Descrizione

Large 8vo. XIV, 138 pp. With 2 folding lithographed plates. Contemporary marbled boards with giltstamped label to spine. First edition of the first German monograph on gas lighting; preceded only by Lampadius's translation of Accum's "Practical Treatise on Gaslight". J. J. Prechtl (1778-1854) initiated the foundation of the Vienna Polytechnical Institute in 1815, the first educational institute of its kind in the German-speaking countries, and served as its first director. The institute became a decisive force in the industrialization of Austria. In the autumn of 1815, Prechtl and the engineering professor Johann Arzberger developed a lighting apparatus based on coal gas, thus becoming a pioneer of continental gas lighting. He introduced the system at his Polytechnical Institute in 1817. - The plates are lithographed by the trained engraver Ignaz Kühn, later to become director of the Vienna Lithographic Institute (cf. Schwarz, 43); in 1817, when Senefelder left Vienna, he became Friedrich Kunike's principal assistant (cf. Thieme/B. XXII, 58). He took his life in 1822. - One corner slightly bumped; otherwise a good, clean copy. - Poggendorff II, 519. Feldhaus 357. Ferchl 423. Engelmann (Bibl. mech.-tech.) 291. Not in Winkler.