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Della inalveazione de fiumi del Bolognese, e della Romagna”

"4to (27.5 x 21 cm), contemporary vellum, a good clean copy (just a spot in the margin of p. 51), pp. xv (1 blank), 430, (2 blanks), 40 beautifully illustrated with 7 giant (multiple times) engraved folding plates (1st: 41x74.5cm; 2nd: 50x80 cm; 3th: 41x148 cm; 4th: 38x148 cm; 5th : 38.5x194 cm; pl. 6th : 39x186 cm; 7th: 38x56 cm, irregularly bound in order), and 2 large folding printed tables. Of the 7 engraved plates, 2 are maps (of the Po area from Modena to the Adriatic sea), and 5 are depicting sections and profiles of the course of Po di Primaro river. First and only edition. This work is an important step in a very debated issue among scholars of hydraulics at that time: in particular, the aim was to deal with the progressive burial of two branches of the Po delta (Primaro and Volano) caused by solid debris coming down from the Apennine small rivers, reversing in Reno River and Po. If the solution of proceeding to the excavation of a canal that collected the waters of the Apennine tributaries of the Reno river and conveyed them to the Primaro could be generally accepted by most of the scholars, it was not so easy to establish the route of the canalization. The most talented and known scholars of hydraulics of the time measured themselves on this issue: from Tommaso Perelli, whose proposals were decidedly contested by F., to Leonardo Ximenes. The author in 1760, resumed, correcting it, a project by the Ferrara mathematician Romoaldo Bertaglia and made the proposal to draw a channel sufficiently upstream (in their debate, called the Linea Superiore so the "upper line") and then to make it flow into the Primaro near the sea, avoiding the use of the so-called "Benedictine channel" (already excavated in 1740), considered by him as useless. This first public release, although cautiously anonymous, caused much bitterness to Fantoni. In the first place, the authorship of the project was bitterly contested by the mathematician father Domenico Sante Santini who claimed the merit of having first proposed a variant of Bertaglia's "upper line", placed in an intermediate position with respect to Fantoni and Bertaglia himself. Secondly, authoritative Bolognese figures such as Gabriele Manfredi, who had already disagreed with Bertaglia's proposal, Eustachio Zanotti, lacopo Mariscotti, Antonio Montanari and Paolo Frisi, the latter of his own project ("Piano di lavoro da farsi per liberare e assicurare dalle acque le provincie di Bologna, Ferrara e di Ravenna ", Lucca 1761). They interpreted in various ways the fears of the people living in the nearby Romagna to be invaded by the waters of the Primaro, if the canalization had been channeled into this. Particularly against Fantoni, to the point of sounding morally offensive, was the "memory" presented by father Leonardo Ximenes on 7 Sept. 1764 to the Sacra congregazione delle Acque (the authority created by the papal government to deal about such matters); It provoked a polemical response from F. ("Saggio de fatti insussistenti.", meaning, essay about non-existent facts .) which, in turn, the Ximenes opposed, with as much controversy, his ironic Scusa dell'Autore delle Memorie idrometriche (Apology of the Author of the Hydrometric Memories .) The Sacra congregazione delle Acque, while expressing appreciation for Fantoni's thesis, in his resolution of March 1765 did not pronounce himself in favor of his full acceptance, provoking his disappointed reaction, so the present work "Della inalveazione de 'fiumi del Bolognese e della Romagna. .," where he offered a meticulous reconstruction of the story and passionately defended both his positions and his good faith. Riccardi, Biblioteca Matematica italiana Vol. I/1st p., col. 446. (described like our copy, 7 plates + 2 tables)."