SACROBOSCO, Johannes de.

Opus sphericum magistri Joannis de Sacro Busco natione angli figuris verissime exculptis et interpretatione familiari ad comoditatem desiderantium iucundissima Artis Astronomice callere principia pulcherrime et iterata recognitione illustratum.

      Heavily annotated copy of one of the early Cologne (Quentell) editions Cologne, Sons of Henricus Quentell, January 1505. 4to. Modern boards. With a six-line woodcut initial on title comprising a teacher with his pupil, full-page woodcut of a armillary globe held by angels above and below, with the zodiac and a small view of a walled small town in centre on the verso of the title, and 27 large half-page astronomical and cosmological woodcuts in text, 2 other 6-line woodcut initials. (38) lvs. (last blank present; collation: A6, B-C4, D6, E-F4, G6, H4). Rare fourth Quentell edition printed in Cologne, edited and together with the extensive comments by Wenceslaus Fabri of Budweiss (1455-1518), a medieval Czech astronomer, mainly known as the author of almanacs. After a university career in Leipzig he returned to his native town, now Ceské Budejovice, where he is considered one of the most distinguished medieval intellectual personages.The first edition of Sacrobosco's text as edited by Fabri of Budweiss was printed by Henricus Quentell in 1500 (HC 14124), followed by editions by the same publisher in 1501 (37 ff.; VD16, J-708), 1503 (45 pp.; VD16, J-709); again 1503 (37 ff.; VD16, J-710), and 1505 (our copy), and followed by an edition in 1508 (38 ff.; VD16, J-713). It seems likely that most editions were page-for-page reprints of the first 1500 edition. The editio princeps of De Sphaera appeared in Ferrara in 1472.Our copy is dated in the colophon: "Anno supra Jubileum Magnum Quinto ad finem Januarij", five years after the Great Jubilee (of 1500). On f. G2v is a printed table of the latitudes of the main places on earth: 'Tabula Climatum rectificata 1491. Of special interest is that our copy is heavily annotated in a tiny contemporary scholarly hand in Latin and in brown ink, all around the title, interlinear and in the margins. Reliable information about the life of Johannes de Sacrobosco (d. ca. 1256) is scarce, and standard sources such as the Dictionary of Scientific Biography have unfortunately included as fact material deriving from the speculations and inventions of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century antiquarians. On the basis of a statement made in 1271 by his commentator Robertus Anglicus, he is believed to have been of English origin; his name is frequently anglicised as John of Holywood. At some time in the earlier part of the thirteenth century he arrived in Paris. It is presumed that at some point he was enrolled as a regent master lecturing on mathematics and astronomy. Sacrobosco's importance in the history of astronomy stems from his authorship of some of the most popular and enduring textbooks of the middle ages, the most famous of his works, De Sphaera, a basic account of the spherical geometry underpinning the mathematical astronomy of Ptolemy and his Arabic commentators. It was composed c. 1230 and rapidly achieved popularity, and was reproduced and commented upon even into the seventeenth century. Sacrobosco was the first European scientist to use Arabic sources on astronomy. Fine copy.- (Old worm-holes, sometimes sl. affecting the text). VD16., J-712; not in Houzeau-Lancaster.