Bayer, Uranometria, 1603, later boards reusing a medieval manuscript leaf

BAYER, JOHANN

Uranometria, omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa. (Augsburg: Christoph Mang, plates by Alexander Mair), 1603

folio (344 x 235mm.), engraved title-page, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, 51 double-page engraved plates, woodcut device at end, later boards reusing a medieval manuscript bifolium from a lectern Bible (I Chronicles), occasional light staining, paper repair at foot of F1, a few other small paper repairs or tears

FIRST EDITION OF BAYER'S INNOVATIVE AND INFLUENTIAL STAR ATLAS. Bayer ranked each star in a constellation according to its brightness, thus improving identification by the naked eye.

The plates were engraved by Alexander Mair (with his monogram on the title-page), inspired by the woodcuts by Jacob de Gheyn in Grotius's Syntagma Arateorum (1600); here, however, the images are more accurately drawn on gridlines with coordinates. The plates comprise the 48 northern constellations as described (verbally) by Ptolemy, a plate containing 12 new southern constellations, and two planispheres. Kepler used Bayer's coordinates for his observations which he published as De stella nova in pede Serpentarii in 1606.

LITERATURE:

Norman 142; VD17 39:125032X; Zinner 3951

PROVENANCE:

G. W. Dietz, Rector (probably Georg Wilhelm Dietz, died 1786, of Windsheim), late eighteenth-century inscription at foot of title-page; Library of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Münster, ink stamps on flyleaf (obscured) and plate 39