Beschreibung:

ALBOHAZEN [or Abu l-?asan 'Ali ibn Abi l-Rijal al-Shaybani] (c.1015-c.1063). Albohazen Haly filii Abenragel libri de iudiciis astrorum. Translated and edited by Antonius Stupa. Basel: Heinrich Petrus, March 1551. An influential Arabic astronomical text translated into Latin, from the library of Renaissance mathematician Thomas Allen Allen was astrologer to Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester, as well as a colleague of the occultists John Dee and Edward Kelley. He gave this book to his student Sir Thomas Aylesbury, who would later become a major patron of mathematics, providing a witness to the continuing influence of Islamic science in Renaissance England. The author, Albohazen, was a Cordoban astrologer at the court of Zirid prince Mu?izz ibn Badis in Tunisia, whose learning earned him the title of “Ptolomeus Alter.” The present work ( Complete Book on the Judgment of the Stars ) proved one of the most popular astrological texts in both the Dar al-Islam and the Latin West for several centuries. The Arabic treatise was originally translated into Castilian in 1254 by Yehuda ben Moshe at the court of Alfonso X in Toledo. A Latin translation was made from the Castilian and printed at Venice in 1485. This is the first edition of a new, more accurate Latin translation by the Swiss physician Antonius Stupanus, published immediately before his death from plague in 1551. Only three other copies have appeared at auction according to RBH and ABPC. Adams A69; Houzeau & Lancaster I, 3870. Folio (318 x 210mm). Woodcut initials, woodcut printer’s device on title and verso of final leaf (first gathering and final leaf remargined at gutter; minimal marginal worming, occasional stains). Later English calf (rebacked, endpapers renewed). Provenance : deleted early signature on title – Thomas Allen (1542-1632; English mathematician, astrologer, and book collector; note of gift on title to:) – Thomas Aylesbury (1576-1657, English navy surveyor and master of the mint).