[PICCOLOMINI, Alessandro (1508-1578).] De le stelle fisse. Libro uno … De la sfera del mondo. Libri quattro. Venice: Giovanni Antonio and Domenico Volpini for Andrea Arrivabene, 1540.

First edition of the first star atlas published in the West, and an early astronomy published in the vernacular. De le stelle fisse “represents the first printed star atlas, containing maps of the stars as opposed to simple pictures of constellations, and introducing the practice of identifying stars by letter, a method later adopted and expanded by Bayer” (Norman). De la sfera del mondo is a traditional Ptolemaic-Aristotelian geocentric cosmography. Piccolomini was Archbishop of Patras and "an early popularizer of science who wrote his astronomical treatises in the vernacular in order to extend scientific knowledge beyond the confines of church and university (ibid). Houzeau and Lancaster 2491; Norman 1696 (later ed.). Exhibited: "The Heavens Revealed," Chapin Library, Williams College, 2003.

Quarto (210 x 157mm). Woodcut device on titles, 47 woodcut constellation maps (misnumbered to 48), numerous woodcut diagrams (marginal tear from A4, a couple of gatherings with pale marginal dampstain or pale spotting, small stain to ²A3v. Stelle fisse bound first in this copy; it is normally bound second). 19th-century half vellum over boards, spine lettered in manuscript (worming to cords, boards faded). Custom clamshell box. Provenance: early marginalia in Italian to first book of Sfera – Paolo Galletti (ownership inscription dated 1814 on title).