Shown here is the most famous plate from Otto von Guericke’s Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) magdeburgica de vacuo spatio… of 1672, describing the experiments in which he produced an air pump able to create a vacuum and thus demonstrate the pressure exerted by our atmosphere.
A first account had been published 15 years earlier by Caspar Schott, but this is von Guericke’s first full description of his Magdeburg experiments and inventions.
The work is illustrated with a portrait, two folding engraved plates and 20 further illustrations in the text, seven of them full-page – all of which were present in a copy in a period vellum binding offered on April 1 in Zurich by Koller (25/20/15% buyer’s premium).