WITH ROYAL PROVENANCE

CAVALLO, TIBERIUS.

Vollständige Abhandlung der theoretischen und praktischen Lehre von der Elektricität nebst eignen Versuchen. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt mit 4 Kupfertafeln. Dritte, mit einigen Zusätzen des Uebersetzers vermehrte Auflage.

Leipzig, Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1785. Bound in a fine and well-preserved contemp. hcalf. Raised bands, richly gilt compartments, titlelabel with gilt lettering. A paperlabel pasted on lower compartment. A stamp on titlepage and verso. (18),344,(10) pp., 1 folded table and 4 large folded engraved plates showing many types of experimental equipments. On frontcover the crowned coat-of-arms of the Danish king Christian VII, in red and gold.

This is Cavallo's main work (transl. from "Complete treatise of Electricity in theory and practice with original experiments. London, 1777), and its descriptions of a huge number of electrical phenomena and experiments, are for most parts, original works on electricity.
"...Tiberius Cavallo was a neopolitan settled in London where Volta met him in the spring of 1782. Cavallo had come to the metropolis in 1771 to study commerce, and remained to become the leading English electrician of the 1780s and a profilic writer of authoritative textbooks on natural philosophy, particularly electricity." (Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th & 18th Venturies).
"Cavallo's first studies (1775-1776) concerned atmospheric electricity, which he explored with Franklin kites and with improved detectors of his qwn invention, fashioned after Canton's pith-ball electroscope. Althoug little came of his investigations...they required a course of self-instruction that culminated in Cavallo's most importent work, A complete treatise...(1777). (Heilbron in DSB). - Not in Wheeler Gift cat.

Order-nr.: 40682