CAUS, Salomon de (1576-ca 1626). Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes avec diverses machines tant utiles que plaisantes aus quelles sont adjoints plusieurs desseigns de grotes et fontaines . Frankfurt: Jan Norton, 1615.
CAUS, Salomon de (1576-ca 1626). Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes avec diverses machines tant utiles que plaisantes aus quelles sont adjoints plusieurs desseigns de grotes et fontaines . Frankfurt: Jan Norton, 1615. Three parts in one volume, 2 o (383 x 253 mm). Part one: engraved title, 32 full-page engravings (pl. 22 cancelled), including two of musical scores, 3 full-page woodcuts, one half-page engraving, and 19 woodcuts in text, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Part two: engraved title and 20 full-page engravings, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Part three: one full-page woodcut, one double-page woodcut, 4 engravings in text, 4 woodcuts in text, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Contemporary vellum (some soiling and wear at extremities). Provenance : acquired from Harry Levinson, 1966. FIRST EDITION of this work on the physics of movement, with a range of technical applications, encompassing fields as diverse as energy, gardening and music, by the engineer and architect Salomon de Caus Book I describes the first machines to be operated by solar power, powered by sunlight striking closed air reservoirs, and one of the earliest uses of steam power. Scholars have proposed that De Caus is an early rediscoverer, or post-Classical inventor, of the principle of steam being used as a propelling force, basing his steam-driven pump on one developed by Giovanni Battista della Porta fourteen years earlier. H.W. Dickinson, in his Short History of the Steam Engine , proposes that De Caus very likely influenced the later inventions of David Ramsay and the Marquis of Worcester with his description of an apparatus for forcing water upwards through a boiler. Book II discusses garden architecture, describing mechanically operated moving figures, and Book III describes the construction of pipe organs and other music-producing machines. Caus would go on to design the garden for Count Palatine Frederick at Heidelberg, described by Gothein as the most elaborate "show" garden of 17th-century Germany (see next lot). Though the book bears a Frankfurt imprint and bibliographies are silent on the matter, the typography, decoration, watermarks, and contemporary vellum binding point to this being a French production, made for Jan Norton of Frankfurt. Brunet I:1691; Dickinson, Short History of the Steam Engine , pp.12-14; Gothein, A History of Garden Art , I:453-454; Thurston, History of the Steam Engine , pp.15-17. Fact and Fantasy 53.
CAUS, Salomon de (1576-ca 1626). Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes avec diverses machines tant utiles que plaisantes aus quelles sont adjoints plusieurs desseigns de grotes et fontaines . Frankfurt: Jan Norton, 1615.
CAUS, Salomon de (1576-ca 1626). Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes avec diverses machines tant utiles que plaisantes aus quelles sont adjoints plusieurs desseigns de grotes et fontaines . Frankfurt: Jan Norton, 1615. Three parts in one volume, 2 o (383 x 253 mm). Part one: engraved title, 32 full-page engravings (pl. 22 cancelled), including two of musical scores, 3 full-page woodcuts, one half-page engraving, and 19 woodcuts in text, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Part two: engraved title and 20 full-page engravings, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Part three: one full-page woodcut, one double-page woodcut, 4 engravings in text, 4 woodcuts in text, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Contemporary vellum (some soiling and wear at extremities). Provenance : acquired from Harry Levinson, 1966. FIRST EDITION of this work on the physics of movement, with a range of technical applications, encompassing fields as diverse as energy, gardening and music, by the engineer and architect Salomon de Caus Book I describes the first machines to be operated by solar power, powered by sunlight striking closed air reservoirs, and one of the earliest uses of steam power. Scholars have proposed that De Caus is an early rediscoverer, or post-Classical inventor, of the principle of steam being used as a propelling force, basing his steam-driven pump on one developed by Giovanni Battista della Porta fourteen years earlier. H.W. Dickinson, in his Short History of the Steam Engine , proposes that De Caus very likely influenced the later inventions of David Ramsay and the Marquis of Worcester with his description of an apparatus for forcing water upwards through a boiler. Book II discusses garden architecture, describing mechanically operated moving figures, and Book III describes the construction of pipe organs and other music-producing machines. Caus would go on to design the garden for Count Palatine Frederick at Heidelberg, described by Gothein as the most elaborate "show" garden of 17th-century Germany (see next lot). Though the book bears a Frankfurt imprint and bibliographies are silent on the matter, the typography, decoration, watermarks, and contemporary vellum binding point to this being a French production, made for Jan Norton of Frankfurt. Brunet I:1691; Dickinson, Short History of the Steam Engine , pp.12-14; Gothein, A History of Garden Art , I:453-454; Thurston, History of the Steam Engine , pp.15-17. Fact and Fantasy 53.
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