Nicolaus Reimers Ursus, 1588

URSUS, Nicolaus Reimers (1551–1600). Fundamentum astronomicum. Strasbourg: Berhard Jobin, 1588.

Rare first edition of Ursus’s plagiarism of Tycho. Owen Gingerich and Robert S. Westman write of the controversy over this edition’s publication: “Tycho’s geoheliocentric system had no sooner issued forth from his own presses at Uraniborg early in the spring of 1588 than he learned that Nicholas Reimarus Ursus had published, shortly thereafter, a description of a cosmology closely resembling his own. The world system of Ursus’s Fundamentum astronomicum differs in at least two respects from Tycho’s [but] these differences were of no consolation to Tycho who was now convinced of what he had only suspected earlier: an untrustworthy servant in the employ of a fellow nobleman had stolen the essential idea of his world system from him” (p. 50). Ursus’s apparent plagiarism was evident to other contemporary astronomers, too; Andreas Dudith slyly alludes to it in letter to Praetorius dated 30 October that same year: “Vidistine Argentorati editum Nic. Raimari Ursi ejusdem Fundam. Astronomicum? Praestatne quam promittit?” [Have you seen the Fundamentum astronomicum of Nicholaus Raimers Ursus published in Strasbourg? Is it better than expected?] (ibid). O. Gingerich and R.S. Westman, The Wittich Connection: Conflict and Priority in Late Sixteenth-Century Cosmology (1988).

Rare, with only two appearances at auction in the past century (RBH).

Quarto (197 × 155mm). Three folding astronomical diagrams, woodcut diagrams in text (title-page with a marginal repair and canceled ownership inscriptions, dampstain at ends, heaviest on first 2 fold-outs, repaired tear to first fold-out and repaired worming to gutter margin of several leaves). Modern marbled paper boards, red morocco spine label with gilt titling. Provenance: early ownership inscription on title-page cancelled – Owen Gingerich (bookplate).