OPUSCOLI DI FISICA ANIMALE E VEGETABILE
DELL’ABATE SPALLANZANI
REGIO PROFESSORE DI STORIA NATURALE NELL’UNIVERSITA DI PAVIA
IN MODENA MDCCLXXVI
PRESSO LA SOCIETA TIPOGRAFICA
CON LICENZA DE SUPERIORI
Contents: [XVI+304+(2)+VI, (4)+277+(1)]. In 4 (8.46 x 5.9 in; 215 x 150 mm) 2 vols. Weight Kg. 0,835. Six folded plates with different illustrations of his experiments engraved by Cagnoni.
Condition of contents: Very good conditions. Foxings. Yellowings.
Condition of binding: Half leather coeval cover with golden title in very good conditions lightly damaged in the extremities.
First edition of 1776 of this important scientiphic work by the italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799), the “scientiphic Father” of artificial fecondation. Spallanzani refuted the theory of spontaneous fecondation with an experiment then perfetioned by Louis Pasteur.
He collected some of his theories about fecondation in this work.
Letters by naturalist phylosopher Charles Bonnet (1720-1793).
The main treatise in the second volume of the Opuscoli confirmed and extended Leeuwenhoek's observations on spermatozoa (which began in 1677) and refuted Buffon's erroneous concepts of their nature and origin... The remaining three tracts were of lesser significance. The first concerned the effects of stagnant air upon animals and vegetables,...[the second] concerned animalcules that 'enjoy the advantages of real resurrection after death',...[and the third was on mold]" (DSB, from a long account of this book). Prandi, Bibliografia, pp. 36-37.
Graesse,VI, p. 457 - Razzolini-Bacchi della Lega, p. 322 - Pritzel,8811 - Garrison-Morton,239: "Later confutation of the theory of spontaneous generation. Spallanzani's conclusions were similar to those expressed by Pasteur nearly a century later".