GALILEI, Galileo (1564-1642). Dialogo ... sopre i due massimi sistemi del mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano. Florence: Giovanni Battista Landini, 1632.

The fresh Honeyman copy of the first edition of Galilei's famous defense of Copernican heliocentrism, which resulted in his trial and imprisonment, issue with pasted and manuscript corrections. In 1624, eight years after being forbidden to promulgate heliocentrism by the previous pope, Galileo was granted permission to write on the subject by the new Pope Urban VIII, his friend and patron for more than a decade—on the condition that Aristotelian and Copernican theories were put forward equally and impartially. To this end, Galileo wrote his work as a dialogue between Salviati, a Copernican, and Simplicio ("Dummy"), an upholder of the geocentric Ptolemaic and Aristotelian orthodoxy. Far from impartial, the work "is a masterly polemic for the new science. It displays all the great discoveries in the heavens which the ancients had ignored" (PMM). For this, Galileo lost the support of Urban VIII and was called to Rome for trial by the Inquisition. His sentence of life imprisonment was immediately commuted to permanent house arrest and the Dialogo was placed on the Index, where it remained until 1832. Carli and Favaro, p. 28; Cinti 89; Norman 858; PMM 128. Exhibited: "The Heavens Revealed," Chapin Library, Williams College, 2003.

Quarto (215 x 158mm). With the errata leaf, printed correction slip on p. 92, and diagram on p. 192 corrected by hand. Engraved additional title by Stefano della Bella, woodcut Landini device on title, woodcut text diagrams and illustrations, woodcut ornamental initials, type-ornament head- and tailpieces and factotum initials (some scattered browning, a few spots, bifolium Ff3.4 sprung). Contemporary limp vellum wrapper (spine panel partially torn revealing printed waste reused as spine-liner within) Custom chemise and slipcase. Provenance: a few learned marginal annotations – Robert Honeyman (his sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 5 November 1979, lot 1406).