Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873. First edition, first issue, from the library of an important 19th century electrical engineer, of Maxwell’s presentation of his theory of electromagnetism, advancing ideas that would become essential for modern physics, including the landmark “hypothesis that light and electricity are the same in their ultimate nature”..... More
Item #5293
Pesaro: Girolamo Concordia, 1579. First edition, very rare, the Jones-Macclesfield copy, signed by William Jones, of the first modern theoretical treatise on the planisphere, an instrument for representing the celestial sphere on a plane surface. Guidobaldo was one of the most prominent figures in the renaissance of the mathematical sciences..... More
Item #5426
Venice: Bernardo Giunta & G.B. Ciotti, 1609. First edition, very rare, of the principal astronomical work of one of the greatest Renaissance mathematicians. “Guidobaldo was Galileo’s patron and friend for twenty years and was possibly the greatest single influence on the mechanics of Galileo” (DSB). Guidobaldo was also influential in..... More
Item #2745
London: for Benjamin Motte, 1729. First edition in English of the Principia, the magnificent Jones-Macclesfield large paper copy in contemporary morocco; with its important provenance, this is surely the most desirable copy in private hands. The first edition was published in Latin in 1687 and “is generally described as the greatest..... More
Item #5105
Palermo: Reale Stamperia, 1792. First edition, very rare, of Piazzi’s account of the Palermo Observatory, which he established, and where he made the observations that led to his discovery, on January 1, 1801, of the minor planet Ceres. Specola Astronomica includes Piazzi’s description of the astronomical instruments he had commissioned..... More
Item #3288
![In hoc opere haec co[n]tinentur: Noua translatio primi libri Geographiæ Cl. Ptolomæi Geographia...](/pictures/thumb/3080.jpg?v=1649266982)
Nuremberg: Jo. Stuchs, 1514. First edition of Werner’s “most famous work on astronomy and geography” (MacTutor), an extremely rare and highly influential work on cartography and navigation, notable for several ‘firsts’: it contains the first published direct translation of any part of Ptolemy’s Geography from the original Greek; the first..... More
Item #3080
![Kalendarium]. [Incipit:] Aureus hic liber est non est preciosior ulla Gemma kalendario quod docet...](/pictures/thumb/5633.jpg?v=1648132666)
Venice: Bernhard [Maler] Pictor, Peter Löslein and Erhard Ratdolt, 1476. Second edition, an extraordinary and absolutely complete copy, of Regiomontanus’ Calendarium, the first printed in Italy; it was first issued in Latin in 1474 from Regiomontanus’ own press at Nuremberg. Printed calendars and almanacs became extremely popular in the fifteenth..... More
Item #5633
Bologna: heirs of Vittorio Benacci, 1651. First edition of Riccioli's ‘New Almagest’, his attempt at a comprehensive non-Copernican account of the heavens that would excel in detail and accuracy all previous models and reconcile theology with observational astronomy. Divided into ten books, this work was one of the greatest productions..... More
Item #5123
Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 1482. First printing, rare, of this assembly of basic texts of pre-Copernican astronomy, an exceptional copy in an untouched contemporary binding (this book, and its several fifteenth-century reprints, are almost always found in 19th or 20th century bindings). Sacrobosco’s De sphaera mundi (editio princeps 1472) was the..... More
Item #3949
Bracciano: Andreas Phaeus, 1626-1630. First edition, extremely rare large and thick paper copy, of the most lavishly illustrated astronomical work published in the first half of the seventeenth century, with many full-page illustrations of Scheiner’s observations of the sun and of the optical instruments he had designed for the purpose..... More
Item #5198
Ingolstadt: Eder for Elisabeth Angermaria, 1614 & 1615. First edition, in a beautiful contemporary binding, of Scheiner’s very rare work containing the second earliest map of the moon – but the first to give topographical details – as well as the first illustrations of a telescope. It builds upon Scheiner’s..... More
Item #4126
![Limenheuretica [Greek], sive porluum investigandorum ratio. Metaphraste Hug. Grotio Batavo. Simon...](/pictures/thumb/5421.jpg?v=1630929750)
Leiden: Ex officina Plantiniana apud Christophorum Raphelengium. Academiae Lugduno-Batavae Typographum, 1599. First Latin edition, extremely rare, of Stevin’s highly important work on the determination of position at sea using the magnetic variation (or declination) of the compass needle, the angle between magnetic north and true north; since latitude was simply..... More
Item #5421
Oppenheim: Jakob Köbel, 1513 [colophon: 1512]. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy, of the most influential Renaissance work on astrolabes, and also the first German work on astrolabes, by leading astronomer and mathematician Johannes Stoeffler. This work, “the first book of original astronomy published in the 16th century” (mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/the-renaissance-in-astronomy/panels/3-stoeffler-astrolabe/), is..... More
Item #5236