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Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
Bayer, Johann (1572-1625) Uranometria, Omnium Asterismorum Continens Schemata, Nova Methodo Delineata, Aereis Laminis Expressa.
[Ulm: Johann Görling, 1661.]
Third edition, folio, consisting of engraved title page and fifty-one folding engraved plates of celestial constellations by Alexander Mair (c. 1562-1617) without text on versos of the plates or any other text; bound in 17th century parchment over boards with the late 17th or early 18th century engraved armorial bookplate of Pierre Bulteau de Préville by P. Giffart pasted inside the front board; some plates with old folds, affecting the first most, which also has repaired losses; other leaves with small paper repairs; final ten plates with a brown spot; contemporary annotations inside front board, each plate numbered and titled in an early hand; with an added manuscript table in an early hand written on the blanks at the end; title margins a bit frayed, re-hinged; brown spot on plate nine, depicting the swan; 12 7/8 x 8 3/4 in.
Bayer, an amateur astronomer, has provided us with the first accurate charts of the forty-eight Ptolemaic constellations, using Tycho Brahe's catalogue of stars. Bayer departed from the practice of locating stars through lengthy (often confusing) verbal notes, fixing instead on a Greek letter for each constellation, findable by triangulating its location on a grid. He also pulled from Keyser's catalogue of the southern stars, and, it must be remembered, composed this work before the invention of the telescope.
Honeyman 246; Norman 142; Deborah Warner, The Sky Explored: Celestial Cartography 1500-1800 pages 18-19; Zimmer 3951.
