Galilei, Galileo | Dialogo …, Florence, 1632, first edition of Galileo's celebrated exposition and proof of the Copernican system

Galilei, Galileo

Dialogo … sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico, e copernicano. Florence: G. B. Landini, 1632

First edition of Galileo's celebrated exposition and proof of the Copernican system, which led to his trial before the Inquisition and sentence to perpetual house arrest.

Eight years after Pope Paul V ordered him to cease propagating the Copernican theory, Galileo finally obtained permission from the new pope, Urban VIII, to publish a work comparing, objectively and impartially, the system defended by Copernicus and that of Ptolemy, then the only one recognized by the Church. The treatise takes the form of an imaginary dialogue featuring three characters, Salviato, Sagredo, and Simplicio (representing the respective intellectual positions of radical, conservative, and agnostic), who discuss, during the course of four days, the two great world systems: the Ptolemaic system, which advocates the geocentric hypothesis, and the Copernican system, which defends heliocentrism.

The work, dedicated to Ferdinand II de' Medici, appeared with a preface, imposed by the pope and directed against Copernicus, whom Galileo explicitly defends in his dialogue. This provoked the wrath of Urban VIII, who banned the sale of the book and destroyed all seized copies. The trial brought by the Inquisition resulted in Galileo's imprisonment and his forced abjuration of "the Copernican heresy" on June 22, 1633. The Dialogo remained on the Index librorum prohibitorum until 1832.

An incredibly important and foundational text, the Dialogo was perhaps the most influential work in making heliocentrism common and accepted knowledge, and its assertions paved the way for Isaac Newton and a new generation of scientific discovery.

4to (213 x 155 mm). Engraved frontispiece depicting Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Copernicus, by Stefano della Bella, title-page with device, imprimatur on verso, woodcut diagrams, pasted-in printed correction slip to margin of p. 92, errata leaf; lacks final blank, browned, a few light stains. Early speckled calf, spine gilt in six compartments, sprinkled edges; spine neatly repaired with a couple of small wormholes, neatly recornered.

REFERENCES

Buffalo/Sparrow 74; Carli & Favaro 128; Dibner, Heralds 8; Grolier/Horblit 18c; Printing and the Mind of Man 128; Riccardi 1.i 511–12, no. 10 1; Rocco/Cinti 89; USTC 4014324

PROVENANCE

"JHR"? (ownership inscription to margin of title-page) — Robert S. Dunham (acquired from Johnson in October 1946; Sotheby's New York, 11 December 1993, lot 684)