PTOLEMY, Claudius

by Claudius Ptolemy

£19,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Exceptionally rare edition of this popular astronomical text, very charmingly illustrated with numerous woodcuts, the last of the early editions, the only edition printed in the seventeenth century. The rather rudimentary map is marked i.a. with Mexico, New England, the West indies, Peru, the Straits of Magelan, Brasil and Virginia. Below the two southmost capes is a the land mass described as the South Continent . The work was originally translated from the French Compost et kalendrier des bergiers , and appeared in two forms throughout the C16th; one as The Kalender of Shepards and the other with the title The Compost of Ptholomeus . Although they are often described as containing nothing from Ptolemy, other than the falsification of authorial attribution, the work does have a general articulation of some of the astrological matters set forth in Ptolemy s Quadripartitum. The influence of astronomy over individuals is discussed, and this version has a chapter on palmistry added at the end. In the Kalendar of Shepherds , the putative source of the astrological and health information is initially an unnamed, ancient shepherd. the authentication for the information in the text was a natural and pastoral figure of wisdom, the void of book learning. In the prologue, it is also stated that this boke was made for them that be no Clerkes to brynge them to great understandynge thus identifying itself as a text for a non-elite readership yet at the same time offering access to the ver

• Binding: Hardcover

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