Beschreibung:

GALILEI, Galileo (1564-1642). Manuscript copy of the first edition of the 'Dialogo di Galileo Galilei Linceo Matematico Sopraordina- rio dello studio di Pisa. e Filosopho, e Matematico primario del Serenissimo Gr[an] Duca Toscana. Dove ne i congressi di quattro giornate si discorre sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo Tolemaico e Copernicano', n.d. [?1632], in Italian, manuscript in two volumes, written in brown ink in a regular and controlled italic script, title-page and headings in capitals, dedicatory letters, quotations and marginal annotations in a small upright hand; vol. I ('Giornata' I and II), comprising 577 pages (numbered 1 - 570); volume II ('Giornata' III and IV), comprising 424 pages (numbered 571 - 994); frontispiece in brown ink, copied from the engraved frontispiece of the first edition, depicting Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus standing under a banner inscribed 'Dialogo di Galileo Galilei Linceo al Ser[enissi]mo Ferd[inando] II Gran Duca di Toscana', including 46 diagrams in the text (the majority in 'Giornata III'), mathematical calculations and index, inscribed on last page 'Questa copia e state scritta a penna a simiglianza della stampata in Fiorenze per Giovanni]j Battista La[n]dini, ivi nell'anno 1632 impressa', a few blanks, altogether approximately 1,000 pages, 285 x 220 mm (one page of index creased, light spotting, page 283 stained, slight browning in outer edges of margins). Contemporary Italian glazed paper-covered pasteboard, title in manuscript on spine of vol. II (vol. I lacking spine, upper cover detached; vol. II spine with losses; bindings worn, boards heavily rubbed causing loss of glazed surface [?caused by water damage and/or rubbing]). A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT COPY OF ONE OF GALILEO'S MOST CELEBRATED WORKS which was banned five months after its first publication in Florence in March 1632. 'The book which historically did the most towards breaking down the religious and scientific barriers against free scientific thought' (Albert Einstein, in his foreward to the English translation of the Dialogo , by Stillman Drake, 1953, page xxi). In the Dialogo Galileo advances his theory of the rotation and revolution of the earth, based on the belief that the sun is the central body around which the earth and planets revolve. The work takes the form of a debate between three men: 'Sagredo', using the name of a former pupil and colleague from Padua, and representing the educated layman for whose opinion two experts are competing; 'Salviati', named for a Florentine whom Galileo had nominated to the Lincean Academy, who represents Galileo himself as an expert in science; and 'Simplicio', an expert in Aristotelian philosophy and the adversary of 'Salviati'. The dialogue is divided into conversations over four days. Although the holding or teaching of Copernican theory was forbidden by Pope Paul VI in 1616, Galileo had obtained from his successor, Urban VIII, permission to discuss the Copernican system in print, with the proviso that the Ptolemaic system was equally represented. In the Dialogo Galileo applied his remarkable literary skills to the sharp and vivid confrontation of opinions. In order to reach a wider audience he wrote in colloquial Italian although the work, which had an immediate success, was soon translated into Latin and, within thirty years, into English. In August 1632 Galileo was summoned by the Inquisitors to Rome. At his trial the following April the Dialogo was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum where it remained until 1822. He himself was sentenced to life imprisonment which was commuted to house arrest and spent the remainder of his life at his villa at Arcetri. The Dialogo has been described as a mine of information for anyone interested in the cultural history of the western world and its influence upon economic and political development. (Stillman Drake. Galileo , Oxford: 1980.) (2)