HUYGENS, Christiaan (1629-1695). ‘La Pluralità de Mondi … Tradotta dal Francese in Italiano’, manuscript, mid-18th century, an Italian translation of Cosmotheoros, apparently in the hand of the translator, with a few cancellations and emendations.
Calligraphic title pages, and five figures (labelled in French) at end, depicting the solar system, the relative sizes of the planets, the relative orbits of the moons of Saturn, Jupiter and Earth, the relative sizes of Saturn, Earth and the Moon, and an unidentified subject. Title and 85 pages, folio (315 x 215mm, contemporary pagination (some ink acidification, more marked to later pages, and occasional marginal stains). Modern vellum boards (light, even wear and soiling).
One of Huygens’s most popular works, the posthumously-published Cosmotheoros proposes that life, including sentient life, is highly probable elsewhere in the universe, and discusses how the solar system must appear to inhabitants of other planets. The present translation, evidently drawn from an early French version of the Latin original, is ascribed in a later pencilled note to Giovanni Lami (1697-1770, antiquarian). The diagrams, which are in a different hand, appear to have been copied directly from the French source.
HUYGENS, Christiaan (1629-1695). ‘La Pluralità de Mondi … Tradotta dal Francese in Italiano’, manuscript, mid-18th century, an Italian translation of Cosmotheoros, apparently in the hand of the translator, with a few cancellations and emendations.
Calligraphic title pages, and five figures (labelled in French) at end, depicting the solar system, the relative sizes of the planets, the relative orbits of the moons of Saturn, Jupiter and Earth, the relative sizes of Saturn, Earth and the Moon, and an unidentified subject. Title and 85 pages, folio (315 x 215mm, contemporary pagination (some ink acidification, more marked to later pages, and occasional marginal stains). Modern vellum boards (light, even wear and soiling).
One of Huygens’s most popular works, the posthumously-published Cosmotheoros proposes that life, including sentient life, is highly probable elsewhere in the universe, and discusses how the solar system must appear to inhabitants of other planets. The present translation, evidently drawn from an early French version of the Latin original, is ascribed in a later pencilled note to Giovanni Lami (1697-1770, antiquarian). The diagrams, which are in a different hand, appear to have been copied directly from the French source.
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