COPERNICUS, Nicolaus (1473-1543). De lateribus et angulis triangulorum, tum planorum rectilineorum tum Sphaericorum, libellus eruditissimus & utilissimus... Additus est Canon semissium subtensarum rectarum linearum in Circulo. Wittenberg: Johann Lufft, 1542.

The very rare first edition of Copernicus's first scientific publication, containing the first appearance of any part of De revolutionibus. Only three other copies have sold at auction in the past 40 years (RBH). Apart from Copernicus' translation of Greek verses by Theophylact Simocatta into Latin prose, which was published in Cracow in 1509, this is the only work published by Copernicus before the death-bed publication of De revolutionibus. It comprises the section on plane and spherical trigonometry which appeared in that work and contains the first publication of Rheticus' trigonometric tables. The book was seen through the press by Rheticus, and includes his preface addressed to Georg Hartmann (1489-1545), the geographer and mathematician in Nuremberg. Rheticus himself added the table of half-chords subtended in a circle, which became the first table to give the cosine directly. Adams C-2601; Stillwell Science 160.

Small quarto (200 x 161mm). Title-page within woodcut border, woodcut diagrams in the text (title with light soiling, small erasure/restoration in blank area, very faint dampstain in the top margin of the last two gatherings, sometimes reaching into the text). Bound later in an early manuscript leaf over pasteboard (spine neatly repaired, endpapers renewed, fore-edge of the lower board with an early repair in vellum). Modern blue quarter morocco clamshell case. Provenance: Christie's New York, 4 December 2018, lot 4.