Milestones of Science Books

APIAN, Peter [APIANUS, Petrus].

Instrumentum primi mobilis nunc primum et inventum et in lucem editum ... Accedunt ijs Gebri filii Affla Hispalensis astronomi ... libri IX, de Astronomia, ante aliquot secula Arabice scripti, & per Girardu Cremonensem latinitate donati, nunc uero omniu primum in lucem editi.

Nürnberg: Johannes Petreius, 1534.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003872

Folio (304 x 205 mm). [80], 146, [2] pp. Title printed in red and black and with large woodcut depicting two astronomers by Brosamer after Dürer; full-page woodcut coat of arms on a2r; final blank ss6; numerous woodcut diagrams in text; woodcut initials. Signatures: a-k4 aa-rr4, ss6. Recased in later (red, re-used) boards and old vellum laid down, spine with hand-lettering in bold ink, new endpapers (soiling and wrinkling of vellum, book block somewhat smaller in size). Light even browning of text, occasional minor worming to margins and textblock (stronger to first gathering including title). Clean tear to lower corner of rr2. Provenance: Johannes Beusler* (inscription on title). Despite the worming a very good, well margined copy. Collated and complete. ----

FIRST EDITION. Apianus' work marked a major advance in trigonometry: "In this volume Apian published a table of sines that, for the first time, was based on a circle with a radius of a power of ten, in this case one hundred thousand. The values of the functions were thus decimal and were easily adapted to any situation in which the defining circle was a decimal power" (Tomash & Williams).
The book also contains the first European printing of the Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona of Geber's (Jabir ibn Aflah's) De Astronomia, a reworking by Maimonides and Yusuf ibn 'Aqnin of Ptolemy's Almagest, but differing in the positioning of Venus and Mercury in relation to the sun; Geber contradicting Ptolemy by placing them above. The influence of this work was considerable in the West, through Gerard's translation, and particularly in its trigonometrical aspect: indeed Regiomontanus went so far as to plagiarize it in his De triangulis, published in 1533.
The general title contains a large woodcut: the figure at right representing ancient astronomy with a celestial globe, the one at left modern astronomy holding an instrument described in the book.
*Johannes Beusler (1498-1581) was a German jurist who worked as an advocate at the Imperial Chamber Court, as prince-bishop Speyrer chancellor, as Electorate of Mainz land writer, court assessor, and as a professor of history at the University of Mainz. Between 1535 and 1539, Beusler, a baccalauréat in law, acquired the academic degree of Magister, and between 1545 and 1550, he acquired the degrees of Doctor of Arts and of Canon Law. He eventually referred to himself as "Ioannes Beuslerus, S. ll. D." or as "Artium & S. LL. Doctor" (see his inscription in our copy). Although he was in the service of two old-believing bishops, Beusler sympathized with the Reformation movement and generously supported a Protestant school. Beusler was a book collector and patron. Already during his lifetime, he donated his extensive collection of 1925 books the Reformiertes Gymnasium Kreuznach (Reformed Grammar School Kreuznach), founded in 1567 by Elector Friedrich III of the Palatinate (1515-1576) and Margrave Philipp II of Baden (Wikisource).
References & Bibliography: Tomash & Williams A84, Stillwell (Science) 21; Sarton II, p. 206; VD16 A3087, J8; Honeyman 114; DSB I, p.179. - Visit our website to see more images!

Price: 14,500 €  *  convert currency