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Assemani, Giuseppe Simone (1687-1768) Globus Caelestis Cufico-Arabicus Veliterni Musei Borgiani.
Patavia: Typis Seminarii, 1790.
First edition, large quarto with generous margins; illustrated with 3 large folding engraved plates; bound in recent half calf and marbled paper boards; Wellcome Library stamp on verso of title page; 12 1/4 x 9 in.
The object of this dissertation is a celestial globe that was held at the Borgia Museum in Velletri. Assemani studied eastern languages and was interested in the globe because it was the product of Islamic culture, with the constellations labeled in an Arabic Kufic script. The Kufic text on the globe is transcribed here, along with a parallel Latin translation.
This particular globe originally belonged to Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil (circa 1218-1238). It is covered with 48 constellations and 1,025 stars and is made of a copper alloy and inlaid with silver. It was created circa 1225 [A.H. 622] in Egypt or Syria. The globe is now held at the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. It has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the London Science Museum as part of the exhibition, "Science and Technology in Islam," in 1976. (For more see: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/660539 [and] Emilie Savage-Smith's Islamic Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction, and Use, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985 [no. 3].)
Ex libris Professor, Astronomer, Historian & Bibliophile Owen Gingerich.
