Recueil de plusieurs machines de nouvelle invention. ouvrage posthume. de M. Perrault, de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, Docteur en Medecine, de la Faculté de Paris

Features

Author:  Claude Perrault

Publisher:  Jean-Baptiste Coignard

Place of printing:  Paris

Year of publication:  1700

Product Condition:
Contemporary leather binding with title on the gusset and golden friezes on the spine; reactor interventions on cymbals and headphones. Ancient handwritten notation on the front counterplate. Slightly burnished papers with rare blooms and small brown spots; restoration at the outer margin of Pl. 2

Pages:  0

Format:  In the eighth

Dimensions (cm):
Height:  24
Width:  18

Description

Posthumous work by Claude Perrault, published by the famous brother Charles. Translator of Vitruvius (his translation entitled The ten books of architecture of Vitruvius, corrected and translated again into French, with notes and figures, was published in 1673) is, as an architect, one of the greatest representatives of a classicist tradition that ends until the seventeenth century he contrasts with the baroque: this is the project, entrusted to him by Colbert, of the eastern facade of the Louvre (1666-1670) in collaboration with L. Le Vau. And our book is related to the construction of the Louvre: some of the machines presented were specially designed for use on site. From the point of view of the history of thought, the presentation of the work in the Preface is interesting: it was a long time since a Book did not appear so small and so full at the same time of completely new things. . .. I know there aren't many people who have a taste for this kind of thing. The beautiful world does not know what it is and does not want to know anything about it. Most people of Letters usually ignore them in proportion to their literature, and I have seen some such profound scholars who would not have distinguished a hammer from a hammer, ... Mathematicians ... pay little attention to what is attached to an individual matter, or which does not share with them an eternal truth. However, something more that has always been given to purely speculative knowledge, compared to what it boils down to practice and execution ... There is, however, a large number of very enlightened people, who enjoy seeing the Machines, and above all the Machines are an entirely new invention, particularly when they do not merely give some satisfaction to the mind, but which are said to produce an effect which may be of some use. This work by Perrault anticipates in its genre the interest that the eighteenth century would bring to technological discoveries and inventions destined to solve the practical problems of work. Among the inventions presented: Machines that lift loads without friction; Load pulling machines; Machines with which a large fixed telescopic tube can be used, by means of a mirror; The new invention of a pendulum clock goes here by means of water; Machine to prevent large anchor cables from breaking easily; Means to build a bridge of extraordinary length, here it goes up and down with great ease; Rabdological abacus (it is a calculator invented by Perrault around 1680, able to add, subtract and multiply, after the one invented by Pascal). The inventions are illustrated by 11 finely engraved folded plates. The title page bears an elaborate typographic mark and a beautiful vignette engraved at the head of the dedicatory epistle.