Jean Bailly - Histoire de l'astronomie moderne - 1785

Jean-Sylvain Bailly
History of Modern Astronomy from the Foundation of the School of Alexandria up to the Time of Mr. CC. LXXXII.
New edition – Volume Three
Paris: De Bure, 1785
(4)+415 pp
Full calf marbled binding of the period (26x20 cm; corners worn, skin pitting), generally quite fresh inside aside from a few foxing, stains & notes in the margins.

Content: On the new advances in astronomy. On advances in geometry and its influence on astronomy. Conjectures and physical opinions. On constellations and the signs of the Zodiac.

Initiated into astronomy by Abbé Lacaille, Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793) quickly became a passionate devotee of this science, to the point of becoming deputy-astronomer of the Academy of Sciences before the age of 30. His researches on Jupiter's satellites constitute his principal scientific title. He then embarked on his monumental History of Astronomy (published in 5 volumes between 1781 and 1787), portions of which are treated with the assurance and depth of an astronomer of the first rank. His publication was the occasion for extensive correspondence with Voltaire and earned him election to the Académie Française in 1783, then to the Académie des Inscriptions, and finally promotion as a pensionnaire of the class of general physics during the reorganization of the Academy of Sciences. A statesman, he was elected the first deputy of Paris during the Revolution; then President of the Constituent Assembly, and he presided over the famous historic session of the Jeu de Paume. Appointed Mayor of Paris, he was unable to resist the worst excesses of the revolutionaries and ended on the scaffold in 1793.