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Author: Galilei, Galileo
Title: Galileo a Madama Cristina di Lorena (1615) - former record holder for the smallest book in the world
Place Published: Padua
Publisher:Tipogr. Salmin
Date Published: 1896 (colophon dated 1897)
Description:

205, [2] pp. Portrait frontispiece. 18x14 mm, fine full modern red morocco, raised bands, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, matching red morocco box, gilt lettered spine. Original blue paper wrappers bound in. First Miniature Edition.

Bound by Hugo Peller of Ascona Switzerland in 1983. First published in 1636, some twenty-one years after it was written, the letter, to his friend and patron Madama di Lorenza, argues for the harmony of religion and science. "For many years this tiny book which is only half the size of an ordinary postage stamp was considered the smallest printed from movable type" - Bondy pp. 95-96. The text is set in the exceedingly small "occhio di mosca" (fly's eye) Dantino type created by Salmin for their miniature edition of Dante (1878). Welsh 2936.

Fine.