Positiones physio-astronomicae de sphaera elementary, quas in collegio neapolitano soc. Jesu publice exponet, & demonstrabit"
by Giacomo Salerno
Naples, In Officina Typographica Iacobi Raillard; 1682
Rare first edition
Size 4.5 by 6" (16 x 11 cm)
[2] , 48 pp, 2 (of 6) copper plates
First edition of this cosmological and astronomical treatise.
The copper plates depict the phases of the moon and the curvature of the earth.
Modern vellum binding with ties. Restoration on the margins. Good general conditions.
The title of this work can be rendered as Thesis on Natural Aspects of Astronomy, which could mean on astronomy as opposed to astrology; however, the strange astronomical-physiological compound is difficult to understand. The libretto provided the basis for a dispute in the Jesuit College of Naples. Like the later Theses mathematicae, it contains neither a series of simple theses, as the title seems to indicate, nor a real dissertation in the sense of a short treatise on a particular topic. Instead, an overview of key aspects of Ptolemaic cosmology (the earth as the center of the Universe, its comparative minuteness, its roundness, heavy things falling towards its center etc.).
As in many scientific books of the time, the structure of the text (sketched in the appendix below) is to some extent inspired by Euclid's Elements, although not all types of chapters and subsections are actually derived from this model. At the beginning, some definitions and some postulates (things to be granted a priori) are given.
The main points of the argument are called propositiones. Propositiones can be realized both as theoremata (general statements) and as problemata (problems to be solved).
Subordinated to definitions, theorems and problems, there are scholia (notes, often doxographic), lemmas (auxiliary theorems) and corollaria (additional conclusions resulting from the proof of a theorem).
Most of the text consists of theorem and lemma proofs and problem solutions.
Text in Latin



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