GEMMA FRISIUS, Reinerus (1508-1555) - photo 1
GEMMA FRISIUS, Reinerus (1508-1555) - photo 2
GEMMA FRISIUS, Reinerus (1508-1555) - photo 3
GEMMA FRISIUS, Reinerus (1508-1555) - photo 4

GEMMA FRISIUS, Reinerus (1508-1555)

Starting price
£ 5 000
Auction dateClassic
12.07.2023 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 993308
Lot 112 | GEMMA FRISIUS, Reinerus (1508-1555)
GEMMA FRISIUS, Reinerus (1508-1555)

De radio astronomico & geometrico liber. Antwerp: G. Bontius and Louvain: P. Phalesius, 1545.

Very rare first edition of Gemma Reinerus's description of an improved cross-staff, with woodcuts showing its construction and use. A brass version made by Gemma's nephew Arsenius was brought by John Dee to England in 1547 and Tycho Brahe states in his Astronomiae instauratae mechanica (1602) that his observations relied on the instrument beginning in 1564. D.W. Waters notes that the modification of the cross-staff directly influenced the northern navigations in the 16th century (see Waters, The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and early Stuart Times, p.135). Adams G-390.



Small quarto (198 x 140 mm). Woodcut arms on title, woodcuts in text. (worming in upper and lower margins, M4 detached). Old limp vellum (binding slightly stained and fore-edges chipped).





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12.07.2023 – 12.07.2023
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