Thomas Digges's copy of Ptolemy's Analemma - photo 1

Thomas Digges's copy of Ptolemy's Analemma

Lot 121
28.01.2025 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
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$ 10 080
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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Archive
ID 1360837
Lot 121 | Thomas Digges's copy of Ptolemy's Analemma
Estimate value
$ 2 000 – 3 000
PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (ca.100-ca.170CE) . Liber de analemmate ... Eiusem Federici Commandino liber de horologiorum descriptione. Rome: Paulo Manuzio, 1562.

First edition of Ptolemy's Analemma, probably from the library of Thomas Digges, one of the few contemporary English Copernicans. "Because of its excellent commentary, the editio princeps of the Analemma is still worth consulting" (DSB). The mathematician Thomas Digges was the first person to publish on heliocentrism in English (see other lots). Digges's copy of the second edition of De Revolutionibus is preserved at the Bibliothèque de Genève, and is inscribed on the title-page: "Vulgi opinio Error. Tho Digges" (the common opinion errs). That ownership inscription has a different, much neater, appearance to the present one, although ours is very close to the signature of Thomas Digges in his capacity as Muster-Master General, on a 1586 document at BYU. Adams P-2216; Renouard 187.13.

Small quarto (295 x 140mm). Woodcut dolphin and anchor device on title, woodcut diagrams in text (pale dampstain, touch of soiling to title). Later blind-ruled calf (rebacked, edges worn). Provenance: "Tho. Digges" (ownership inscription dated 1578[?]) – Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay (1779-1845, blind-stamped arms to covers).
Place of origin:Greece, Italy
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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