Bidspirit auction | [SCIENCE AND MEDICINE] - MANZINI

[SCIENCE AND MEDICINE] - MANZINI Carlo Antonio (1600 - 1677) - A Bolognese Supporter of Galileo: Manzini’s Dioptrica pratica with autograph authorial corrections - L’occhiale all’occhio. Dioptrica pratica [...] Dove si tratta della luce, della refrattione de raggi, dell’occhio, della vista e degli aiuti, che dare si possono à gli occhi per vedere quasi l’impossibile. Dove in oltre si spiegano le regole pratiche di fabbricare occhiali à tutte le viste, e cannocchiali da osservare i pianeti, e le stelle fisse, da terra, da mare, et altri da ingrandire migliaia di volte i minimi de gli oggetti vicini. Bologna, per l’Herede del Benacci, 1660. 4to (212 x 149 mm). [14], 268, [4] pp. Woodcut device on title depicting a telescope and an eye, full-page engraved portrait of Eustachio Divini, and woodcut illustrations in the text. Contemporary limp boards, manuscript title on smooth spine; binding with minor wear and light spotting, one gathering nearly loose, with a few other small defects. First and only edition of this celebrated and remarkably substantial practical treatise on optics, one of the most important seventeenth-century works on the making of lenses, spectacles, telescopes, and related optical instruments. Far more than a theoretical discourse on light, refraction, and vision, the book was conceived as a practical manual for optical craftsmen, setting out in exceptional detail the methods for producing spectacles suited to different kinds of sight and telescopes intended for the observation of planets and fixed stars. Its scope ranges from the anatomy of the eye and the mechanics of vision to the grinding, polishing, testing, and fitting of lenses, making it one of the earliest and most detailed printed accounts of optical practice grounded in direct artisanal experience. Modern scholarship has also placed Manzini firmly within the Bolognese scientific milieu that supported Galileo, a context that lends further resonance to the present work and to its close engagement with the culture of telescopic observation in seventeenth-century Italy. Also of particular interest is the presence of autograph authorial corrections, as in the copies preserved at Bologna and Zurich. Their survival points to close authorial supervision of the text and materially enhances the bibliographical significance of the present copy. A highly important witness to early modern optics, combining theoretical reflection with workshop practice. •⁠> This lot is located in and ships from the UK. No export license is required for values under £65,000; above this threshold, a UK export license will be needed. Import duties and taxes in the destination country are the buyer's responsibility.