CAPRIGLIA, Giuseppe da.

In Padova: Per Andrea Gattella. 1665

4to, 4 leaves (including the engraved title incorporating a portrait of the author), 72 pages. With 23 woodcut illustrations (including 12 full-page of clocks or parts of clocks, and 8 full-page diagrams). Typographical ornaments. Paper a little browned. Contemporary vellum over thin boards. Vellum torn on lower edges with strips of vellum missing, spine worn at ends and portions of vellum missing from spine, but a nice copy.

FIRST EDITION. “This is the earliest treatise on clocks and is very rare” (Baillie). In The Measurement of Time, that is, a treatise on clocks of three kinds, roughly made turret clocks, well made house clocks, and highly finished breast watches, turret and house clocks are described, but there is only one mention of watches, which at the time were worn on the chest hanging on a chain round the neck, but it should be remembered that the earliest watches with a second hand or a minute hand appeared about the year that this book was published. Capriglia, a Capuchin monk, developed his own idiosyncratic terminology for the parts of the clocks that he describes, making his text difficult to understand, but it is very detailed as the book was intended for clockmakers. Baillie, Clocks and watches. An historical bibliography, 1665. Not in Bromley, The Clockmakers’ Library.

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