La Caille - Cours élémentaire de mathématiques-pures - 1795

LA CAILLE (Nicolas-Louis de) / MARIE (Joseph-François, abbé) & THEVENEAU (former professor) - Elementary and Complete Course in Pure Mathematics, written by La Caille, enlarged by Marie, & elucidated by Theveneau... - Paris, Chez Courcier, Printer-Bookseller, Year III [1795].

Octavo (approx. 20 x 12 cm). Title page printed during the Revolution (Year III / 1795), preface, complete text on arithmetic, algebra and geometry, enhanced with folding engraved plates out of text depicting geometric figures and diagrams. Contemporary half tan calf with corners, boards covered in blue marbled paper. Smooth spine decorated with gilt rolls and tools, red morocco title label lettered in gilt (« COURS / DE / MATHEMAT. / PURES »). Yellow or speckled edges.

Choice copy bearing a magnificent engraved armorial bookplate in heraldic colors on the pastedown (coat of arms with a blue bend on a red-and-black striped field, « Ex-libris O. Borelli » stamp printed in Rome by Lit. Rocca), accompanied by an old handwritten ink signature on the title page, « Ex libris Borelli », and a monogrammed ink stamp on the plates.

A fine contemporary copy. The binding shows light rubbing and minor wear from use to the spine and corners, while remaining sturdy and sound. The interior features well-preserved Revolutionary-era laid paper, with a few light spots of foxing and intact folding plates.

Abbé Nicolas-Louis de La Caille (1713–1762) was one of the greatest French astronomers and geodesists of the eighteenth century, and a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. His Course in Mathematics was the definitive textbook under the Ancien Régime and the Revolution, taught at all the leading military and naval schools.
This Year III (1795) edition, published by Courcier in Paris in the aftermath of the Terror, was substantially enlarged by Abbé Marie and elucidated by Theveneau, former professor of mathematics to the Brest Marine Guards. It bears witness to the scientific rearmament and reorganization of public education (the establishment of the École Polytechnique and the École Normale in 1794–1795).
> Did you know? Nicolas-Louis de La Caille was the man who named fourteen constellations in the southern sky during his famous astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope (1750–1754). True to his passion for mathematical and technical sciences, he named these constellations not after mythological figures, but after scientific instruments (such as the Microscope, the Telescope or the Rule)!