[4 Tomi] L. Altieri - Elementa Philosophiae - 1793

Elements of Philosophy for Adolescent Use, drawn from reputable authorities

To F. Lorenzo Altieri, Minor Conventual. (Lorenzo Altieri, professor of Sacred Theology at the Ferrara Lyceum)
Venice, Modesto Fenzi, 1793 (ninth Venetian edition, revised and enlarged by the author).

Format: 17.5 × 9.7 cm (small 8vo).

Composition: 4 volumes in 3 books (contemporary parchment binding):
- Volume I: pp. 360, (4 plates bound-in)
- Volume II: pp. 263, (5 plates bound-in)
- Volume III + IV: pp. 299 + 321, (11 plates bound-in)

Total: about 1,243 pages + 20 plates out of text (many folded), with numerous engravings in the text of mechanics, physics, geometry, astronomy, scientific instruments, etc.

A scholastic textbook of clear Aristotelian-scholastic imprint, intended for teaching the young.

Includes:
-Logic and prolegomena to philosophy
-Metaphysics (ontology, natural theology, pneumatology)
-General and particular physics (with sections on mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, acoustics, Tolemaic-Newtonian astronomy, etc.)
-Elements of arithmetic and geometry.

Rich in high-quality illustrative plates (simple machines, planetary systems, geometric figures, instruments of experimental physics), typical of the best Italian eighteenth-century scientific-didactic tradition.

Rare complete edition of Lorenzo Altieri’s popular philosophical-scientific manual (1730-1796), a conventual Franciscan, reprinted several times but difficult to obtain intact in all its parts, especially with the complete set of the 20 plates.

Represents an important document of philosophical and scientific teaching in late eighteenth-century Italy, at a moment of transition between scholastic tradition and new Enlightenment/empirical demands. The Venetian editions of 1793 are among the most careful and accurate.

Genuine copy, complete with all plates. Signs of use and patina of time on the parchment, but overall good and solid for a work of this kind and more than 230 years old.

Work of great visual and historic appeal, ideal for collectors of eighteenth-century philosophical or scientific texts or ancient scholastic manuals.