Lot n° 202

KIRCHER, Athanase.

Estimation : 5 000 - 6 000 €
Adjudication : Invendu
Description
Tariffa Kircheriana, id est inventum aucthoris novum Expeditâ, & mirâ arte combinatâ methodo, universalmen Geometria, Arithmeticaae practicae summam continens. Rome, Nicola Angeli Tinassi, 1679. 2 volumes in-8 (136 x 88 mm) de 2 ff.n.ch. (premier blanc, faux-titre), III pp., 8 ff.n.ch., 316 pp., 2 ff.n.ch (errata, et dernier blanc), 24 planches gravées sur bois (la plupart dépliantes) pour le volume I; 202 ff.n.ch. pour le volume II; vélin rigide, dos à nerfs avec titre manuscrit, tranches mouchetées (reliure italienne de l' époque).
Backer-Sommervogel, IV, 1070; voir Vagnetti, EIIIb42 (pour les ouvrages d'optique); Merill, Athanasius
Kircher, 28.
Édition originale avec le texte révisé par Benedetto Benedetti.
“The Tariffa, perhaps the rarest of all Kircher's works and his least characteristic, is entirely mathematical” (Merill).
L'ouvrage le plus rare d'Athanase Kircher (1602-1680), le Tariffa propose de nombreuses solutions à des problèmes d'arithmétique et de géométrie. Le premier volume est essentiellement consacré à la trigonométrie, le second volume contient des tables pour faciliter les calculs vectoriels, des surfaces, et des formes géométriques. Le premier volume est richement illustré de 24 planches gravées sur bois.
“The Tariffa Kircheriana offered a detailed description of the miraculous Kircherian combinatorial art that would quickly allow all the princes and nobles of Europe - and presumably anyone else “occupied by more important business” who could read Latin - to master all of geometry and arithmetic. In fact, Kircher himself seems to have become exactly that sort of person by 1679 - at least this was how his associates described him rather than acknowledging that he was no longer capable of completing his own books. Kircher consigned the final preparation of the Tariffa to Benedetto Benedetti, professor of mathematics at la Sapienza, who described how “new occupations of great moment” had obliged Kircher to offer him the privilege of becoming his editor” (Paul Findlen, Athanasius Kircher. The last man who knew everything, p. 4).
Bel exemplaire, bien conservé malgré quelques feuillets légèrement brunis.
First edition, published by Bendetto Benedetti, professor of arithmetics at La Sapienza. Volume one, with a universal method of geometry and arithmetic after Kircher's own invention, is lavishly illustrated woodcuts on various subjects (architecture, land surveying, music, clock making, perspective, projection, etc.). The second volume contains extensive tables for the calculations of vectors, surfaces, triangles, squares, cubes, pyramids, etc. Tariffa Kircheriana is Kircher's rarest title.
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