Ptolemaeus, Claudius

Omnia quae extant opera, praeter geographiam. Summa cura & diligentia castigata ab Erasmo Osvaldo Schreckenfuchsio. Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1551



Folio (11⅞ x 7⅞ in.; 302 x 200 mm). Woodcut printer's device on title repeated on last page, 2 double-page woodcut star maps by Johannes Honter, numerous column-width woodcut text diagrams, historiated and decorative woodcut initials; browned throughout, some quires heavier than others, with some spotting and a few marginal dampstains, a few traces of censorship of the editor's name, lower margin of both maps cut close affecting quire marks. Old vellum, manuscript title on spine; endpapers renewed, tear in upper panel of spine.

Unidentified stamped cursive exlibris on front endpaper

Adams P-2208; Kenney, Catalogue ...San Diego (1988), no. 146; VD16, P-5205; Warner, Sky Explored 123;  Zinner 2026

Second collected edition of the astronomical works, this edited by Schreckenfuchs (1511-1579), professor of mathematics and Hebrew at Freiburg and Tübingen, who has added to the texts of the 1541 edition, his own annotations and Isogogica praefatio on the first three chapters of the Almagest. Although this is the first edition of Ptolemy's work to be published after the appearance of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus—and Schreckenfuchs was an admirer of Copernicus—his annotations are strictly Ptolemaic, for, as Schreckenfuchs wrote in his own copy of the 1566 edition of De Revolutionibus (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 4638A): "Everyone admires, very few understand, few follow closely, no one explains Copernicus" (see Gingerich, Census, p. 39).

This edition also includes the two star maps by Honter found in the 1541 edition but using a smaller font in the caption.