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Lot 237

STENO (NICOLAUS)
Elementorum myologiae specimen, seu musculi descriptio geometrica, FIRST EDITION, Florence, [Joseph Cocchini], sub signo Stellae, 1667

11 November 2015, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £4,750 inc. premium

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STENO (NICOLAUS)

Elementorum myologiae specimen, seu musculi descriptio geometrica, FIRST EDITION, woodcut Medici arms on title, 7 plates (3 folding woodcut and 4 engraved), a few early ink annotations and 3 neat ink diagrams, eighteenth-century roan-backed boards [Garrison-Morton 577; Krivatsy 11432; Norman 2012; Osler 4021; Waller 9223], small folio (280 x 167mm.), Florence, [Joseph Cocchini], sub signo Stellae, 1667

Footnotes

First edition of "the first outline of a scientific theory of the development of the earth" (Norman), also important for Steno's contributions to the fields of myology and embryology. In collaboration with the mathematician Vicenzio Viviani, Steno (or Stensen) developed a geometrical description of muscular contraction, attempting to demonstrate theoretically that muscles did not increase in volume during contraction. The appendix contains his anatomical descriptions of the head of two sharks, and a study of their teeth (subjects of two of the fine plates), leading him to develop "his theories of how geological structures and fossils might be formed" (Garrison-Morton).

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