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Details
BRAHE, Tycho (1546-1601) & Elias Olsen Cimber MORSING (1540-1590). Diarium astrologicum et metheorologicum anno a nato Christo 1586. Et de cometa quodam rotundo omnique cauda destituto, qui anno proxime elapso, mensibus Octobri & Novembri conspiciebatur, ex observationibus certis desumta consideratio astrologica. Uraniborg: Officina Uraniburgica, 1586.
Small 4° (186 x 146mm). Woodcut initials, woodcut diagrams, large printer’s device on verso of penultimate leaf. (Outer margin of title a little browned, very light waterstaining in a few top margins.) Modern half morocco (new endpapers).
RARE, FIRST EDITION, THE FIRST BOOK TO BE PRINTED AT TYCHO BRAHE’S PRIVATE PRESS AT URANIBORG. In 1576 King Frederick II offered to fund an observatory for Tycho Brahe, which was built on the little island of Hven near Copenhagen. The observatory, Uraniburg, became the finest observatory in Europe. The first part of this work was written by Brahe’s assistant Elias Morsing but ‘De cometa seu stella crinite rotunda’ was written by Brahe. Brahe’s contributions to astronomy are enormous: ‘He not only designed and built instruments, he also calibrated them and checked their accuracy periodically. He thus revolutionized astronomical instrumentation. He also changed observational practice profoundly. Whereas earlier astronomers had been content to observe the positions of planets and the Moon at certain important points of their orbits… Tycho and his casts of assistants observed these bodies throughout their orbits. As a result, a number of orbital anomalies never before noticed were made explicit by Tycho. Without these complete series of observations of unprecedented accuracy, Kepler could not have discovered that planets move in elliptical orbits. Tycho was the first astronomer to make corrections for atmospheric refraction… Tycho’s observations of the new star of 1572 and comet of 1577, and his publications on this phenomena, were instrumental in establishing the fact that these bodies were above the Moon and that therefore heavens were not immutable as Aristotle had argued and philosophers still believed… the Aristotelian division between the heavenly and earthly regions came under attack and was eventually dropped. Further, if the comets were in the heavens, they moved through the heavens. Up to now it had been believed that planets were carried on material spheres… that fit tightly around each other. Tycho’s observations showed that this arrangement was impossible because comets moved through these spheres. Celestial spheres faded out of existence between 1575 and 1625’ (The Galileo Project). VERY RARE ON THE MARKET: RBH records only one copy sold in 1950, no record on ABPC. Not in Houzeau and Lancaster or Wellcome but on Wellcome online.
Small 4° (186 x 146mm). Woodcut initials, woodcut diagrams, large printer’s device on verso of penultimate leaf. (Outer margin of title a little browned, very light waterstaining in a few top margins.) Modern half morocco (new endpapers).
RARE, FIRST EDITION, THE FIRST BOOK TO BE PRINTED AT TYCHO BRAHE’S PRIVATE PRESS AT URANIBORG. In 1576 King Frederick II offered to fund an observatory for Tycho Brahe, which was built on the little island of Hven near Copenhagen. The observatory, Uraniburg, became the finest observatory in Europe. The first part of this work was written by Brahe’s assistant Elias Morsing but ‘De cometa seu stella crinite rotunda’ was written by Brahe. Brahe’s contributions to astronomy are enormous: ‘He not only designed and built instruments, he also calibrated them and checked their accuracy periodically. He thus revolutionized astronomical instrumentation. He also changed observational practice profoundly. Whereas earlier astronomers had been content to observe the positions of planets and the Moon at certain important points of their orbits… Tycho and his casts of assistants observed these bodies throughout their orbits. As a result, a number of orbital anomalies never before noticed were made explicit by Tycho. Without these complete series of observations of unprecedented accuracy, Kepler could not have discovered that planets move in elliptical orbits. Tycho was the first astronomer to make corrections for atmospheric refraction… Tycho’s observations of the new star of 1572 and comet of 1577, and his publications on this phenomena, were instrumental in establishing the fact that these bodies were above the Moon and that therefore heavens were not immutable as Aristotle had argued and philosophers still believed… the Aristotelian division between the heavenly and earthly regions came under attack and was eventually dropped. Further, if the comets were in the heavens, they moved through the heavens. Up to now it had been believed that planets were carried on material spheres… that fit tightly around each other. Tycho’s observations showed that this arrangement was impossible because comets moved through these spheres. Celestial spheres faded out of existence between 1575 and 1625’ (The Galileo Project). VERY RARE ON THE MARKET: RBH records only one copy sold in 1950, no record on ABPC. Not in Houzeau and Lancaster or Wellcome but on Wellcome online.
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