Poetica astronomica. (Edited by Jacobus Sentinus and Johannes Lucilius Santritter). Venice, Erhard Ratdolt, 14 October 1482.

£25,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

First illustrated edition and the first depictions in a printed book of the constellations, the signs of the zodiac, and planets as conceived in antiquity, which serves as the beginning of celestial cartography. A fine specimen from the Venetian press of the great innovator Erhard Ratdolt. The design of the woodcuts is attributed to Johannes Santritter and consists of forty constellation figures with star locations which illustrate Hyginus’ descriptions in Book III and seven planet figures (Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, and the Sun and Moon) found in Book IV. Santritter, a native of Heilbronn, was also responsible for woodcut diagrams used by Ratdolt in his 1482 edition of Sacrobosco’s Sphaera Mundi. The woodblocks remained in Radolt’s shop and were re-used in his reprint of 1485 and on his return to Augsburg in his 1488 edition of Johannnes Angeli’s Astrolabium . Although astronomically inaccurate they were hugely influential, as noted by Lippincott **’** once these images appeared in print … they became the undisputed model upon which astronomical book illustration relied for the next forty years’ . First published in an extremely rare unillustrated edition of Ferrara 1475 (ISTC ih00559000 lists only 14 copies), the text is attributed to Hyginus and consists of four books: on definitions, the myths of the constellations, the number and location of the stars in the constellations, and the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets. Quite who the Hyginus of this text wa

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.