Rare first edition of a handbook of physics, including optics, mechanics, fluid dynamics and cosmography, illustrated with numerous woodcut diagrams and other illustrations in the text. It was written by Donato Rossetti, professor of natural philosophy at Pisa, in the wake of Galileo's 1633 trial for promoting the heliocentric theory of the solar system. Rossetti later became tutor in mathematics to the Duke of Savoy and professor of mathematics at Turin. The book is a refutation of Geminiano Montanari's Pensieri fisico-matematici (Bologna 1667). In the period shortly after Galileo, experimentalists like Montanari (1633-1675) engaged in a battle against the more mystical views of scientists such as Rossetti.
With an early Italian owner's inscription on the title-page. In very good condition, with only a couple small marginal holes in the title-page. The parchment has a couple stains and a couple holes in the spine, but is otherwise very good. BMC STC Italian, p. 796; Poggendorff II, col. 700; Riccardi I, R-col. 394; Thorndike VII, p. 583; not in Honeyman.