[Rarebooks] FS: 1st Italian [from the Greek] translation of Hero of Alexandria's early work on automation! Venice: 1589

[Kenneth Karmiole]

(SCIENCE) Hero of Alexandria. DE GLI AUTOMATI; Overo Machine se Moventi Libri Due. Tradotti dal Greco da Bernardino Baldi. Venice: Girolamo Porro. 1589. Sm. 4to. ff.47,(1). Complete with the final blank. Illustrated with a total of 22 engraved and woodcut illustrations, including the fine engraved title, and 6 full page copper engravings. Early vellum, spine gilt tooled, with a morocco spine label and the 5 raised bands covered in morocco (a few small chips to the leather). A very clean copy. A small private library rubber stamp at bottom of title and one to the blank verso of the title leaf. An excellent copy.                        $3,750.00 (trade discount allowed)

The first Italian translation. On mechanical toy theatrical displays. Baldi, the translator, has written an introduction on the history of mechanics. "The accounts of these automata are interesting as introducing for the first time mechanisms that formed the basis of later machines. Among them are the crank, the camshaft, and systems of rotation with counter-weights." See Singer HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY," 634-636; Mortimer. ITALIAN 231; Riccardi. I, 67.

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