Antiquariat Jürgen Dinter

Theodosius Tripolita

De Sphaericis … — Vienna 1529

De Sphaericis libri tres, a Ioannes Voegelin […] restituti, & scholijs non improbandis illustrati. 

Vienna, Johannes Singrenius, 18 March 1529.

 

First separate edition. 4to (199 x 136 mm). A-N4: (52) leaves.

Zinner 1399; Hoffmann III 507; not in Adams. Modern blind-stamped calf in slipcase.

The woodcut on title shows the translator presenting his book to Archduke Ferdinand, King of Bohemia.

Theodosius’s text was written during the 1st century BC; the author was a mathematician and astronomer living in Tripoli on the Fenicia coast. In his De Sphaericis Theodosius gave a logically structured explanation to properties of circles and arcs lying on the surface of a sphere, arranging a series of propositions which became the theoretical foundation of astronomy.

Rare.