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

First edition of this exceptionally rare and remarkable book on nebulae, the first of its kind, illustrated with striking white-on-black woodcuts. It is also a work of profound cosmological speculation placing it at the forefront of astronomical thought in the 17th century. Giovanni Battista Odierna (1597–1660) suggests in this work..... 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 edition, second issue (?) of this work on planetary astronomy and selected physics problems by the great Bolognese mathematician Bonaventura Cavalieri, as edited by his disciple Urbano Davisi. The work first appeared in 1682 under a slightly different title, though as the collation of the body of the..... More

First edition of this classic in the history of science, a nice large genuine example of the last of Kepler’s works to appear in his lifetime, and in the judgment of Prof. Owen Gingerich, “the chief vehicle for the recognition of his astronomical accomplishments.” — DSB, p. 304: It contains..... 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

Rare first edition with text of this remarkably illustrated star atlas, the first to employ the woodcut to spectacular effect by showing white stars against a black background in representing the constellations. Most star atlases appearing before Semler’s work were by contrast engraved on copper, a medium not typically used..... More