ITER EXTATICUM COELESTE, QUO MUNDI OPIFICIUM ID EST COELESTIS EXPANSI, SIDERUMQ; TAM ERRANTIUM, QUÀM FIXORUM NATURA, VIRES, PROPRIETATES, SINGULORUMQ; COMPOSITIO & STRUCTURA, AB INFIMO TELLURIS GLOBO, USQ AD ULTIMA MUNDI CONFINIA, PER FICTI RAPTUS INTEGUMENTUM EXPLORATA, NOVA HYPOTHESI EXPONITUR AD VERITATEM INTERLOCUTORIBUS COSMIELE ET THEODIDACTO ... HAC SECUNDÂ EDITIONE PRAELUSIONIBUS & SCHOLIIS ILLUSTRATUM; AC SCHEMATISMIS NECESSARIIS, QUI DEERANT, EXORNATUM; NEC NON À MENDIS, QUAE IN PRIMANA-ROMANAM EDITIONEM IRREPSERANT, EXPURGATUM, IPSO AUCTORE ANNUENTE, P. GASPARE SCHOTTO ... ACCESSIT EJUSDEM AUCTORIS ITER EXSTATICUM TERRESTRE, & SYNOPSIS MUNDI SUBTERRANEI. Herbipoli [Würzberg]: Sumptibus Joh. Andr. & Wolffg. Jun. Endterorum haeredibus, 1671. Small quarto, pp. [1-22] 1-689 [690-707] [708: blank], twelve inserted engraved plates plus engraved title, woodcut initials and head and tail pieces, eighteenth-century full velum, edges stained light green. Second edition, enlarged. The best edition of this important, widely read "grand tour" of the heavens. German scholar Athanasius Kircher (1601/02-1680) ultimately settled in Rome, and from 1638 taught mathematics, physics and oriental languages at the Collegio Romano. His studies and prolific literary output covered almost every branch of human knowledge and embraced geology, medicine, technology, geography, linguistics and biblical exegesis. He died in Rome in November 1680. In the field of astronomy Kircher is mostly remembered for the ITINERARIUM EXTATICUM COELESTE (1656), a speculative excursion around the planets of the solar system which he presented, like Kepler's SOMNIUM, as an imaginary voyage undertaken in a dream ... ITINERARIUM EXTATICUM COELESTE met, as one would expect, with a mixed reception. It was greeted with enthusiasm by some fellow Jesuits who saw it as a means of maintaining geocentric orthodoxy (as expounded by Theodidactus) while espousing a little of the more scientific heliocentricity advocated by the Copernicans (as expressed by Cosmiel). While the missionary Francisco Ximenez greeted it as 'the offspring of consummate scholarship,' the astronomer Christiaan Huygens dismissed it as 'nothing but idle unreasonable nonsense.' The book was first published in Latin at Rome in 1656, and then at Würzburg in 1660 in an enlarged, illustrated edition edited by Kircher's friend and disciple Gaspar Schott. Schott's revision, although verging on heresy and citing authors forbidden by the Catholic Church, enjoyed the tacit protection of Pope Alexander VII and found a wide audience among European scholars." - Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel K11. This edition of ITINERARIUM EXTATICUM COELESTE includes Kircher's ITER EXTATICUM II, a lesser known work first published in 1657, "which includes an imaginative dialogue on the nature of the Earth's interior." - Howgego. Nicolson, Voyages to the Moon, p. 57. Scattered tanning to text block, plates foxed, old professional patch-in to lower fore-edge margin of title leaf, a very good copy. (#179019).
Price: $7,500.00
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