FIRMIN DE BEAUVAL (BELLEVAL).

Very rare and early work on astrology, meteorology and weather forecasting Firmini repertorium de mutatione aeris, tam via astrologica, quam metheorologica, pristino nitori restitutum, per Philippum Iollainum Blereium, cum scholiis eiusdem.

      Paris, Jacques Kerver I, 1539.. Folio (28 x 20 cm). 19th century half linen painted in red and black; spine with label lettered in gold; boards covered with marbled paper. With Kerver's printer's device with two cocks standing on either side of a little tree on a pedestal with his monogram, on the title (Silvestre 52); some nice crible woodcut initials and many astrological tables in the text. (4), 79 leaves.. Very rare first edition after the extremely rare editio princeps which was printed in 1485 by Erhard Ratdolt in Venice (BMC V, 291; H* 13393), being the earliest printed collection of astrological weather predictions. The work is anonymous, but is generally attributed to the French astrologer Firmin de Beauval from Amiens, who flourished ca. 1335-1345. It is the first edition edited by Philip Jollain of Blery who has added also his scholarly notes. The prognostication is the only of Firmin's treatises which was ever printed. In essence it is a treatise on astrological meteorology and it is one of the first meteorological works ever published . Divided into seven chapters, the book deals respectively with the nature of different parts of the sky, the stars, seasons and climates; global climate changes due to great conjunctions, eclipses and movements of the sun; similar changes due to the respective movements of the sun and the moon; particular judgments arising from the same sets of causes; and predictions concerning rain and weather forecasting in general.Although the author is indebted to the writings of Ptolemy, Pliny, Johannes Hispalensis, Albertus Magnus and many Arabic authors such as Al-Kindi, Abu Ma'shar, Ali ibn Ridwan, Abraham ben Ezra, he drew also largely on contemporary popular knowledge and oral traditions.The work is dedicated by Philippus Jollainus to Joannes Robertus, dated Paris 1539 (f. (2)r-(3)r). On f. (3)v-(4)v follow a preface and three laudatory poems to the reader by Philippus Jollainus, Joannes Darud and Carolus Albosius Haeduus. Very good large paper copy of this rare prognostication. - (Some occasional soiling). Verz. mediz. und naturwiss. Drucke, Wolfenb ., II, p. 547; Sarton, III,1, p. 657-8; Hellman, Meteorology , 16; Thorndike, III, Ch. 18 (IV, p. 549); BM STC French , p.166; NUC lists only one copy (Harvard); BN , 51, col. 1202 (wrongly attrib. to Julius Firmicius Maternus); Silvestre, Marques typogr ., 52.