De gli automati, ouero machine se mouenti, libri due, tradotti dal greco da Bernardino Baldi.

Hero of Alexandria,

De gli automati, ouero machine se mouenti, libri due, tradotti dal greco da Bernardino Baldi.

Description: FIRST EDITION, engraved title within architectural border, engraved and woodcut illustrations in the text, 6 of the engravings full-page, a few leaves with a small damp-stain in the lower outer corner, ff. 47 (without the final blank), small 4to; a very good copy in 18th-century English half sprinkled calf and marbled boards, red edges, spine with gilt flower stamp in compartments and red label; the Macclesfield copy, South Library bookplate, blind stamp on title of the first work in the volume (Grischow), contents in MS on fly-leaf, very good.

Publication Details: Venice: Girolamo Porro, 1589.

Notes: First edition of this fascinating work on automated puppetry, in a volume with two other works on engineering and mechanics (see below). 'The Automata, or Automatic Theatre, describes two sorts of puppet shows, one moving and the other stationary; both being performed without being touched by human hands... a marvel of ingenuity with very scant mechanical means' (DSB). Classically inspired, one of the two mechanical performances shows a Dionysian revel in which a fire is lit on an altar and the god, surrounded by dancing Bacchants, pours a libation.Little is known of Hero of Alexandria, other...moreFirst edition of this fascinating work on automated puppetry, in a volume with two other works on engineering and mechanics (see below). 'The Automata, or Automatic Theatre, describes two sorts of puppet shows, one moving and the other stationary; both being performed without being touched by human hands... a marvel of ingenuity with very scant mechanical means' (DSB). Classically inspired, one of the two mechanical performances shows a Dionysian revel in which a fire is lit on an altar and the god, surrounded by dancing Bacchants, pours a libation.Little is known of Hero of Alexandria, other than that he was a Greek mathematician and engineer active in the first century AD. Several works under his name have survived, the most important being the Pneumatics. This is the second of Hero's works to appear in print, preceded by Federico Commandino's translation of Spiritalium liber (Urbino, 1575). Commandino (1509-1575) was a humanist and mathematician, and it is his pupil Bernardino Baldini (1553-1617) who translates the present work. Indeed, Baldini is better known for his poetry than his scientific output, although his poem 'L'Artiglieria & la Nautica' artfully mixes the two. [Bound last in a volume with:] Grischow (Augustin), Descriptio hyetometri... Berlin: J. Grynaeus, [1734], with a large folding engraved plate (loose), some signatures cropped at foot, pp. 28; [and:] Castelli (Benedetto), Della misura dell'acque correnti... [Rome: F. Cavalli, 1639], with a full-page engraving on verso of title, partly browned, pp. [iv], 72. Girschow describes a rain gauge of his invention, in an offprint from Miscellanea Berolinensia. The second work is the second edition (first 1628) of the work in which Benedetto Castelli (1578-1643) - one of Galileo's most important collaborators - established the science of hydraulics. HIDE

Bibliography: (1. Adams H-368; CNCE 22645; Riccardi i, 67 ('bella e rara edizione'); Gamba 1384; Mortimer, Italian, 231: 2. Riccardi i, 209)