Antwerp, 1540. Voeneunt Antwerpiae in pingui gallina Arnoldo Berkmâno. ({Colophon} Excusum Antuerpiae opera Aegidij Copenij. Anno à Christo nato. 1540.)
4to [233 x 160 mm ] of 62 leaves (Sabin mentions 61 leaves), complete with the leaf with the mark with text printed on the front. Old half-vellum.
Third Latin edition. The first French translation will only be published a few years later.
Brunet, I, 342 ; Van Ortroy, Bibli. de l’œuvre de Pierre Apian, n° 31 ; Sabin, 1745.
Famous work illustrated with numerous and beautiful woodcuts, 5 volvelles with mobile parts on the verso of leaves X, XI (the mobile part is missing here), verso of leaf XIII, recto of leaves XXIX and XLV.
The mobile parts notably show the motions of planets, and allow the deduction of longitudes, method that Apianus was one of the first to discover and that was used until the 19th century.
The author of the work, Petrus Apianus, Latinized name of Bienewith (1495-1552), astronomer and geographer, was from 1520, teacher of mathematics and astronomy at Ingolstradt University, a position that he wouldn’t leave, despite Emperor Charles V’s very seducing offers, who ennobled him.
Apianus was the first to suggest the method used for terrestrial longitudes, consisting in first observing the distance from the moon to one fixed star near the ecliptic and to follow the subsequent motions of the moon with regard to this star. His pupil Gemma Frisius, mathematician and teacher of Mercartor and Jean de Rojas, corrected the text and added significant additions under his own name.
Contrary to what Sabin mentions, we could establish that no map is required in the 1540 edition of the Cosmography.
According to van Ortroy (Bibliographie de l’œuvre de Pierre Apian, 1902), this map was first published in the first French edition (1544 ; van Ortroy, n°33), then in a Dutch edition (van Ortroy, n°35). The first Latin edition to contain this map is the 1545 edition (van Ortroy, n°36).
Beautiful wide-margined copy preserved in its old binding.
