Justin Croft Antiquarian Books - Rare and Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts

Montanari was influential among Italian scientists of the generation succeeding Galileo and he was variously an astronomer, lens-maker and all-round ambassador for the experimental approach to science. The present work combines early reprints two of his most important contributions, the first editions of which are very rare. In the Tromba Parlante, first printed at Parma in 1673, Montanari demonstrated that the principle of the megaphone, invented two years previously by Morland, could be reversed and used as an ear trumpet. With a pair of such instruments he showed that he was able to send and receive signals over distances of up to four miles. The second part of this posthumous publication is a paper on the currents of the Venetian lagoon and the Adriatic. Montanari became interested in tides, navigation and meteorology and he carried out several studies on the problems of the Venetian lagoon. He declared that to keep the lagoon surrounding Venice unpolluted and to prevent its silting up, it was necessary to divert the rivers that emptied into the lagoon directly into the sea. Fortunately his advice was heeded. The posthumous paper on the same topic II mare Adriatico e sua, corrente, et la naturalezza dei fiumi appeared in 1696 and was reprinted several times.