Beschreibung:

ARISTARCHUS, of Samos (c.310-230 B.C.) De magnitudinibus, et distantiis solis, et lunae, liber cum Pappi Alexandrini explicationibus quibusdam. Translated into Latin by Frederico Commandino. Pesaro: C. Francischini, 1572.
ARISTARCHUS, of Samos (c.310-230 B.C.) De magnitudinibus, et distantiis solis, et lunae, liber cum Pappi Alexandrini explicationibus quibusdam. Translated into Latin by Frederico Commandino. Pesaro: C. Francischini, 1572. Small 4° (198 x 143mm). Woodcut vignette on title, woodcut diagrams in text, some full-page, one large historiated initial, one ornamental initial, with the blank *4. (Light marginal soiling at beginning and end, small closed wormhole in upper margin of title and following 2 leaves, lightly spotted, faint waterstain in lower corner.) Modern vellum (new endpapers). Provenance: 17th-century inscription recording the gift from Fr. Franciscus de ?Grazzarolis (manuscript inscription in upper margin of title). RARE FIRST SEPARATE EDITION of Aristarchus’ only surviving work. It was first published, with other texts, by Giorgio Valla at Venice in 1498 but this edition is more elaborate and includes the first printing of the commentary by Pappus of Alexandria. ‘Aristarchus is celebrated as being the first man to have propounded a heliocentric theory, eighteen centuries before Copernicus’ (DSB). The Greek mathematician and astronomer came up with the revolutionary astronomical hypothesis that the Sun, not the Earth, was the fixed centre of the universe, and that the Earth, along with the rest of the planets, revolved around the Sun. He also said that the stars were distant suns that remained unmoved and that the size of the universe was much larger than his contemporaries believed. Adams A-1696; Houzeau and Lancaster 820; Riccardi I, 362.