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taineering and to encourage more women to lead on climbs. It was an instant success and remains popular to this day. The first journal appeared in 1924, edited by Lilian E. Bray and Pilley, and the club continues to issue volumes every three years. With their detailed descriptions of meets and the routes undertak- en, complemented by the inclusion of striking photographs of its members and the challenges they faced, the journal offers a unique insight into how the club was pushing the boundaries in women’s climbing during this period. £850 [131221] 103 (NEWTON, Isaac.) ALGAROTTI, Francesco. Il Newtonianismo per le dame ovvero dialoghi sopra la luce e i colori. Naples [but Venice: no printer], 1737 Quarto (214 × 150 mm). Contemporary vellum, spine lettered in gilt, mar- bled edges. Engraved frontispiece by Marco Alvise Pitteri after a drawing by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta bound in facing p. 1. Small strip of vellum broken away on front joint, small puncture to spine, else a crisp, clean copy. first edition of the Italian polymath’s enormously successful work, here in a well-preserved contemporary vellum binding , ar- guably the most famous example of a Newtonian text aimed at a female readership and “a landmark in the popularisation of Newto- nian philosophy” (Mazzotti, p. 119). In this important contribution to the emerging literary genre fo- cused on introducing women to traditionally male-gendered scien- tific disciplines, Count Francesco Algarotti (1712–1764) presents an elegant set of six dialogues which introduce the fictitious listener, an Italian marchesa, to the basics of Newton’s Opticks , and converts her from the influence of “Cartesian Phantoms” to Newtonianism. Algarotti’s adoption of non-technical language in particular distin- guishes it from the plurality of popular Newtoniana, as does his positive references to a contemporary female scientist. Rebecca Messbarger has pointed out that the verse which prompts the dis- cussion of science pays homage to Laura Bassi, professor of philos- ophy and physics at the University of Bologna internationally rec- ognised for her expertise in Newtonian optics. Algarotti, who had studied experimental physics with Bassi, was present in 1732 when Bassi became the first woman awarded a degree by the University. Despite its immediate popularity, some of Algarotti’s contempo- raries, notably the mathematician Émilie Du Châtelet—herself a translator of Newton’s Principia —dismissed the work as frivolous, ridiculing it as fashionable rather than a work of serious merit.
Modern critics are also divided as to how far it actually promotes a view of women as interested in the latest scientific theories, due to the Marchesa’s passivity and stated inability to grasp the more com- plex theories. Nevertheless, it achieved widespread acclaim across Europe and went through a great many revisions and translations. It also achieved notoriety: it is the only popularization of Newto- nianism to be listed in the Index librorum prohibitorum , also in 1739, banned by the Holy Office for its perceived radical political mes- sages latent promotion of Lockean philosophy, which the Church decreed to have subversive religious and political implications. See Mazzotti, Massimo, “Newton for Ladies: Gentility, Gender and Radical Cul- ture”, The British Journal for the History of Science , 37:2, 2004, pp. 119–46; Messbarger, Rebecca, The Century of Women: Representations of Women in 18th-century Italian Public Discourse , University of Toronto Press, 2002. £4,500 [126501]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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