BÉRIGARD, Claude Guillermet de. Circulus Pisanus… Olim in Pisano, iam in Lyceo Patavino Philosophi prim. De veteri et peripatetica philosophia in Aristotelis libros octo Physicorum. Quatuor de Coelo. Duos de Ortu & interitu. Quatuor de Meteoris, & tres de Anima … Opus in hac secunda editione auctius & retractatius. Padova, Frambotto, 1661

4to small., mm. 220x160; Binding of the beginning of the 19th century in half calf, spine with golden ornaments and label for the Title; pp. [20], 64, [8], 65-203, [9], 205-353, [9], 357-538, [6], 541-583, [7], 585-729, [25]; six parts, each with own Title-page; Title-page of the pt. 2, 3, 4, dated 1660, the ones of the pt. 1, 5, 6 dated 1661. Printer's mark on Title-pages, illustrated Head-pieces, Initials and End-pieces, 1 plate with portrait of the author on copper, many woodcuts within the text, with diagrams, geometric figures and scientific instruments. Contemporary ownership inscription on the first leaf.

Second edition increased and substantially rewritten. The work is founded on courses of Physics held by Bérigard in Padua. Are mentioned with admiration many scientists and thinkers of the time: Galileo, Torricelli, Viviani, Cabeus, Bourdin, Boulliau, Mersenne, Descartes, Digby, Kircher, Kaspar Bartholin and his sons, Borel and Gassendi.

The work, which goes back at the time when was Bérigard was in Pisa and at the experiments carried out in the Accademia del Cimento, takes place in the form of dialogue, and it proposes Bérigard against Aristotelian physics naturalism pre-Socratic.

The Circulus Pisanus is an undeniable tribute to the new physics: there is also a moderate statement of sympathy for the Copernican hypothesis, the experiments of Torricelli are used to the negation of the motion, they accepted the conclusions Galilean against the incorruptibility of heaven. The praise of the telescope or the comment of De Luna become an exhibition of the doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo; the timely reference to the pre-Socratic philosophy, is primarily for a detailed description of atomism and to point out how his atomism was different from that advocated by Gassendi.

Carli – Favaro, 277; D.B.I., VII, pp. 388-9. See also Hirsch, I, p. 348. Lacks at Krivatsy, Vinciana, Cinti, British Library.

Ottimo esemplare./Nice specimen.