Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata

Los 12
05.02.2026 10:00UTC +00:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
VeranstaltungsortVereinigtes Königreich, London
Aufgeldsee on Website%
ID 1540261
Los 12 | Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata
Schätzwert
$ 40 000 – 60 000
BRAHE, Tycho (1546-1601). Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata. Quorum haec prima pars de restitutione motuum solis et lunae stellarumque inerrantium tractat. Et praeterea de admiranda nova stella anno 1572 exorta luculenter agit. Edited by Johannes Kepler. Uraniborg and Prague: 1602.

First edition of Tycho Brahe's principal work—"the foundation on which Kepler, and later Newton, built their astronomical systems" (Sparrow). Tycho was a major figure of the Danish Renaissance, flamboyant character, and driving force behind many important astronomical discoveries of the period—even when he did not make them himself. From his island castle-observatory on Hven, re-dubbed "Uraniborg," and then from Benátky Castle outside Prague as imperial mathematicus to Rudolf II, Tycho designed and led the greatest collaborative data collection project yet undertaken in European science.

The young Tycho quit legal studies to become a natural philosopher zealously committed to empirical observation of the heavens. Largely self-taught in astronomy, he realized that the printed ephemerides and tabulae in use by most mathematical astronomers were riddled with errors and would need to be replaced with accurate data for the field to move forward. To this end, he was also an imaginative designer of instruments, often of great and impressive size. The scientists Tycho assembled at Uraniborg and later at the court of Rudolf II and the accurate data they recorded and synthesized "transformed astronomy into a collective endeavor linking courts and philosophers across Europe" (Christianson). He began to print the present text, essentially his magnum opus, at his private press in Hven, adding more and more contributions over time, with the work eventually continuing in Prague. It was still incomplete at the time of his death, ultimately completed and seen through the press by his successor, Johannes Kepler. It contains the Danish astronomer's numerous observations made from the island of Hven, including a detailed description of the new star of 1572, which "upset forever the ancient idea of the immutability of the heavens" and is now known as "Tycho's supernova remnant;" revisions of his idiosyncratic geo-heliocentric and lunar theories; a detailed star catalogue; and descriptions of some of his impressive instruments (Milestones). Houzeau-Lancaster 2700; Milestones of Science 30; Caspar 15. Not in Norman. See John Robert Christianson, Tycho Brahe and the Measure of the Heavens (2020). Exhibited: "The Heavens Revealed," Chapin Library, Williams College, 2003.

Quarto (234 x 176mm). Two printed volvelle circles (larger over smaller) pasted to reverse of title, perhaps to reinforce weak area of paper. Woodcut device on title, diagrams and several full-page woodcut illustrations (neat marginal repairs to top margin of leaves in gatherings Kk-Nn, in a few cases affecting top edge of table, paper flaw resulting in lost text on B1, printing flaws on Nnnn2.3 resulting in missing text, occasional areas of browning). Contemporary yapped vellum, edges dyed blue over red (front hinge cracked). Provenance: occasional underlining and notes in brown and green, especially to passages where Tycho criticizes Fracastoro, Agrippa, and other rival astronomers.
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