ROSSETTI, Donato (1633-86). La Figura della Neve, Turin, 1681, 8vo in 4s, 7 etched illustrations of snowflakes, 3 of which full-page (text ends at [E4] p.40), contemporary calf (rebacked). FIRST EDITION. RARE. Please see the note on completeness below.

ROSSETTI, Donato (1633-86).  La Figura della Neve. Turin: "Per la Vedova Gianelli, e Domenico Paulino," 1681. 8vo in 4s (179 x 113mm). Half title, woodcut ornament on title, initial, 7 etched illustrations of snowflakes by Donato Rossetti, 3 of which full-page (the final leaf [E4], paginated 40 on the verso, followed by an old blank leaf [see note], some very light mainly marginal staining, some minor worming at gutter of a few leaves, not affecting letters). Contemporary calf (crudely rebacked and rubbed, particularly at the corners, inner hinges split or reinforced). Provenance: Marchesa di Ravarolo (old signatures at lower margin of 2 pages); remnants of old manuscript library labels on front and rear pastedowns; later pencil annotation on the front blank stating [?erroneously] "lacks last leaf ...". FIRST EDITION of this pioneering study of snowflakes which was the first to represent them as hexagonal platelet crystals. The work built on the earlier and inconclusive studies on the same subject undertaken by Kepler and Descartes and took as its model related microscopic investigations of Robert Hooke. The author, a Tuscan natural philosopher, mathematician and canon of Livorno Cathedral, is not listed in the DSB. Like the copy in the "Biblioteca Comunale Labronica", which is collated as ending on [E4] (i.e. p.40) without any suggestion that it is incomplete, the copies in the BL and "The Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Drawings in the British Museum (Natural History)" also consist of just 40-pages, but are, according to their speculative catalogue entries, "apparently imperfect". Although p.40 in the present copy ends mid-line, and with an apparent semi-colon [illustrated], it has, unlike any other page of text in the book, no catchword, suggesting it is the final page. Since all of the few recorded copies end similarly at p.40, we are reasonably confident, despite its abrupt conclusion, that the book is complete, but our lack of complete certainty compels us to sell it, with regret, not subject to return. RARE.