Astronomy.- Lansbergen (Phillipus van) Tabulae motuum coelestium perpetuae, first edition, 3 parts in 1, engraved title by Daniel van den Bremden after Adriaen van den Venne with allegorical representations of the astronomers Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Ptolemaeus, Alfonso, Brahe, Albategnius, Copernicus and the author, engraved portrait of the author by Willem Deff (mounted on front paste-down and slightly wormed at inner margin), folding table, woodcut illustrations, woodcut printer's device above colophon, half-title bound after engraved title, contemporary vellum, spine lettered in manuscript, a little soiled, [Brunet III, col. 825; Graesse IV, p. 101; Houzeau & Lancaster 12758], folio, Middelberg, Zacharias Romanus, 1632.

⁂ First edition of Lansbergen's important astronomical tables. Lansbergen could not, however, accept Johannes Kepler's elliptical orbits, upon which Kepler had based his own 'Rudolphine Tables' published five years earlier. Lansbergen attacked Kepler in his early works, and produced these rival tables which were founded on a more traditional epicyclic theory. Lansbergen's tables were simpler than Kepler's and were widely used by astronomers throughout the 1630s, but they eventually began to fall out of favour when they were found to be less accurate than Kepler's.