Very rare first Latin edition of one of Sebastian Münster’s (1488-1552) earliest astronomical works, the Canones super Novum Instrumentum Luminarium, a treatise on the use of an elaborate device known as the Instrumentum Novum (‘New Instrument’). The volume instructs users how to calculate such astronomical information as the appearance of..... More

Early edition of one of the rarest 16th-century German-language instrument books on the construction of sundials. First published in 1539 and reprinted the following year, this is probably the third edition. All are very rare. Strasbourg imprints on technology are highly unusual, and in Chrisman's analytic bibliography of Strasbourg books..... More

Very rare complete first edition of the Scotsman James Bassantin’s (c. 1500-68) copiously illustrated, large-format compendium on calculating planetary positions. The Astronomique discours, which took as its forebear Peter Apian’s famous (1495-1552) Astronomicum Caesareum (1540), includes among its 175 woodcuts a total of 14 volvelles (13 of which are full..... More

Rare first edition of Thomas Digges’s Alae seu scalae (1573), the most important astronomical work published in 16th-century England and a landmark in the Copernican Revolution. Writing shortly after the surprising appearance of the famous ‘new star’ of 1572 (later known as ‘Tycho’s supernova’), Digges sets out here to examine..... More

First edition of New Theories of the Celestial Orbs Agreeing with the Observations of Copernicus, Magini's principal astronomical treatise. The work is of interest for the 16th century reception of Copernicus, whom Magini admired; and although he endorsed the unprecedented accuracy of Copernicus’ calculation of celestial movements he nevertheless publically..... More

First edition, first issue of an outstanding document in the history of science. The work grew out of the appearance of three comets in the autumn of 1618 and articulates the principal arguments of whether they were atmospheric or celestial phenomena. “In the course of his argument, Galileo distinguished physical..... More

Rare edition and a fine copy of Galgemayr's very influential text describing the construction & use of two instruments, a proportional compass and a lineal compass for the measurement of volumes and surfaces. The former, closely resembling Galileo's proportional compass, was a popular calculating device used throughout the 17th C...... More

Extremely rare German edition (a Latin edition was published the same year) of Sturm’s enlargement of Habrecht’s famous treatise on the making of celestial and terrestrial globes, published in 1628. The Habrecht family of clock and instrument makers were famous throughout Europe from the last quarter of the sixteenth century to..... More

Rare first and sole edition of this description of a sundial of the author's invention, which functioned as an astronomical perpetual calendar: determining for any day of the year the sun's rising, noon, setting, and mid-night, place of the sun in the Zodiac, etc. The work explains how to take..... More

Rare first and sole edition of one of the few works published in Europe to record detailed, first-person observations made at Jesuit astronomical observatories in China in the 17th century, and one of the first works to convey information on Chinese observational data and astronomical traditions to a Western audience..... More

First edition and internally a fine, untrimmed copy of this general treatise on perspective by the astronomer and mathematician Eustachio Zanotti. "Eustachio Zanotti's treatise, as would be expected from a scientist of his quality, provides an analytical treatment of the mathematics of perspective at a highly professional level... He..... More