Beschreibung:

PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (ca. 100-ca. 170). Magnae constructionis, id est perfectae coelestium motuum pertractionis, lib. XIII , in Greek. Edited by Simon Grynaeus (d. 1541). -THEON Alexandrinus (fl. A.D. 364). In Claudii Ptolemaei magnam constructionem commentariorum lib. XI , in Greek. Edited by Joachim Camerarius (1500-74). Basel: Johann Walder, 1538. 2 o (316 x 207 mm). 394 leaves. Greek, roman and italic types. Printer's woodcut device on last verso. Ornamental woodcut initials. Woodcut diagrams. (Some browning and foxing, mostly marginal dampstains to first half of volume.) Contemporary limp vellum with overlapping edges, evidence of two pairs of tawed leather ties. Provenance : some early marginalia in Greek; Gustavo C. Galletti library, Florence (ink stamp on title page); Baron Horace de Landau (bookplate). EDITIO PRINCEPS. The first edition of Ptolemy's influential Almagest in the original Greek was accompanied by the commentary by Theon of Alexandria. Theon, father of the celebrated woman mathematician and philosopher Hypatia, composed the work, not all of which survives, as a redaction of his lectures on the Almagest , said to have been given at the Museum in Alexandria. Exegetic in character, the commentary is of value to modern scholars because preserves information about now-lost mathematical and astronomical treatises. Theon was both quoted and criticized by Georgius Trapezuntius in his renaissance commentary on Ptolemy, and this called forth a massive defense of Theon by Regiomontanus, the latter's longest work and one which remains unpublished. Adams P-2209; Norman 1761.