BOULLIAU (Ismael). - Lot 21

BOULLIAU (Ismael). Astronomia philolaica. [...]. Paris, Siméon Piget, 1645. In-folio, brown calf, framed with cold filets, gilt fleuron at the corners, ribbed spine (Binding of the period). First edition of this important treatise on astronomy by Ismael Boulliaud (or Boulliau), an astronomer born in Loudun in 1605 and who died in Paris in 1694, a friend of Gassendi, Huygens and Pascal, and author of works on the luminous variations of the stars. (Lalande, pp. 220-221.) A lunar crater (the Bullialdus) now bears the name of this scientist. This was a pivotal publication between Kepler's and Newton's theories of gravitation. The author, an ardent defender of the theories of Copernicus and Galileo, built on Kepler's recent work on "gravitation" and the mechanics of the planets, and was the first to put forward the hypothesis that the force of attraction of the planets is inversely proportional to the square of their distance from the Sun (the physical law of inverse squares). This idea was taken up and corrected by Newton in 1687 in his Principia. Numerous geometric and astronomical figures throughout the text. Tables of calculations are grouped together in the second part of the volume, in separate pagination: these include a catalog of fixed stars after Tycho Brahe (pp. 181-209: Catalogus stellarum fixarum mille... MDCI) and Synopsis tabularum Astronomicarum Persicarum dedicated to Gabriel Naudé. Old handwritten annotations in the margins of a few leaves, one leaf of handwritten notes added between pp. 426-427. Old signature on title. Staining to leaves Nn2-3 and Gg2. Small paper loss at upper corner of title, some foxing. Spine rebacked, lining and endpapers renewed.