Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
Four volumes, quarto (268 x 195 mm). Uncut in contemporary drab boards (“carta rustica”), paper spine labels added at a later date, preserved in two black morocco backed cloth boxes. Engraved portrait frontispiece by Zucchi to vol. I, engraved printer’s device on titles, head- and tail-pieces, with numerous woodcut initials, engravings and figures in the text, and two plates, one folding. Short tear to rear joint of volume I, occasional light marginal damp marking and dust soiling, a few short marginal tears, a tiny work track across one line of the final leaf of volume III; a very good copy in original condition.
First complete collected edition of Galileo’s works, the third overall, and the first to include the Dialogo, along with other material published here for the first time. Galilei’s Opere, first published in two volumes in 1656 in Bologna by Carlo Manolessi, was reprinted with some revision and the addition of a third volume in 1718 in Florence by Tommasso Bonaventure, assisted by Guido Grandi and Benedetto Bresciani. This third edition, edited and annotated by Giuseppe Toaldo, includes for the first time, added as the fourth volume, Galilei’s Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi. New to this edition are the Trattato del modo di misurare con la vista, Ventitrè lettere a diversi, delle quali sedici al Micanzio e tre al Gualdo, Problemi vari e pensieri vari, and the Dialogo.
