GEMMA, REINER. De astrolabo catholico liber quo latissime patentis instrumenti multiplex usus explicatur. Folding woodcut plate (of 2); woodcut text illustrations and diagrams. [15] (of [16]), 183, [1] leaves; lacks †3 (with encomiastic poem to the author on recto and arms of the dedicatee, Philip V of Spain, on verso, replaced with pen-and-ink facsimile). Small 8vo, later 19th-century 1/4 morocco, joints lightly rubbed; occasional browning. Bookplates of the neurologist Jules Sottas (1866-1943), Pierre Bellamy, and Albert Pimpinelli. Antwerp: Jan Steels, 1556
scarce first edition of Gemma's treatise on his universal astrolabe. Gunther, page 572; Ortroy 129; Houzeau & Lancaster 3276 (incorrectly describing this as originally having been published in a 1550 Tractatus de annulo astronomico, which is a ghost; see Ortroy, pages 84-87).
