Meteors.- Troili (Domenico)

Della caduta di un sasso dall'aria ragionamento…, FIRST EDITION, woodcut device to title, G1 chipped, light age yellowing, occasional light spotting, signature of (Comte) Ignazio Stoffi from Modena, contemporary paper boards, 4to, Heirs of Bartolomeo Soliani, 1766.

*** First work entirely dedicated to the falling of a meteorite written in Italian, and the second at all regarding this subject. The Jesuit father Troili is recognised as the first person who documented the fall of a meteorite in 1766 at Albareto. His work blends eyewitness reports as well as a specimen of the stone. Troili described his single specimen of Albareto as, “Very heavy, magnetic and partially covered by a dark crust that appeared to have been burned by fire”. Further it “looked like sandstone with shiny particles of metallic iron and bronzy grains”.