The Idiot in four books. The first and second of widome. the third of the minde. The fourth of statick experiments, or experiments of the ballance. By the famous and learned C. Cusanus.

[CUSANUS, Nicolas] CUSA, Nicholas of.

Edité par London Printed for William Leake and are to be sold at the signe of the Crowne in Fleet-street betweene the two Temple Gates, 1650

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First edition in English; 12mo (15 x 8 cm); woodcut initials and headpieces, printed black rules, a little tightly bound in places, text continuous despite erratic pagination, a little toned; contemporary sheepskin binding, spine ruled in gilt in 6 compartments later contrasting black morocco lettering-piece, joints neatly restored, endpapers renewed, very good; [2], 118, 117-209, 230-231, [1]pp. The first edition in English of this scarce collection of philosophical dialogues by the German humanist and Cardinal, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), also known as Cusanus and by his German name Khrypffs or Krebs, who was among the great church leaders and thinkers of the fifteenth century. The Idiota de Mente was completed at Fabriano, then part of the Papal States, in December 1450. It consists of a series of four dialogues on the themes of wisdom (de sapiente), the mind (de mente), and the philosophy of nature (de staticis experimentis), which are set in Rome during the year of the jubilee (presumably that of 1450). The dialogues take place between an 'Orator', representing current humanist learning, a 'Philosopher' who takes the scholastic position, and an 'Idiot', or layman, usually identified with Nicholas himself, who functions as an embodiment of the docta ignorantia â " that is the theory of learned ignorance developed in Christian mystical circles, which posits that the act of recognising our inability to acquire actual knowledge is a form of wisdom in and of itself. His philosophical doctrine was taken up and developed more than a hundred years later by Giordano Bruno who called him 'the divine Cusanus'. Over the course of the first three books, Cusa shows the deficiencies in both humanist and scholastic reasoning and their claims to have acquired true wisdom. The fourth book, 'On Static Experiments', is important in the history of science, and on the strengths of which Sir William Osler characterised Cusa as 'one of the pioneers in modern mathematical physics' whose 'studies on measurement and specific gravity are of the first importance'. Before Galileo [Cusa] suggests timing the fall of bodies dropped from towers of equal height and takes the resistance offered by the air into account. And Osler noted that 'he recorded the famous experiment, antedating Hales two hundred years, of weighing earth and seeds, then the resulting plants, their ashes and the earth in which they had grown' (Thorndike). A scarce work, and apparently the only edition to be printed of this translation, and indeed of any English edition of this work, until the twentieth century. ESTC R202666; Wing K394; Thorndike IV, pp386-392; Waller 20039a.

N° de réf. du vendeur 121985

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Idiot in four books. The first and second of widome. the third of the minde. The fourth of statick experiments, or experiments of the ballance. By the famous and learned C. Cusanus.
• Éditeur: London Printed for William Leake and are to be sold at the signe of the Crowne in Fleet-street betweene the two Temple Gates
• Date de parution: 1650
• Reliure: Couverture rigide
• Édition: Edition originale