ACCADEMIA DEL CIMENTO. Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell'Accademia del Cimento. Edited by Lorenzo Magalloti. Florence: Giuseppe Cocchini, 1666.

First edition of "a very beautiful and expensively produced work" (Norman). Although short-lived, the Accademia del Cimento was highly active in the ten years from 1657 to 1667 and vastly influential. Its elite members were concerned with empirical observation and "particularly the development of the scientific ideas of Galileo" (Norman), witnessed by their motto, present here engraved on the title page: "Provando e Riprovando." This, their lavish single publication, contains a description of the first true thermometer and as well as the results of classic experiments on air pressure, sound velocity, radiant heat, and phosphorescence. The delicate glass tubes, pendulums, thermometers and other measuring devices which are so finely depicted in Modiana's plates were provided by Prince Leopold, himself an amateur scientist, who guided the academy's experimental agenda. This is the first issue dated 1666, but with the two leaves of dedication from the second issue inserted. The portrait of Grand Duke Ferdinand II, added to only part of the edition, is absent here. Norman 485.

Folio (343 x 246mm). Half title, title printed in red and black with engraved device of the Academy, 74 full-page engravings of experimental apparatus integrated with pagination, engraved head- and tailpieces, large woodcut historiated initials (some browning, occasional stains). Contemporary vellum with yapp edges, title in ink on spine (slight wear).