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

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

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

Kaluga: by the author, 1914. First edition, very rare, published by the author at his own expense, of the first separately-printed scientific work on space rockets, preceding by five years the first publication on rockets by Robert Goddard. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) began research into rocket propulsion and the theoretical and practical..... More
Item #4700