Add MS 8789

F. M. [FILIPPO MATTEI ?]: Demonstrations of plane Geometry based on works by Vito Caravelli; 1787. Italian. Autograph. The MS. contains sixteen problems of plane geometry, elaborated from works by the Neapolitan abbot and mathematician Vito Caravelli (1724-1800). Caravelli's works on mathematics were published in Naples in 1759 and 1769, each edition including a volume entitled Geometria Piana; cf. Biografia degli uomini illustri del Regno di Napoli, ed. by D. Martuscelli, t. 9 (Naples, 1822), and C. Minieri Riccio, Memorie storiche degli scrittori nati nel Regno di Napoli (Naples, 1844), p. 85. The MS. is identifiable with Mattei MS. no. 113 in Guilford's catalogue, now Add. 8220, f. 8: the initials 'F. M.' (f. 17) may identify Filippo Mattei, son of last prince Giuseppe Mattei, as the scribe of the MS. and author of the 'Tavola Geometrica' (f. 17). Filippo married in 1792 and died before his father in 1801, leaving the family without male lineage. The MS. is entitled (f. 1) 'Dimostrazioni Geometriche con figure, proposizioni, teoremi, e problemi, ritrovate sulla traccia del Caravelli nella sua Geometria Piana nell'anno del Signore MDCCLXXXVII', inc. (f. 2) 'Dimostrazioni Geometriche / Proposizione i. Problema i. / Fare un quadrato imperfetto' and in the margin 'Fig. i', expl. (f. 15) 'misura del Quadrato e dei Paralellogrammi [sic] suddetti; N che era LL'. Plate (f. 17) with geometric representations of the sixteen problems entitled 'Tavola i Geometrica' and signed in the lower margin 'F.M. invenit anno 1787'. With the later addition (ff. 18-25v) of other nine geometric plates or 'Tavola geometrica', numbered '1-9'. From the Mattei Library, MS. 113: old shelfmark '113' in ink in top left corner of front pastedown. Owned by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, but lacking his armorial bookplate. '155' in pencil in top centre of front pastedown. Purchased, together with Add. 8801, 8802, and 8804, from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 155 (part).

Paper; ff. 24+ii, plus seven unfoliated blanks after f. 15, and two after f. 25; ff. 18-25 and the following two blanks form an additional gathering stitched to the MS. in a second phase. Modern foliation in pencil '1-25' (followed here), omitting no. 16. Old pagination in ink '1-27' (ff. 2-15). 186 x 130mm. Horizontal catchwords. One Italian hand. Quarter binding of light brown leather over pasteboards with gilt-tooled spine and decorated paper covers. Decorated papers with the same xylographic pattern were of frequently use on 18th-cent. Roman bindings; see P. Quilici, Carte decorate nella legatoria del '700 dalle raccolte della Biblioteca Casanatense (Rome, 1988), no. 2, p. 56.