et la Mecanique, de l'oculaire dioptrique en toutes ses especes. by Cherubin d'Orleans - 1671

Paris:: Chez Thomas Jolly, & Simon Benard, 1671., 1671. Colophon reads: 'De l'Imprimerie de Jean Cusson, 1670'. Tall 4to. [xlviii], 419, [1], [30] pp. 60 engraved plates (six double-page, some pls. signed 'L. Cossinus sculp.', incl. 3 text figs.), including the beautiful engraved allegorical half-title (drawn by Jean le Pautre (1618-1682) and engraved by Gerard Edelinck (1640-1707), title woodcut vignette; the leaves all extended at the gutter to permit the best possible opening for this volume. Modern full blind-stamped speckled calf, gilt-spine title. Title blind embossed: Franklin Institute Library, related small rubberstamp toward title-gutter, additional similar stamps found within. Cloth slip-case. Near fine. First edition of the most exhaustive treatise on optical instruments and lens making in the seventeenth century. This work deals with lenses for all types of instruments, including microscopes, telescopies, the camera obscura, as well as a study of what has been learned with different lens types. This is "the most exhaustive treatise on lens making in the seventeenth century. It is a six-hundred folio page long, comprehensive, cogently-argued treatise on telescope making. It contains an impressive amount of theoretical and practical, first-hand information on all of its facets - from explanations of the telescope's working principles, to descriptions of lens grinding and polishing, to rules for the right distances between lenses, to methods to find the right apertures, to descriptions of the shapes and articulations of the wooden parts and bolts and screws needed to properly point a telescope to the skies, to the construction of tubes, and so on and so forth." -- Albert Van Helden, et al, pp. 289-291. / The beautiful engraved plates include two double-page plates showing the Moon (bound following pages 296 and 298), as seen through his binocular telescope, offering the proportion of optical perspective that he felt was superior due to the triangulation of the dual lenses and the eyes when focused on distant objects. The plates are embellished with cherubs in various positions using the instruments. The author carefully depicts clearly the phases of the Moon relative to the Sun and the Earth as well as noting the eclipses of the Moon. He continues with observations on the Sun (showing the movement of Sun-spots), the planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). Then he turns his attention to comets (p.316) and observations of the phenomena relating to the sky and the stars (p. 315). Additional attention is given to construction of the instruments, their uses, such as measuring the size of distant objects (in the solar system). He depicts in impressive detail various machines such as lathes and a combination lens-grinding and polishing tool. -- see: King, History of the telescope, p 57. / Cherubin invented an adjustable stage for the microscope: "Cherubin arranged to focus the object by screwing the base up and down by means of a screw in the centre of the base. This appears to be the first instance of a focusing screw being applied to the stage of a microscope." -- Clay and Court, History of the microscope, p. 82. [full description on request]. / Daniel M. Albert et al, Source book of ophthalmology, Blackwell Science, (1995), 412; Henry C. King, History of the telescope, (1955); Krivatsy-NLM, 2427; Albert Van Helden, et al, The origins of the telescope, Amsterdam University Press, (2011); Ewen A. Whitaker, Mapping and naming the moon: A History of Lunar Cartography and Nomenclature, Cambridge University Press, 2003.