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Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
Sacrobosco, Johannes de (c. 1195-c. 1256) Sphaera Mundi.
Venice: Impressum est hoc opusculum mira arte & diligentia Erhardi Ratdolt, 1485.
Quarto, illustrated with woodcut diagrams, some printed in black, yellow and deep red; others with some hand-applied color; bound in 18th century parchment over boards; 8 x 5 3/4 in.
Goff J406; HC 14111*; Bod-inc J-182; Sheppard 3690; Pr 4402; BMC V 290; BSB-Ink I-503; GW M14654; ISTC ij00406000.
Sacrobosco was an English professor at the University of Paris. He wrote three works that first circulated in manuscript and continued to show value to scholars throughout the Renaissance and Early Modern period. In De Sphaera, he writes about a number of astronomical spheres. The cosmos for Sacrobosco were made up of 9: the Empyrean (i.e. Heaven); the sphere of stars; and one sphere for each of the 7 planets. Sacrobosco spends the bulk of his book in discussion of circles on spheres, like the equator, meridian, and horizon.
"For modern readers who have come through American secondary schools and have learned that, before Columbus, everyone thought the Earth is flat, the section on the shape of the Earth is of interest, since Sacrobosco argued every which way from Sunday that the Earth is a sphere." (Quoted from Dr. William B. Ashworth, Jr.'s Scientist of the Day article on Sacrobosco. https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/johannes-de-sacrobosco/)
De Sphaera does not include a description of the small circular orbits of planets, and so such a piece of writing, by Gerard of Cremona, was appended to it in the middle ages. The attractive woodcuts of planetary models we usually associate with Sacrobosco are actually in the section written by Gerard.
Ex libris Professor, Astronomer, Historian & Bibliophile Owen Gingerich.
