REPEATING FRANKLIN'S ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTS

LANDRIANI, MARSILIO.

Dell' utilità dei Conduttoti Elettrici. Dissertazione.....Publicata per Ordine de Governo.

Milano, Marelli, 1784.

8vo. Bound uncut in a fine later hvellum, spine gilt and gilt lettering to titlelabel. Engraved titlepage with an engraved illustration of different kinds of lightening experiments a la Franklin. XIV,304 pp. a. 1 folded engraved plate showing how to install lightening conductors on buildings. One engraved vignette and 1 fine engraved initial. Internally clean and fine, a wide-margined copy.

Scarce first edition of Landriani's large work on the funcioning of lightning conductors, on natural and artificial electricity, the Franklin experiments, and lightening-rods, which also includes a collection of letters from de Saussure, Toaldo and others, here printed for the first time. At the end a comprehensive catalogue of European buildings on which lightning rods were installed: "Catalogo dei Conduttori Elettrice".

"Landriani's name is repeatedly linked to Volta's inventions (from the electrophorus to the pile) and especially to the eudiometer. The term (derived from the Greek "eudia" ("fair weather") was first used by Landriani in the "Recherche" to indicate the instrument he had devised to measure the purity of the air.....Volta transformed the instrument, assigning it new tasks. In 1777 the eudiomter entered the history of science as a valued instrument for the analyzing of gases." (DSB VII, 620-21).
Wheeler Gift No. 523.

Order-nr.: 44317