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The best edition of the important biography of De Peiresc

GASSENDI, Pierre.
Viri illustris Nicolai Claudij Fabricij de Peiresc, senatoris Aquisextiensis vita.

Title in red & black with woodcut vignette, full-page engraved portrait of De Peiresc in collation, some small woodcut illustrations in text, woodcut headpieces and initials.

Editio tertia; auctior, correctior, & distinctior. The Hague, Adriaen Vlacq, 1655. 4to. Contemporary full calf, triple blind filets along edges of sides, blind ruled spine, speckled edges. Title in red & black with woodcut vignette, full-page engraved portrait of De Peiresc in collation, some small woodcut illustrations in text, woodcut headpieces and initials. (8), 300 (16) pp.

Third and best edition in quarto of the life of Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637), the internationally famous collector, antiquary, correspondent and promotor of all the new scientific and philosophical ideas in Europe at the beginning of the 17th century, living at Aix-en-Provence. He was educated in Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, and at the Jesuit college at Tournon. At Toulon, he first became interested in astronomy. Studying law and becoming interested in archaeology, he travelled to Italy, Switzerland and France in 1599, and finally finished his legal studies in 1604 at the University of Montpellier. From his huge collections of archaeological objects, art, natural history cabinets etc., nothing is left, but from his enormous collection of correspondence editions later appeared like the letters of Peiresc to Holstein by Boissonade, and the letters to and from of Rubens by Gachard, etc.
At the end of the present work a catalogue is given of De Peiresc' large collection of manuscripts. This still valuable biography was written by De Peiresc' close friend Pierre Gassendi (1592 (near Aix)-1655). Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631. He wrote numerous works on philosophy, astrology and science, later becoming professor of Mathematics at Paris. Some of the positions he worked out are considered significant, finding a way between scepticism and dogmatism. He clashed with his contemporary Descartes on the possibility of certain knowledge. His best known project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity.
This biography, first published by Sebastian Cramoisy at Paris in 1641, is still unsurpassed. The second edition is the 12mo edition by Adriaen Vlacq of 1651. The later Vie de Peiresc by Requier is an incomplete and rather careless translation of Gassendi's Vita.

Good copy with paste-downs of an incunable-leaf on inside of both covers.- (Binding sl. rubbed; first endpaper missing; title rest.; wormhole).

Brunet II, 1499; cf. Cioranescu 32412 (ed. Paris, S. Cramoisy, 1641).

Related Subjects: 17th Century Biography French Philosophy Science

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