Oct 27, 2020 - Sale 2549

Sale 2549 - Lot 13

Unsold
Estimate: $ 3,200 - $ 4,200
Bianchini, Giovanni; Nicolaus Pruckner; [and] Georg Peurbach
Luminarium atque Planetarum motuum Tabulae octoginta quinque, omnium ex his quae Alphonsum sequuntur quam faciles.

Basel: Johannes Herwagen, August 1553.

Folio, first appearance of Prugner's expanded edition of Bianchini's original work, with a correction of the Alfonsine tables and Peurbach's Tabulae Eclypsium; woodcut device to title, names of several former owners excised from the title, all professionally mended, bound in full 17th century German alum-tawed pigskin over wooden boards, with one catch and two clasps, names and date rather roughly excised from panels on front board, 12 3/4 x 8 1/8 in.

Chabas & Goldstein (2009), pages viii and 7-15; Honeyman sale 346 (1495 edition); Houzeau & Lancaster 12595; Riccardi I, 134; Zinner 2056 (this edition).

Bianchini's astronomical tables, probably the most extensive produced in the west before the modern era, were completed circa 1442 and first published in 1495. Based on the 13th-century Alfonsine Tables but presented in an innovative format, "his tables contain the largest number of entries ever computed in the Alfonsine tradition" (Chabás & Goldstein). This edition is the first to include additions by Pruckner and eclipse tables by Peurbach. Bianchini also administered the finances of the d'Este family of Ferrara and taught at the university there.