Beschreibung:

PEURBACH, Georg von (1423-1461). Theoricarum novarum textus . Paris: M. Lesclencher for J. Petit and R. Chaudière, 1515.
PEURBACH, Georg von (1423-1461). Theoricarum novarum textus . Paris: M. Lesclencher for J. Petit and R. Chaudière, 1515. Small 2° (256 x 189mm). Large woodcut of Petit’s device on title, full-page illustration of an armillary sphere on verso, woodcut diagrams, text in double column. (Several small closed wormholes throughout, mostly marginal but one in middle of leaves sometimes touching text, including the full-page illustration on verso of title, the small loss skilfully supplied in manuscript, worming stronger in upper margin of gatherings e-i, large repair in corner of e5, a few clean closed tears touching text, including severe clean tear across leaf d6.) Modern cloth, gilt edges. FIRST PARIS PRINTING as an independent work, with a commentary by Francesco Capuano and Silvestro Mazzolini da Priero. The work contains the earliest known woodcut by Oronce Finé, an illustration of the armillary sphere with his monogram and crowned dolphin in the lower border. This work is ‘of great importance because his models remained the canonical physical description of the structure of the heavens until Tycho disproved the existence of solid spheres. Even Copernicus was to a large extent still under their influence, and the original motivation for his planetary theory was apparently to correct a number of physical impossibilities in Peurbach’s models relating to nonuniform rotation of solid spheres … it helped to establish the technical terminology of astronomy through the early seventeenth century’ (DSB). Houzeau and Lancaster 2252; Mortimer/Harvard French , 432.