Property From The Collection of Robert S Pirie Volumes I & II: Books and Manuscripts

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Lot 940
  • 940

Brahe, Tycho

Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 USD
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Description

  • Brahe, Tycho
  • Epistolarum astronomicarum libri. Quorum Primus Hic illustriss. et laudatiss. principis Gulielmi Haffiae Landtgrauij ac ipsius Mathematici Literas, unaque Responsa ad fingulas complectitur. Imprimebantur Uraniburgi Daniae, prostant Francfurti apud Godefridum Tampachium. 1610; [colophon: Uraniburgi: ex officina Typographica Authoris. 1596]
  • Ink, paper, calf
4to (9 x 7 3/4 in.; 230 x 173 mm). Woodcut device on title-page, another device above colophon, engraved portrait of the author (the author added the engraved portrait to the few copies he sent personally), woodcut initials, three woodcut diagrams, five woodcut illustrations of Brahe's observatory of which two full-page, one woodcut map, two contemporary folding English letterpress tables of comparative weights and measures bound at end; quire (:) torn at head just touching text. Contemporary English calf with the gilt arms of Henry, prince of Wales, double gilt fillet border; upper joint repaired, extremities slightly rubbed, lacking both pairs of ties. 

Provenance

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594–1612; his armorial stamp 2, according to the British Armorial Bindings database) — George Peel of Kenyon (armorial bookplate and inscription "Peel Library Printed 1596") — Sotheby's London, November 27, 2013, lot 88. acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

Literature

BL Scandinavian STC B978; Adams B-2655; Dibner Heralds of Science 4; Dreyer Tycho Brahe, pp. 369-70; Houzeau & Lancaster 7824; VD17 23:286554D

Catalogue Note

First edition. Henry, Prince of Wales' copy.

This was the first and only of a series of projected letterbooks containing Tycho's correspondence; here he discusses astronomical matters with Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel and his court astronomer Christoph Rothmann. The library of Henry, Prince of Wales, contained another work by Brahe, Astronomia instauratae mechanica (1602), now in the British Library, which houses the bulk of his collection.