Felice Giannattasio - Delle sezioni coniche - 1823

Felice Giannattasio (Abbot, Professor of Sublime Synthesis at the Royal University of Studies of Naples), “On Conic Sections. Three Books.”
Fifth Neapolitan Edition (Extensively revised and enlarged).
Naples, at the Gabinetto Bibliografico e Tipografico, Strada S. Biagio de' Librai no. 41, 1823.
Octavo (approx. 21 x 13.5 cm). Complete text, plus appendices and 9 large geometric plates outside the text, folded several times at the end.
Fine, sturdy contemporary (early nineteenth-century) half-leather binding.
Spine in compartments, gilt-stamped with small horizontal geometric ornaments and a dark leather title label lettered in gilt ('Giannatta. / Sezioni / Coniche').
Boards covered in splendid contemporary marbled paper with a “cat’s eye” pattern in shades of blue, light blue, and ochre.
This work belongs to a crucial and exceptionally vibrant moment in the history of Italian science: the celebrated and proud resistance of the Neapolitan School of Mathematics. Founded by the eminent Nicola Fergola (of whom Abbot Felice Giannattasio was one of the most brilliant direct pupils), this school staunchly defended the methodological primacy of “ancient synthetic geometry” (that is, the purely geometric, logical-intuitive approach derived from Euclid and Apollonius).
In clear and explicit scientific opposition to purely algebraic and analytical methods of French origin (whose European proponents were guided by the theories of Lagrange and Laplace), Giannattasio conceived this treatise as a methodological bulwark. As the title page shows, Giannattasio held the chair of “Sublime Synthesis” at the Royal University of Studies of Naples and was an Ordinary Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, attesting to the very high academic and ecclesiastical standing he enjoyed in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The text is one of the finest and most elegant examples of the period’s cutting-edge synthetic geometry teaching, focusing on the intrinsic geometric properties of the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola.
The original binding is structurally very sturdy. The joints and headcaps are firm. There are minimal, superficial abrasions to the spine leather and slight wear to the lower corners of the marbled-paper boards, which do not in any way detract from its appearance or stability.
The interior pages are remarkable for the paper’s exceptional freshness and brightness. The original margins are very wide and untrimmed. The type printed by the Neapolitan Gabinetto Bibliografico retains perfect clarity. The volume is entirely free of serious defects such as worm tracks, structural tears, or heavy waterstains, although numerous spots are present; these do not, however, affect the rare volume’s full usability.
All 9 large geometric plates outside the text, folded at the end, are present, intact, and exceptionally well preserved. The original folds are intact, with no tears or creases at the fold joints—a detail of the utmost rarity in scientific textbooks of this period.
Seven pages are noted as missing after the plates; all the plates are present, and the missing pages were probably blank leaves intended for notes that have been removed.
The photographs form an integral part of the description.