Kepler, Johannes

Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae usitata forma quaestionum & responsionum conscripta ... [with:] Liber quartus ... [with:] Libri V. VI. VII quibus proprie doctrina theorica ... comprehenditur. Linz: Johannes Plancus, 1618; Linz [i.e. Frankfurt]: Plancus for Gottfried Tampach, 1622; Frankfurt: for Gottfried Tampach, 1621 



3 parts in one volume, 8vo (6 1/4 x 3 1/2 in.; 159 x 89 mm). Woodcut diagrams, typographical and woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, folding letterpress table; first title spotted with lower outer corner repaired, some marginal spotting heavier on a few quires, last part browned, folding table repaired at fold. Contemporary vellum, remains of ties, manuscript title on spine, lower cover torn, some stains, calf folding case.

Prov: Seminary of Saint-Mesmin, Orleans? (stamp and ms. exlibris on title "Seminarium Miciacen[sis]")

Caspar 55, 69, 66

Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae usitata forma quaestionum & responsionum conscripta ... [with:] Liber quartus ... [with:] Libri V. VI. VII quibus proprie doctrina theorica ... comprehenditur. Linz: Johannes Plancus, 1618; Linz [i.e. Frankfurt]: Plancus for Gottfried Tampach, 1622; Frankfurt: for Gottfried Tampach, 1621
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First edition of books I-III and V-VII, with the second edition of book IV.  Following the publication of his Astronomia nova in 1609, Kepler was asked to write a more popular exposition of Copernican astronomy. Despite its title, his Epitome was "more an introduction to Keplerian than to Copernican astronomy" (DSB VII, 302). The seven books were issued in three inexpensive octavo volumes over a period of three years, intended as an easily comprehensible textbook. It actually went beyond this intention in its discussion of the Earth's motion, and in book IV on "celestial physics" which epitomized his Harmonice mundi and offered a theoretical justification for the harmonic law which Kepler had discovered in 1619. 

After the first part was published, the work was placed on the Index, and the second part in process of publication, was moved from Linz to Frankfurt where the second issue was published, with only the title-page changed.