Petrus Apianus, 1534

APIANUS, Petrus (1495–1552). Instrumentum primi mobilis. – GEBER (JABIR IBN AFLAN) (1100–1150). De astronomia. Nuremberg: Johann Petri, 1534.

First edition, featuring the first printing of Geber’s criticism of Ptolemy. Among Apian’s many inventions, his Instrument of the first mobile was a vital contribution to Early Modern astronomy and is described in detail in the present edition. “In this volume Apian published a table of sines that, for the first time, was based on a circle with a radius of a power of ten, in this case one hundred thousand” (Williams & Tomash).

The treatise includes the first printing of Jabir ibn Aflan’s De astronomia. Jabir, know in Latin as Geber, is renowned for his intervention into Ptolemy’s Almagest, correcting the positions of Venus and Mercury. His work, also known as Iṣlāḥ al-Majisṭi (Correction of the Almagest), was the first criticism of the Almagest in the Islamic West. It was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona and first appeared in print in this edition. Williams & Tomash, “The Sector: Its History, Scales and Uses”, Annals of the History of Computing 25.1 (2003), 34–47). Calvo, “Jabir ibn Aflah”, in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Hockey et al. (2007).

Folio (312 × 202mm). Title-page in red and black, full-page armorial woodcut, 9-page Tabula Sinuum, geometric woodcuts throughout (tiny wormtrail on lower margin, a few spots, title a little soiled). Contemporary blindstamped calf (rebacked with later endpapers, repairs at corners). Provenance: College of St. John the Evangelist, Coimbra (16/17th-century inscriptions in Portuguese on title-page, 2c2 and 2d3) – Owen Gingerich (bookplate).