A Geometrical Practical Treatize Named Pantometria, Divided Into Three Bookes, Longimetra, Planimetra, and Stereometria, Containing Rules Manifolde for Mensuration of all Lines, Superficies and Solides with Sundrie Strange Conclusions Both by Instrument And Without, & Also by Glasses to Set Forth the True Description or Exact Platte of an Whole Region, First Published by Thomas Digges...lately Reviewed by the Author Imselfe and Augmented with Sundrie Additions, Diffinitions, Problemes and Rare Theoremes,

London: Abell Jeffes. Very Good with no dust jacket. 1591. Second Edition. Half-Leather. Second and best edition of this important Elizabethan work of practical geometry. [6], 152, 151-195, [3] pp. Complete except for the first blank which is A1 (pages 1-2). Small folio in handsome 1/2 calf leather with gilt title, etc, to the spine, lovely brown marbled hard boards. From the library of noted photographer Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) , who may have had it rebound. Inside front cover has a large bookplate of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (1818-1878) , the Scottish historian and noted book collector, on the facing new blank are laid down two leather morocco blind-stamped coats of arms of Stirling-Maxwell. The title page has two signatures and dates of 1611 and 1678. Very occasional small neat marginalia in a contemporary hand in just a few spots and a small ink blot in the margin on 2 pages. Text is otherwise unmarked, there are some humidity stains throughout but no resultant problems. Wonderfully illustrated with maps, geometrical problems, instruments. This is the famous 2nd edition, enlarged by Digges' son Thomas (1546-1595) , a pupil of John Dee and perhaps the first to suggest the universe is infinite. The work originally published in 1571 was on practical applied geometry and contains the 1st description of the theodolite, invented by L. Digges. This book also includes the earliest description of what appears to be a crude telescope, as recounted by Thomas in the preface: “my father by his continual painful practices, assisted with demonstrations Mathematical, was able, and sundry times hath by proportional Glasses duly situate in convenient angles, not only discovered things far off, read letters, numbered pieces of money with the very coin and superscription thereof, cast by some of his friends of purpose upon downs in open fields, but also seven miles off declared what hath been done at that instant in private places … “via the “multiplication of beames sometime the aide of Glasses. ” Also includes Leonard Digges’ sections on navigation and pyrotechnics. The first three books consider surveying, measuring and gauging, and are followed by Thomas Digges's important treatise on ballistics which demonstrated that consistent results with cannon required mathematical knowledge and was the first such discussion in English , as well as Thomas Digges’s Mathemetical Discourses, which contrary to the earlier chapters, represents a major defence of pure mathematics as a discipline, perhaps the first such defence in English: “Thomas presents the primary virtues of Pantometria as utility and pleasure. When it comes to the defence of the Mathematical Discourse, he adopts a different and more robust strategy, targeting his text at readers ‘desiring the knowledge of things somewhat passing the reach and capacity of the common sort’. In his rhetorical stance it was not utility but intellectual elevation that served as the highest end. Digges therefore feigned to ignore those who might castigate his advanced study of polyhedra as ‘a fond toy, a mere curious trifle, serving to no use or commodity’. Unless a detractor genuinely valued the study of ‘hard and difficult’ matters, persuasion would be useless. Digges rounded on potential critics as ‘two-footed moles and toads whom destiny and nature hath ordained to crawl within the earth, and suck upon the muck’; such men ‘may not possibly by any vehement exhortation be reduced or moved to taste or savour any whit of virtue, science, or any such celestial influence’. Where did this leave the mathematician? Not in the realm of lucre and worldly pleasure but placed on high in the company of geometers such as Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius. Digges’s forceful language and stark division of men into either virtuous mathematicians or ignorant followers of Epicurus and Midas took him well away from the mathematician’s role implicit in Pantometria. His faith in the intrinsic worth of advanced studies led him to emphasise his solid geometry as a pacific discipline little adapted to either military or civic necessities. His Discourse therefore embodied mathematics not as a worldly vocational pursuit but as the work of a gentleman who primarily prized intellectual nobility. ” [Johnston, ‘Making mathematical practice: gentlemen, practitioners and artisans in Elizabethan England’]Headying stuff! This book is complete except for the first blank, including the final errata leaf. ESTC S107357. Italic, Roman and Black Letter. A lovely copy in a sturdy, handsome binding, with quite wonderful provenance; Woodcut; Folio 13" - 23" tall; 185 pages .