Apianus, Instrumentum primi mobilis, Nuremberg, 1534, modern binding

APIANUS, PETRUS

Instrumentum primi mobilis, nunc primum et inventum et in lucem editum. Accedunt iis Gebri filii Affla Hispaliensis astronomi vetustissimi pariter et peritissimi, libri IX. De astronomia... Accedunt iis Gebri... libri IX de astronomia... Nuremberg: Johannes Petreius, 1534

FIRST EDITION, folio (316 x 206mm.), title printed in red and black with large woodcut vignette, full-page woodcut coat of arms, woodcut diagrams, tables, without final blank leaf, recent morocco-backed cloth

Apianus’s work marked a major advance in trigonometry: “In this volume Apian published a table of sines that, for the first time, was based on a circle with a radius of a power of ten, in this case one hundred thousand. The values of the functions were thus decimal and were easily adapted to any situation in which the defining circle was a decimal power” (Tomash & Williams).

The book also contains the earliest printing of Geber’s De Astronomia, a reworking of Ptolemy’s Almagest, but differing in the positioning of Venus and Mercury in relation to the sun, Geber contradicting Ptolemy by placing them above. Its most important influence was in the realm of spherical trigonometry.

LITERATURE:

Tomash & Williams A84, J1; USTC 666902; VD16 A3087, J8; Van Ortroy, Apianus 107

PROVENANCE:

Zisska & Kistner, Auktion 21/I, 20-21 April 1993, lot 1066; Erwin Tomash, booklabel