Johannes de; Elie VINET. Sphaera Ioannis de Sacro Bosco, emendata.

by SACROBOSCO

£2,000 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

With Annotations on the Zodiac SACROBOSCO, Johannes de; Elie VINET. Sphaera Ioannis de Sacro Bosco, emendata. Paris: Guillaume Cavellat. 1562. 8vo. Nineteenth-century vellum-backed boards with marbled sides; ff. 102; a–m8 n6; bound without folding woodcut plate at end, as often ( see below ), quire n misbound; numerous woodcut diagrams in the text, woodcut headpieces and initials, woodcut Cavellat device to title and final leaf; volvelles wanting (f. 31r with resultant small hole to centre), somewhat foxed throughout (heavier to first quire and last few ff.), uniform toning, dampstaining to quires e and m at head, short closed tear to inner margin of f. 96; contemporary marginal and annotations to 67 pp. in Latin in a French hand ( see below ). Rare edition of Vinet’s commentary on Sacrobosco’s (d. 1256) De sphaera, used as an introductory astronomical text at universities throughout Europe, printed by the Catholic publisher Cavellat and including Melanchthon’s preface, our copy extensively annotated by an early reader. One of the first universities to adopt Vinet’s Sphaera was the Lutheran University of Wittenberg, where a dedication from Melanchthon to Simon Grynaeus was added (ff. 3–8, here dated 1540 but authored in 1531), ‘extolling the value and utility of astronomical knowledge. This preface was widely reprinted in editions of the Sphere , even in Catholic countries, and Cavellat included it in his editions. Although Melanchthon’s works were all placed on the Index of

• Binding: Hardcover

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