'Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage.' In Bibliothèque universelle de Genève. Nouvelle série 41 (Paris: 1842): pp.352-376.

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[BABBAGE, Charles (1791-1871)] – Luigi Federico MENABREA (1809-1896)

'Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage.' In Bibliothèque universelle de Genève. Nouvelle série 41 (Paris: 1842): pp.352-376.

Price realised GBP 10,000

Details More from

[BABBAGE, Charles (1791-1871)] – Luigi Federico MENABREA (1809-1896)
'Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage.' In Bibliothèque universelle de Genève. Nouvelle série 41 (Paris: 1842): pp.352-376.
First edition, journal issue, of the first published account of Babbage's Analytical Engine and the first computer programs ever published. In 1840 Babbage travelled to Turin to make a presentation on the Engine to a group of Italian scientists. Babbage's talk, complete with charts, drawings, models, and mechanical notations, emphasized the Engine's signal feature: its ability to guide its own operations. In attendance at Babbage's lecture was the young Italian mathematician Luigi Federico Menabrea (later prime minister of Italy), who prepared from his notes an account of the principles of the Analytical Engine. He published his paper, the present lot, in French in a Swiss journal two years after Babbage's presentation. The paper must have provided some consolation to Babbage, who was refused government funding for the construction of the machine shortly after its publication.

Menabrea's twenty-three-page paper and its expanded English translation by Ada, Countess of Lovelace in the following year were the only detailed publications on the Analytical Engine before Babbage's account in his autobiography (1864). Shortly after inventing the machine Babbage wrote a manuscript On the Mathematical Powers of the Calculating Engine (1837) which was not published until about 1970. Menabrea himself wrote only two other very brief articles about the Analytical Engine in 1855. They primarily concerned his surprise and fascination in learning that Ada, Countess of Lovelace was the translator of his paper. Origins of Cyberspace 60.

Octavo (201 x 128mm). Half-title, folding table, several tables in the text (a few faint spots). Contemporary quarter-calf over marbled boards. Provenance: École régimentaire de Besançon (stamp).

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