Venice, 1515

PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (ca.100-ca.170CE) and Gerard of Cremona, translator (1114-1187). Almaguestum. Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, 1515.

First edition of Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation from the Arabic. The Almagest, so called from the medieval Latin form of its Arabic name, was the most important of Ptolemy's astronomical and mathematical works. Known in Greek as the Mathematical Treatise or Collection, it covers every aspect of theoretical mathematical astronomy. "Until the innovative work of Tycho Brahe and Kepler in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, that is, for nearly fifteen hundred years, the Almagest was the basis of all sophisticated astronomy, a longevity exceeded only by Euclid's Elements" (N.M. Swerdlow, in Rome Reborn, Washington 1993, p. 144). "This beautifully printed Latin version made available for the first time Ptolemy's complete epicyclic theory and the observations on which it rested. Perhaps Copernicus at last realized, when he obtained his copy of the text, how formidable a task awaited any astronomer who wished to promulgate a new and working cosmology" (Gingerich, Science in the Age of Copernicus, p.9).The first translation made from the original Greek would not appear until 1528. Adams P-2213, Houzeau & Lancaster 865, Stillwell 97.

Small folio (305 x 205mm). Numerous woodcut diagrams printed in margins, pictorial woodcut initials. (Final leaf with colophon lacking and supplied in expert facsimile; a couple small marginal repairs to title page; a little browning to first and last leaves; minor soiling to prelims and occasionally elsewhere; faint stain to upper margin near gutter.) Modern calf. Provenance: deleted stamp to second leaf – 11pp. German manuscript notes on the preface inserted at rear, titled "Aus der vorrede zum Almagest des Cl. Ptolemaus" — Owen Gingerich (bookplate).