In Mechanicas Quaestiones Aristotelis, Paraphrasis paulo quidem plenior. Ad Nicolaum Ardinghellum Cardinalem Amplissimum. . .

Romae:: Apud Antonium Bladum Asulanum, 1547., 1547. Sm. 4to. [viii] pp., CX ff. Signatures: A-2E? 2F². Printer's woodcut device on title, woodcut initials, geometric diagrams throughout and occasional woodcut figures [balance scales [XXI-XXII], unknown device [XXXV], wedge [XXXIX], pulley [XL], well [LX], 2-man team with poles braced between them, on their shoulders in order to lift a heavy rock [LXII], concentric circles as in a solar system model, incl. rocks in place of planets [LXVIII]; f. XL bottom corner torn away. Early quarter vellum, marbled boards, later endleaves; worming at spine joints, vellum present, but gnarled. Ownership signature and black stamps on title. Very good. OF ARISTOTELIAN MECHANICS AND ITS PHILOSOPHY. First edition. This book ignited a debate "over the certainty of mathematics, which was sparked in 1547 by Alessandro Piccolomini's commentary on pseudo-Aristotle's Problemata Mechanica." :: Niccolò Guicciardini, Isaac Newton on Mathematical Certainty and Method - Issue 4 :: 2009, pp. 3-4. See also: Nicholas Jardine, "Keeping Order in the School of Padua," 1997. / "Many sixteenth-century authors studied the Mechanical Problems." These include Niccolo Leonico Tomeo, Alessandro Piccolomini, Girolamo Cardano, and Niccolo Tartaglia. "Alessandro Piccolomini chose to make it more accessible by publishing a paraphrase of the work in 1547 in Rome: In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis, para phrasis paulo quidem plenior, shows both his erudition in the use of available manuscripts as well as his practical knowledge of the contemporary mechanical technology." :: Nenci, pp. 9-10. / "Piccolomini thus shows . . . the reasons for the success among humanists of the difficult text of the Mechanica: one draws from the text an intuition of a movement of rotation made up of constraints and forces rather than rigorous geometric analyses." :: Walter Roy Laird, Sophie Roux, Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific . . . (2008), page 159. / "Piccolomini in effect elevates mechanics from an art to a science, by arguing that it is the contemplation of the causes and principles behind machines that is properly called mechanics. The use of these machines to produce useful effects is distinguished from the theory on which they are based, and his practical aspect is classified separately under the sellularian or humble arts." :: Helen Hattab, Descartes on Forms and Mechanisms, (2009), pp. 95-6. / Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1578), student of the classics in both Padua and Rome, a master of Petrarchan style, was a member of the noble Piccolomini family that included two Popes. He came to reside in Padua, becoming established as professor of philosophy at the university. Though he was not an astronomer, he is best known for producing in 1540 the first star atlas, De la Sfera del Mondo. He was a prolific writer of works relating to philosophy, mathematics, mathematical astronomy, comedies, sonnets, literature and translated several works (Ovid's Metamorphoses, Aristotle's Poetics and Rhetoric, part of Vergil's, Aeneid) from Lain into Italian. See: article by Ronald Brashear, within: Thomas Hockey (ed.), Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, II, pp. 904-5. / See: Rufus Suter, "The Scientific Work of Alessandro Piccolomini," ISIS, 60, pp. 210-222. FULL TITLE: In Mechanicas Quaestiones Aristotelis, Paraphrasis paulo quidem plenior. Ad Nicolaum Ardinghellum Cardinalem Amplissimum. Eiusdem commentarium de certitudine mathematicarum disciplinarum: in quo, de resolutione, diffinitione, & demonstratione: necnon de materia, & fine logicae facultatis, quamplura concinentur [i.e. continentur] ad rem ipsam, tum mathematicam tum logicam, maxime pertinentia.