?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
CALENDAR REFORM STOEFFLER, JOHANNES. Calendarium Romanum Magnum. Title within woodcut architectural border, another border on *2r; woodcut illustrations throughout, comprising full-page Anatomical Man, 24 small city views in the gazetteer, 12 small illustrations of occupations and 12 of Zodiac signs in the calendar, 63 of solar and lunar eclipses, and 4 full-page depictions of astronomical instruments at end. [14], 74, [26] leaves, 62 columns on [16] leaves, [2] leaves. Gazetteer, calendar, astronomical tables, and illustrations of instruments printed in red and black. Folio, 298x207 mm, late 19th-/early 20th-century 1/2 vellum with morocco lettering piece, batik boards, front hinge cracked; light dampstaining in lower inner corners throughout, scattered stains at end, minor worming in last leaf not impairing legibility. (Oppenheim: Jakob Köbel, 24 March 1518)
first edition, handsomely printed at the press of the astronomer Köbel. "At the Lateran Council (1512-17) Stoeffler was commissioned to revise the calendar, and this richly illustrated work resulted. It served as a model for the presentation of the Gregorian calendar in 1582" (Gingerich). The text consists of 41 propositions dealing primarily with the astronomical basis of the ecclesiastical calendar; astrological factors to be considered in therapeutic bloodletting and purgation; the construction of sundials and astronomical instruments; the observance of Easter in European and non-European churches; controversies over calculating the date of Easter; and proposals for reforming the Julian calendar. The remainder of the book comprises a gazetteer giving corrected geographical coordinates for European locations; the proposed new calendar; and miscellaneous astronomical tables, including solar and lunar eclipses for the years 1518-73 and the position of the full moon in the zodiac for 1518-79. Adams S1884; Fairfax Murray/German 403; Gingerich, Rara Astronomica 12; Houzeau & Lancaster 13730 ("ouvrage remarquable"); Zinner 1101.
