CassiniG. D., “Extrait d'une lettre de M. Cassini professeur d'Astronomie dans l'université de Boulogne, à M Petit Intendant des Fortifications. Touchant la découverte qu'il a faite du mouvement de la Planète de Vénus à l'entour de son axe. Du 18 Juin 1667”, Journal des sçavans, pour l'année 1667 (Amsterdam, 1685 reprint), 251–9, p. 259; (Paris, 1729 reprint), 122–5, p. 125.
2.
TatonRené“The Cassinis”, Dictionary of scientific biography, iii (New York, 1971), 100–4. On the history of Paris Observatory, see WolfCharles, Histoire de l'observatoire de Paris … (Paris, 1902); and Observatoire de Paris: Son histoire (1667–1963), 2nd edn (Paris, 1990).
3.
BianchiniFrancesco, Hesperi et phosphori nova phaenomena sive observationes circa planetam Veneris (Rome, 1728), Chap. V, Sections i-iii.
4.
CassiniG. D., “An extract of a letter written by Signor Cassini professor of astronomy in Bologna, to Monsieur Petit at Paris, and Englished out of the Journal des Sçavans, concerning several spots lately discover'd there in the planet Venus”, Philosophical transactions, ii (1668), 615–17, p. 617.
5.
ChandlerS. C., “Historical note on the rotation of Venus and Mercury”, Popular astronomy, iv (1897), 393–7, p. 393.
6.
GoldsteinJeffrey J., Absolute wind measurements in the lower thermosphere of Venus using infrared heterodyne spectroscopy (NASA Contractor report 4290; Washington, D.C., 1990), Appendix 3, 343–58, p. 344.
7.
See for example, HindJ. R., The solar system (London, 1852), 24; ChambersGeorge F., A handbook of descriptive astronomy (3 vols, Oxford, 1889–90), i, 98; WebbT. W., Celestial objects for common telescopes, 4th edn (London, 1881), 54; ClerkeAgnes M., A popular history of astronomy during the nineteenth century (Edinburgh, 1885), 297. SchiaparelliG. V. took the opposite view, and credited Cassini with a rotation of 23 days, which suggests he worked directly from the French, but misconstrued Cassini's meaning. See DreyerJ. L. E., “Schiaparelli's researches on the rotation of Venus and Mercury”, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, li (1891), 246–9, p. 246.
8.
CassiniJacques, Elemens d'astronomie (Paris, 1740), Bk VII, Chap. I, 511–27, p. 525.
