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WEB AUCTION 118 - LIBRI E AUTOGRAFI WEB AUCTION 118 - LIBRI E AUTOGRAFI
giovedì 16 giugno 2022 ore 14:00 (UTC +01:00)
EUSEBIO SGUARIO (ACTIVE 1728-1756) : Dissertazione sopra le aurore boreali ... di Eusebio Sguario Viniziano Dottore in Filosofia e Medicina In Venezia, appresso Pietro Bassaglia, 1738
Eusebio Sguario (active 1728-1756)
Dissertazione sopra le aurore boreali ... di Eusebio Sguario Viniziano Dottore in Filosofia e Medicina In Venezia, appresso Pietro Bassaglia, 1738
§ 4to (170 x 230); 119, [1] pp.; sign.: A1-8, B-P1-4. Small woodcut on title page., 1 large engraved folding plate, 2 engraved plates, 1 table. Contemporary vellum, Spine restored. Stains on both covers. Large but light stain on endpapers and free leaves. Content very good.
Only edition. Eusebio Sguario or Squario was a medical doctor who practised physics as a hobby; he is generally acknowledged as the first Italian author to write about electricity. This work, the first he wrote, was later followed by a book on electricity applied to medicine , by another about earthquakes and others of purely medical subject. The occasion for this work was the aurora borealis which was observed in Venice in the last days of 1737, a very rare phenomenon at that latitudes. Sguario denies that the aurora borealis might be a phenomenon related to a kind of combustion and he considers instead its origin to be due to the refraction of the solar rays by a sort of corpuscles present in the athmosphere. He also explains the black halo found in the center of some aurorae boreales with the total absorption of light made by some of such corpuscle.; in this way, the scientist rejects the theories about the origin of the Northern Lights of some authors, both ancient and modern, A list of aurorae boreales at the end of the book improves the famous one published by D’Ortous de Mairan in his work of 1733. Ref : Ronalds, p. 473; Riccardi I (2), 455S