1490 SACROBOSCO Sphaera MEDIEVAL ASTRONOMY TEXTBOOK Ptolemy * INCUNABLE woodcuts

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[Early Printing - Incunabula - Venice] [Early Woodcut Book Illustrations - Scientific Illustrations] [History of Science - Middle Ages] [Astronomy - Ptolemaic][Printed in Venice by Bonetus Locatellus for Octavianus Scotus, 4 Oct. 1490.]Text in Latin. Illustrated with NUMEROUS FINE ASTRONOMICAL WOODCUTS, including a full-page woodcut of an armillary sphere held by a hand emerging from clouds, a large circular diagram of Ptolemaic view of the Universe, etc.Offered here is a fine, substantial fragment of this rare, richly illustrated scientific incunabulum . Our fragment (comprising 16 leaves, i.e. 32 pages) contains most of the text of Sacrobosco's Sphaera (save for 4 leaves) ; also lacking here are the companion texts by Peurbach and Regiomontanus, and the first leaf ("frontispiece") with a full-page woodcut on verso.THE FAMOUS SPHAERA OF SACROBOSCO, THE MOST POPULAR MEDIEVAL TEXT-BOOK ON ASTRONOMY, was written by Joannes de Sacrobosco or John of Holywood, a 13th-century monk of English origin and a professor of Astronomy at the University of Paris. The Libellus de Sphaera (or "De Sphaera Mundi"), composed c. 1230, presents a clear, basic account of the spherical geometry underpinning the mathematical astronomy of Ptolemy and his Arabic commentators. It was a fundamental text on astronomy that enjoyed wide circulation from its origin in the 13th century up to the 18th. It was taught in all the schools of Europe and went through 35 editions in the incunable period alone.Sacrobosco was the first scholar to use Arabic sources, making the Arabic astronomical knowledge available to the Western world. The work was written so clearly that it needed little or no explanation, which caused it to rapidly achieved great popularity, and became quite generally adopted as the fundamental astronomy text at all universities of medieval Europe . Manuscripts of it circulated in all the main European centers of learning. The editio princeps of this work published in 1472 at Ferrara was the first astronomical book to be printed. De Sphaera continued to be reprinted and commented upon even into the seventeenth century, thus exercising a great influence on the science of astronomy for many centuries .Sacrobosco's Sphaera consists of four chapters. "Chapter one defines a sphere, explains its divisions, including the four elements, and also comments on the heavens and their movements. The revolutions of the heavens are from east to west and their shape is spherical. The earth is a sphere, acting as the middle (or center) of the firmament; it is a mere point in relation to the total firmament and is immobile. Its measurements are also included. Chapter two treats the various circles and their names- the celestial circle, the equinoctial, the movement of the primum mobile with its two parts, the north and south poles, the zodiac, the ecliptic, the colures, the meridian and the horizon, and the Arctic and Antarctic circles. It closes with an explanation of the five zones. Chapter three explains the cosmic, chronic, and heliacal risings and settings of the signs and also their right and oblique ascensions. Explanations are furnished for the variations in the length of days in different global zones namely the equator, and in zones extending from the equator to the two poles. A discussion of the seven climes ends the chapter. The movement of the sun and other planets and the causes of lunar and solar eclipses form the brief fourth chapter ." (DSB)The place of birth of Joannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195 - c. 1256) is a subject of much debate: as the Latinized name de Sacrobosco appears to be a translation of the English name Holywood or Holybush, many say that Holywood (now Halifax), in Yorkshire, was his birthplace; others give it as Holywood near Dublin, and others again claim that he came from Nithsdale in Scotland. He studied at Oxford, but soon came to France, where, as a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas, he proved himself an efficient teacher of mathematics and astronomy. As many were deterred from under... read more

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