Published date: 1841, Fitenze. The Essays of natural experiences are considered the first book of experimental and practical physics, and to recognize it, the delightful Description is enough which opens the various reports: the reader is presented with the laboratory - to affirm, we would say today, the public and repeatable nature of the research - and is introduced into the secrets of the instruments. But the essay is also other things. Magalotti, a Roman adopted by Florence, a man of letters lent to science as secretary of the Accademia del Cimento where the Galilean lesson was continued, is committed to the invention of a language: and from his lively style, the forging of an Italian in Tuscan is plastically shown elegant and modern. And his pages, written by those who, like him, were always suspended between the Baroque and the new era, seem like the ferry that carries the man of the seventeenth century - whose emphasis still sounds in the prose of the Proemio- within the century of ingenuity and lightness, the eighteenth century disseminator of knowledge. It is also a child and playful science that is revived. It shows the enthusiasm thirsty for wonders, like the child who experiments, happily amused: it is his age, who can still read with his mouth open in the great book of nature, and whose new freedom of thought is the joy of intelligence, a broad breath that intoxicates, and is not yet disenchanted with the world. (ref: sellerio.it)

From the estate and lifelong collection of William Garrett Hodges (1946-2014). Hodges was a Virginia-based dealer of fine arts, with specialization in prints and rare books, having collected for decades. He supplied and consulted various groups on antiquities throughout his career, including the White House, the Vice President's residence, the FBI, and multiple film and television series.