JOHANNES DE PECKHAM I tre libri della perspettiva. Nuovament tradotti nella lingua italiana & accresciuti di figure, & annotationi da Giovanni Paolo Gallucci.

Riccardi, I.570.7; Vagnetti Db8; DSB, X, 473-476.

Extremely rare first Italian edition of Peckham’s treatise on perspective and its underlying optical basis, the most widely read treatise on the subject during the Renaissance, by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, one of the leading 16th century makers of precision instruments and the only Italian to take an interest in technical developments north of the Alps : he also translated Dürer’s treatise on human proportion, Reisch’s Margarita Filosophica, and was familiar with Nuremberg instrument books. Peckham’s most original contribution was the description of concave refracting surfaces, the first description in a printed work of such glasses, though its greater importance probably lies in being the starting point for later attempts to make the study of perspective more mathematically rigorous. Gallucci gives a literal translation and provides separate notes.

Small wormhole on title (no loss) and some spotting or light toning, endpapers renewed.

Provenance: old ownership inscription of Mariano Smaraglio on title.