BORELLI, Giovanni Alphonso.

Bononiae [Bologna]: Ex Typographia Jacobi Montii.1667

4to, pp. (xii), 300, 30, (2) errata and imprimatur, and 5 engraved plates with numerous figures. Small area of half-title very well restored, short tear in fore-edge margin of following two leaves carefully repaired, pale dampstain almost throughout, otherwise a very clean copy. Contemporary limp vellum, a bit marked. Signature of Richard Short, Rome, on title-page (probably the book’s first owner); Macclesfield bookplate on front pastedown and blindstamp at top of title-page.

FIRST EDITION. The first book on the laws of percussion, and an important work on the subject, containing the first exposition of the theory of the percussion of solids. Borelli also gives the name ‘resilience’, probably for the first time, to a number of problems now classed under that name. In his introduction he deals at length with Galileo’s theory of impact. As well as a detailed discussion of impact, the book also deals with the dynamics of falling bodies, vibration, gravity, fluid mechanics, and pendular motion. Chapter XXV, pp. 185–188, deals with the attractive force of the magnet. Borelli’s wide-ranging studies in mechanics were the prelude to his important wok in biomechanics. Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca mechanica, pp. 41–42. Cinti 147.

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