VENDU
6 volumes, 12mo (170 x 97mm). Volume I : engraved and coloured frontispiece, title, CVIII, 379 pp., 19 engraved and coloured folding plates. Volume II : IV pp., 488 pp., 2 nn.ll., 20 engraved and coloured folding plates. Volume III : IV, 514 pp., 19 engraved and coloured folding plates. Volume IV : 2 nn.ll., 535 pp., 14 engraved and coloured folding plates. Volume V : VI pp., 1 nn.l., 592 pp., 24 engraved and coloured folding plates. Volume VI : IV, 527 pp., 20 engraved and coloured folding plates. Contemporary green morocco, triple gilt filet on covers, central coat of arms of Count Calenberg (Guigard, II, 108), spine gilt with raised bands, red morocco lettering and numbering pieces, gilt edges (expert restorations to ends of spine).
1 in stock
Cohen-de Ricci, 753 ; Wheeler GIft, 319 (other edition) ; Wheatland, 173 (other edition) ; Guigard, II, p. 108 ; David DiLaura, 378 ; Jean Torlais, Un physicien au siècle des Lumières, l’abbé Nollet : 1700-1770, Paris, 1987 ; Dictionary of Scientific Biography, X, 147-148 ; Catalogue de l’exposition Lumières ! Un héritage pour demain, Paris, BnF, 2006, p. 3.
Magnificent complete set of Nollet’s Opus Magnus, bound in green Morocco with the arms of Count Calenberg with all the plates in brilliant contemporary colouring.
Although uniformly bound, this set is composed – like many others – of different editions : first edition for volume VI, fifth edition for volumes I to II, fourth edition for volume III, thris edition for IV, and second edition for volume V.
The scientific discoveries of the mid-eighteenth century gave rise to public lectures, which quickly became a social and social phenomenon. The frontispiece to the Leçons de physique expérimentale, which depicts Abbé Nollet performing an experiment in front of a select audience, is one of the first iconographic documents to bear witness to this craze.
“With carefully orchestrated demonstrations performed on 350 different instruments, the abbé entertained his enthusiastic auditors as, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, he undertook to dispel their ‘vulgar errors, extravagant fears and faith in the marvelous’. These were not mere shows, as one sees from their expanded syllabus, the famous Leçons de physique” (Dictionary of Scientific Biography, p. 145).
Abbé Nollet (1700-1770) discovered the diffusion of liquids, observed the transmission of sound in liquids, described a machine for cutting spectacle lenses (1752) and invented the first electroscope (1747). To demonstrate that electricity travels at high speed over a great distance, he carried out a rather unusual experiment. In the presence of the king, he had 180 royal guards linked by a cable to form a line over a kilometre long, then applied a discharge using a Leyden bottle, the forerunner of the capacitor.
“Nollet was the leading experimental physicist for thirty years in mid-eighteenth-century France. His course of lectures, aimed at the upper-class Parisian society, was accompanied by elaborate, if not spectacular, demonstrations of physical principles and the use of experimental apparatus. This was the source for Leçons de Physique, which became as famous as he course itself and was the first step in establishing experimental physics in France. Nollet’s work expressed in the Leçons de Physique led to a reorientation of physics teaching in French universities and was the model for a new generation of French physics textbooks, replacing those of Polinière and Rohault” (DiLaura).
“Experiments on electricity, following the work of a Watson, a Nollet or a Franklin, were reproduced in front of an enthusiastic audience. The man of the Enlightenment was curious about everything new, convinced that his emancipation and mastery of his destiny depended on knowledge of the world. So knowledge had to be made available to everyone. This was the great project of the Encyclopédie” (see : Lumières ! Un héritage pour demain, p. 3). Abbé Nollet is quoted throughout the “Electricity” article in the Encyclopédie (Volume V), particularly in relation to the medical uses that can be made of this new fluid.
A magnificent copy, complete with frontispiece and 116 folding plates; all the engravings were coloured at the time.
Provenance: Count Henri Reinecke Calenberg (1685-1772 ; his coat of arms on the binding). Henri Reinecke, Count Calenberg was a great bibliophile and had his book bound in precious morocco bindings of all color as explains Guigard. His collection assembled during his stay in Bruxelles, was sold by J. Ermens in 1773 (2048 lots of books, 72 lots of paintings and engravings) – Alain Moatti (bookplate).
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