Thomas Digges, 1592

DIGGES, Leonard (c.1515-c.1559) and DIGGES, Thomas (1546-1595), editor. A Prognostication everlasting of ryght good effecte. [London: Thomas Orwin, 1592.]

One of the earliest representations of the Copernican system in English: "A Perfit Description of the Celestiall Orbes" (caption title of the appendix). The Horblit copy. Thomas Digges, the son of the mathematician Leonard Digges, was a student of John Dee and the first to publish the heliocentric system in English. This honor had long been attributed to the Italian polymath Giordano Bruno when he visited England between 1583 and 1585. However, Thomas Digges published this 19-page paraphrase and woodcut illustration from De revolutionibus in his 1576 edition of the Prognostication as an appendix to his father's work which still offered the Ptolemaic view. Owen Gingerich traced Digges's copy of the second edition Copernicus to Geneva (II.207), in which Digges wrote: "Vulgo opinio error" (the common opinion is an error). Gingerich also identifies the translated portions as book one, chapters 7 to 10. All 16th-century editions are incredibly rare. See Seymour Chapin, Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473-1973. His Revolutions and His Revolution. Lehigh University, 1973, no. 28 (1576 edition; the woodcut used as the cover illustration).

Quarto (176 x 131mm). Woodcut of zodiacal man on title, woodcut folding illustration of the Copernican system following f.44, other woodcuts and diagrams in text including the Ptolemaic system and some folding (lacking quire H in Leonard's text, a few leaves trimmed with small losses at outer edge or lower edge). Disbound (still sewn, but with a quire detached); custom chemise and quarter morocco case. Provenance: Harrison D. Horblit (bookplate on chemise; his sale, Sotheby's New York, 9 April 1980, lot 123).