Lavagna (John, mathematician and artist, active late 18th century) Ad Explicandam Phisicam Eclectcam, including detailed studies on matter and motion, body weight, light, sound, and magnets (many with diagrams incorporating vignettes of landscapes and figures), manuscript in Latin, title, ink and watercolour frontispiece after Guercino's 'The Persian Sybil', 35 pp. with fine detailed full-page pen and ink mathematical diagrams with monochrome wash, ruled in brown ink throughout, marginal inscriptions and numbered throughout, occasional minor spotting, light staining to endpapers, embossed ownership stamp to rear endpaper, original limp vellum, ink paper label with 'Physicae Tab. M.S.' to spine, worn, ff. approx. 140 x 190 mm., Venice, 1789.

⁂ Highly competent and detailed manuscript, probably by a skilled Italian student with a tendency more towards artistry than logic, with numerous fanciful vignettes throughout the work including counter weighting a lever with a strung up cat, shooting fish with a gun to show the mechanics of projectiles, and gentlemen observing the top of a column through refraction.