Details

Subjects:

Geometry -- Early works to 1800.
Geometry.
Mathematics -- Early works to 1800.
Mathematics.
Optics -- Early works to 1800.
Optics.
Florence (Italy) -- History -- 1421-1737.

Form/Genre:

Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

In Latin.

Biography/History:

Mathematician and philosopher in the court of Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Summary:

Letter in Torricelli's cursive hand to Father Marin Mersenne, praising a lens owned by Ferdinando II, promising to send a lens he himself made, and discussing spherical geometry. Written from Florence, dated 9 January 1645, on a single paper leaf with a watermark of a bishop's miter. Tipped into a modern morocco binding with gilt title and erroneous date of 1649.

Local notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps; sold as part of the residue of the Phillipps collection first to William H. Robinson Ltd., 1945, and again to H.P. Kraus, March 1978.
Appears in H. P. Kraus's cat. 155 (1980), no. 89, and cat. 186 (1991), no. 156.
Formerly owned by John D. Stanitz (Cleveland, Ohio), Ms. 32.
Acquired by Lawrence J. Schoenberg with other Stanitz manuscripts, Sept. 1997.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2013.
Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2021.

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 116 (LJS 201).

Cited as:

LJS 201

Contributor:

Mersenne, Marin, 1588-1648, addressee.
Phillipps, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872, former owner.
Stanitz, John D., former owner.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

OCLC:

850937672

Web link:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page