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Tag Archives: Ptolemy

Book of the Week — Geographiae et hyrdrographi reformat

19 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Almagestum Novum, astronomer, astronomy, Benatij, Bologna, Bononi, cosmology, geography, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, heliocentric, Jesuit, John Smith, latitude, longitude, magnetic needle, Modena, navigation, psalms, Ptolemy, stars, sun, surveying, terrestrial meridian, Tycho Brahe


You who laid the foundations of the earth,
So that it should not be moved forever” – Psalm 104, NKJV

“[A]s Geography without History seemeth a carkasse without motion; so History without Geography, wandreth as a Vagrant without a certaine habitation.”
― John Smith (1580-1631)

Geographiae et hydrographi reformat…
Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671)
Bononi: Ex typographia hredis V. Benatij, 1661
First edition
G114 R54

Giovanni Battista Riccioli, a Jesuit astronomer, was and is still best known for his work on astronomy, Almagestum Novum, 1651, in which he sets out reasons for and against a heliocentric cosmology. Riccioli was also a geographer. Geographia et hydrographiae reformatae libri is his attempt to collate all the geographic knowledge of the time. Riccioli addresses the variation of the magnetic needle, observations on geographical longitudes and latitudes, and several problems relating to navigation. Riccioli took measurements to determine the radius of the earth and to establish the ratio of water to land.

He developed a leveling device for use in surveying. He gave an account of the methods he used in order to determine the length of a degree of the terrestrial meridian. For this purpose, a base-line was measured near Bologna, and a triangulation was formed between that city and Modena, although the stations appear to have been improperly chosen — the angles between them are often less than eight degrees, and only two were observed in each triangle.

The instrument used to obtain the terrestrial angles was similar to the parallactic rulers of Ptolemy. In reducing the distances between the stations to one spherical surface, Riccioli assumed the refraction as constant, and equal to thirty minutes, as it had been determined by Tycho Brahe for celestial bodies in the horizon. The latitudes of the stations were determined by the sun and certain stars, their altitudes being observed with a quadrant whose radius was eight feet. But the declinations were taken from the catalogue of Brahe, and consequently liable to errors amounting to one minute or more.

Riccioli believed that the measures of the ancients were nearly correct. Among his own observations, he chose results which arrived closest to those earlier measures. Thus, his determination of the length of a degree was erroneous.

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The Sun, The Moon, The Stars – One Thousand Years of Cosmological Gazing!

18 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bingham in Events

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1661, Amsterdam, Andreas Cellarius, astronomy, Copernicus, Eclipse, Einstein, Galileo, Harmonia Macrocosmica, Jansson, Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe

The sun, the moon, the stars!

The Rare Books Department invites you to a hands-on display of more than one thousand years of cosmological gazing. From Ptolemy to Galileo to Einstein, hold the books that brought the heavens down to earth.

Rare Books Classroom

J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4

Monday, August 21

10 am to 1 pm

Image featured on poster from:

Harmonia Macrocosmica
Andreas Cellarius
Amsterdam: Jansson, 1661
Second edition
QB41 C39

See you at the eclipse!

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Rare Books Exhibition — Enquiring Minds

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Physical Exhibitions

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almanacs, answers, atlases, compendiums, dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, exhibition, facsimiles, first editions, information, Izaak Walton, J. Willard Marriott Library, lexicons, manuals, medieval, Ptolemy, questions, rare books, Special Collections Gallery, The University of Utah

EnquiringMinds(blog)

Enquiring Minds: Fourteen Centuries of Questions and Answers

Humans have been compiling information to answer an infinity of questions for thousands of years. From Ptolemy to Izaak Walton, the best minds have annotated, edited, translated, measured, arranged, and defined what it means to live a life of wonder.

From facsimiles of medieval encyclopedias, almanacs and atlases to first editions of fifteenth through twentieth century dictionaries, manuals, lexicons, compendiums, and directories, Rare Books celebrates questions and the attempts to answer them.

Keep on asking!

March 17, 2017 — April 30, 2017
Special Collections Gallery
Level 4
J. Willard Marriott Library
The University of Utah

This exhibition is free and open to the public.

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Book of the Week – Hoc in Libro Nunqua[m] Ante Typis Aeneis in Lucem…

18 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aphorisms, chart, Greek, Joachim Camerarius, Latin, Matthaeus Guarimbertus, Nuremberg, planets, Ptolemy, stars, Tetrabiblos, Venice, zodiac

Ptolemy, Hoc in Libro, 1535
Ptolemy, Hoc in Libro, 1535
Ptolemy, Hoc in Libro, 1535

Hoc in Libro Nunqua[m] Ante Typis Aeneis in Lucem…
Ptolemy (2nd century)
Nuremberg, Ionnem Petreium, 1535
PA4404 Q3 1535

Editio princips in Greek. This work was first printed in Venice in 1484 in a different translation. The Greek text of Ptolemy’s “Tetrabiblos” (so called because it consists of four books) and that of the “Karpos” (a collection of 100 ‘karpos’ in Greek – astrological aphorisms erroneously attributed to Ptolemy) are followed by the first edition of Joachim Camerarius’ Latin translation of the first two books and of passages from the third and fourth of the Tetrabiblos (there is some disagreement among scholars as to whether these last two are Camerarius’ translations), and by Geovanni Pontano’s Latin version of the Karpos.

Next come seven pages of annotations by Camerarius on the first two books of the Tetrabiblos, Matthaeus Guarimbertus’ complete translation of the third and fourth books of the Tetrabiblos. Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos is considered one of the most important astrological textbooks of antiquity. The Greek text here is well-printed and interspersed with graphic symbols representing the zodiac and the most important planets and stars. A chart explaining these ‘abbreviations’ is at the beginning of the book.

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Book of the Week – Harmonia Macrocosmica

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Andreas Cellarius, astronomers, astronomy, atlas, burins, cartography, cherubs, compasses, Copernicus, Dutch, engraving, Europe, Galileo, Gerald Valk, gravers, illustrations, Jan Jansson, Pieter Schenck, Pope Paul V, printing press, Ptolemy, transits, Tycho Brahe

Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1661
Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1661
Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1661

Harmonia Macrocosmica
Andreas Cellarius
Amsterdam: Jansson, 1661
Second edition
QB41 C39

The Celestial Atlas of Harmony was published in varying formats in 1660, 1661, 1666, and 1708.  Very few copies of the first edition of 1660 survive.  (One known copy is held by the British Museum). The Harmonia Macrocosmica, a summary of pre-Newtonian astronomy, compares the various cosmological theories up to and of that time, including those of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and Copernicus.

The geocentric theories of Ptolemy, suggesting that the earth is the center of the universe, are contrasted with those of Copernicus, who put the sun at the center of our solar system. Tycho Brahe’s theory attempted to unify the two. Brahe’s version shows the sun revolving around the earth and the rest of the planets revolving around the sun.

The book also has sections on the Earth’s climate zones, the sizes of the sun, moon, and planets, and the constellations of the zodiac. It is this broad overview of astronomical thought that kept the book from being banned under strictures put in place by Pope Paul V in 1616. These same strictures put Galileo under house arrest for the rest of his life after the printing of his Dialogo (1632), which was based on Copernican theory.

Andreas Cellarius was the rector of a college in the northern Netherlands. The printer, Jan Jansson, was one of the preeminent publishers of his time. Both art and science were applied to this production, with discoveries heralded by imaginative images as well as observed fact. Cheerful cherubs, floating over head earnest astronomers hold transits and compasses. The first edition was extremely popular, prompting the second edition.

The second edition of the atlas contains twenty-nine lavishly designed and hand-colored engraved plates, some of the finest examples of seventeenth-century Dutch cartography in existence. The technique of engraving began in ancient times as a way to decorate objects, particularly of metal. After the development of the printing press in Europe in 1450, engraving became a way to create high quality illustrations which retained precise detail, even after multiple impressions. Specialized tools, known as “burins” and “gravers” of various sizes and shapes were used to cut away the surface of a metal plate. The 1708 reissue bears the engraved names of Gerald Valk and Pieter Schenck on each plate, although not one line had been changed.

View more images at the J. Willard Marriott Library Digital Library

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