Descrizione delle esperienze della macchina aerostatica dei Signori di Montgolfier... seguita da richerche sopra l'altezza... Da una memoria sopra il Gaz infiammabile... Da una lettere intorno ai mezzi di dirigere queste Macchine...

FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND Barthélemi (1784.)

£2000.00 

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INVENTION OF THE HOT AIR BALLON

Nine engraved plates.

8vo (214 x 135 mm). xxxii, 320pp. Contemporary cartonnage boards (somewhat soiled).

Venice, alla stamperia Graziosi,

The rare first Italian edition of this account of the invention of the hot air balloon by the Montgolfier brothers, and also the first fundamental work in the Italian language on modern aeronautics.

Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819), later professor of geology at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, was so impressed by their first experiment on 5 June 1783 that he organised a subscription to pay for a repeat of the experiment which took place on 26th August of the same year. This work begins with accounts of these experiments and also of the Montgolfiers' further experiment at Versailles on 19 September 1783, in which a sheep, a cock and a duck were carried in a cage below the balloon, the first aerial travellers. The French text appeared in 1783 and was soon followed by translations in Dutch and Italian; this edition has new illustrations.

An excellent copy in the original binding.

Morazzoni, Fig. Veneziani, p. 229.

Stock Code: 47080

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