Lot 527

Lansberghe (Philip van) Tabulae Motuum Coelestium Perpetuae, first edition Middelberg, Zacharias Roman, [Leiden, Willem Christiaens van der Boxe], 1632.

 

Estimate: £2,000 - 3,000

Description

Lansberghe (Philip van) Tabulae Motuum Coelestium Perpetuae, first edition, engraved allegorical title, engraved portrait excised (from *7, which is lacking) and laid-down to front pastedown, folding table, woodcut head-, tail-pieces and initials, woodcut illustrations, contemporary ink ownership inscription to title crossed out, date remaining, later ink inscriptions to front pastedown, light damp-stain at gutter and lower margin to first few gatherings, occasional light spotting, lacking front endpaper, contemporary vellum, slightly soiled, [Brunet III, col. 825; Graesse IV, p. 101; Houzeau & Lancaster 12758], folio, Middelberg, Zacharias Roman [Leiden, Willem Christiaens van der Boxe], 1632.

Lansberge (1561-1632) was a staunch Copernican, and complained of ecclesiastical opposition to the heliocentric hypothesis of the solar system on theological grounds alone, without examination of the evidence and the scientific arguments in support of this model. He could not, however, accept Johannes Kepler's elliptical orbits, upon which Kepler had based his own Rudolphine Tables published five years earlier. Lansberge produced these rival tables which were founded on a more traditional epicyclic theory; being simpler than Kepler's, they were at first popular and widely used throughout the 1630s, but eventually began to fall from favour as they proved to be less accurate than Kepler's.

Description

Lansberghe (Philip van) Tabulae Motuum Coelestium Perpetuae, first edition, engraved allegorical title, engraved portrait excised (from *7, which is lacking) and laid-down to front pastedown, folding table, woodcut head-, tail-pieces and initials, woodcut illustrations, contemporary ink ownership inscription to title crossed out, date remaining, later ink inscriptions to front pastedown, light damp-stain at gutter and lower margin to first few gatherings, occasional light spotting, lacking front endpaper, contemporary vellum, slightly soiled, [Brunet III, col. 825; Graesse IV, p. 101; Houzeau & Lancaster 12758], folio, Middelberg, Zacharias Roman [Leiden, Willem Christiaens van der Boxe], 1632.

Lansberge (1561-1632) was a staunch Copernican, and complained of ecclesiastical opposition to the heliocentric hypothesis of the solar system on theological grounds alone, without examination of the evidence and the scientific arguments in support of this model. He could not, however, accept Johannes Kepler's elliptical orbits, upon which Kepler had based his own Rudolphine Tables published five years earlier. Lansberge produced these rival tables which were founded on a more traditional epicyclic theory; being simpler than Kepler's, they were at first popular and widely used throughout the 1630s, but eventually began to fall from favour as they proved to be less accurate than Kepler's.

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