Recueil de plusieurs traitez de mathematique de l'Academie Royale des Sciences by ACADEMIE ROYALE DES SCIENCES (BLONDEL, Nicolas-Francois; PICARD, Jean; MARIOTTE, Edme; FRENICLE DE BESSY, Bernard) - 1676

Paris: Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy pour l'Imprimerie Royale, 1676. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Large Folio. 1676 [i.e., 1677]. 6 parts in one volume. Large folio (557 x 402 mm). Engraved frontispiece by Goyton after Sebastien le Clerc, general title with engraved vignette incorporating the royal arms of Louis XIV, half-title to each tract, numerous engraved head- and tail-pieces by le Clerc, 8 engraved plates in first part (Blondel's Resolution), 5 engraved plates in second part (Picard's Mesure), several engraved and woodcut illustrations and diagrams in text, publication dates of individual tracts from colophons. Contemporary French presentation binding in crimson morocco with gilt arms of Louis XIV (Olivier 2494 fer 10) in the center of boards, two gilt triple-fillet borders and royal cipher on corners (Du Seuil style); spine with 6 raised bands gilt-lettered in second compartment and the remaining with the royal cipher and fleur-de-lys, board edges and turn-ins gilt, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers (wear to extremities, foot of spine chipped, joints toward head and foot split, corners scuffed and bumped). Text and plates crisp and bright throughout with only little occasional spotting, the frontispiece, general title and first tract with wormtrack to upper blank margin, a few wormholes to upper and lower blank margin elsewhere, all away from printed area, 6th tract with hole to upper blank margin of half-title and 1st text leaf, ink stain the fore margin of first two text leaves and pale dampstain to fore-margin of final 5 leaves. Provenances: Louis XVI (bound for presentation by the king as patron of the French Royal Academy of Sciences); Hubert de Givenchy collection. A fine copy in unrestored binding.
Content:
I: BLONDEL, Nicolas-Francois. Résolution des quatre principaux problèmes d'architecture, 1673. [10], 86 pp., 5 engraved allegorical headpieces, 5 engraved initials, 3 allegorical cul-de-lamps, 8 engraved plates of diagrams by De la Boissière bound at the end.
II: PICARD, Jean. Mesure de la Terre, 1671. [2], 30 pp., engraved allegorical headpiece, engraved initial, 5 engraved plates (one repeated), text illustration.
III: MARIOTTE, Edme. Traité de la percussion ou choq des Corps, 1676. [2], 67 [1] pp., engraved allegorical headpiece, engraved initial, 2 allegorical tailpieces, 48 text illustrations.
IV: MARIOTTE, Edme. Lettres écrites par Mm. Mariotte, Pecquet et Perrault, sur le sujet d'une nouvelle découverte touchant la veuë faite, 1676. [2], 26 pp., engraved text illustrations.
V: MARIOTTE, Edme. Traité du nivellement avec la description de quelques niveaux nouvellement inventez, 1677. [2], 16 pp., 4 text illustrations.
VI: FRENICLE DE BESSY, Bernard. Traité des triangles rectangles en nombres, 1677. [2], 42 pp. ----

FIRST COLLECTED EDITION, often found with just the 5 works by Blondel, Mariotte and Frenicle, but in fact complete only with Picard's contribution (such as the copies of the Royal Society Library in London, the Bibliotheque National de France, the Linda Hall Library and others, see OCLC/Worldcat no. 915455346). RBH records no complete copy at auction at all. The Picard paper (first edition and not present in the Norman no. 1809 copy) is more commonly found in the very similar collected edition of Perrault's Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire Naturelle des Animaux, 1671-76 (see Norman no. 1687, with illustration of binding on plate 18, but also without the Picard paper). Jean-Felix Picard was the first person to measure the size of the Earth to a reasonable degree of accuracy in a survey conducted in 1669-70. "Among the [other] notable works in this collection is Mariotte's Traite de la percussion (first published 1673), which presented the first comprehensive treatment of the laws of elastic and inelastic impact and contained one of die earliest published examples of die application of algebraic analysis to physical problems. The collection also contains the second edition of Mariotte's treatise on levels and die published correspondence of Mariotte, Pecquet and Perrault disputing the location of the seat of vision, which Mariotte had claimed, based on his discovery of the 'blind spot,' to be in the choroid coat and not the retina. Blondel's architectural treatise dealt with problems pertaining to columns, rampant arches and beams of equal resistance, while Frenicle's treatise on right triangles established some important properties relating to these figures. The first part of Frenicle's treatise was published in 1676, and republished, with the second part, in 1677" (Norman 1809).
Literature: Norman 1809; Graver pour le roi. Collections historiques de la Chalcographie du Louvre. Cat 21. Images du Grand Siècle. L'estampe française au temps de Louis XIV (1660-1715). Cat 15; DSB X, pp. 595-597 (for Picard's paper).