Beschreibung:

REGIOMONTANUS (Johannes MÜLLER 1436-76) and Georgius PURBACHIUS (1423-61). Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolemaei . Edited by Caspar Grosch and Stephan Römer. Venice: Johannes Hamman for the editors, 31 August 1496. First edition and the first appearance in print of Ptolemy's Almagest in any form. The Almagest , or Mathematical syntaxis , was the chief astronomical work from its composition in the 2nd century A.D. until the end of the 16th century. It was largely known in the Western Middle Ages through the 12th-century Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona, but neither Gerard's version nor the original Greek were printed until 1515 and 1538, respectively. Cardinal Bessarion, then papal legate to the Holy Roman Empire, persuaded the Austrian astronomer Georg Peurbach to compose this epitome of Ptolemy's great work as part of his publishing programme to promote anew the writings of ancient Greek authors in the Latin West. Peurbach died in 1461, only one year after beginning work on the Epitome and after completing book VI; his friend and colleague Regiomontanus took over the work, dedicating the completed manuscript (which survives at the Institut de France) to Bessarion before 28 April 1463. The work was inexplicably not published until 1496, although, as a surviving printed advertisement makes clear (H *13807), Regiomontanus had intended to publish it himself at his short-lived Nuremberg press (active 1473-1475). Valuable as making Ptolemy's Almagest accessible to Renaissance astronomers, the Peurbach-Regiomontanus Epitome is also important for the 'observations, revised computations, and critical reflections' made by its compilers. This edition was almost certainly the text which provided Copernicus with his knowledge of the Ptolemaic system, since he had largely completed writing De revolutionibus before publication of the next edition in 1515 (Gingerich, Eye of Heaven p.164). One of Peurbach-Regiomontanus's corrections sparked Copernicus to question the Ptolemaic system, which had formed the basis of astronomy for more than one millennium, and to 'lay the foundations of modern astronomy with his revolutionary heliocentric system' (DSB 11, p.349). A tall, fresh copy. HC *13806; BMC V, 427; CIBN R-60; BSB-Ink R-67; Bod-inc R-040; IGI 5326; Klebs 841.1; Essling 895; Sander 6399; Stillwell Science , 103; Dibner Heralds 1; Grolier/Horblit 89; Norman 1565; Schäfer/Arnim 192; PMM 40; Goff R-111. Super-chancery folio (314 x 218mm). Gothic and some Greek types. 108 leaves, with final blank (without the bifolium containing Johannes Baptista Abiosus's letter dated 15 August 1496, inserted in a minority of copies between a1 and 2). Xylographic title, full-page woodcut of an armillary sphere with Ptolemy and Regiomontanus studying below, 279 woodcut marginal diagrams (including repeats), an additional diagram added and one annotated by an early reader on fo. f2 , woodcut ornamental initials in several sizes, printer's device (Kristeller 231). (Small marginal wormtrack or wormhole just touching a few letters from quire g to end, light marginal dampstain in quires l, n-p.) 16th-century Italian vellum over flexible boards reusing a leaf from a 13th-century Italian manuscript glossed copy of Justinian's Digest , remains of 4 ties (rubbed, a little loss at spine). Provenance : inscription dated 1601 recording a debt on rear flyleaf – 20th-century shelflabel on front pastedown.