CHRISTMANN, THEORIA LUNAE, HEIDELBERG, 1611

FIRST EDITION, folio (310 x 195mm.), woodcut diagrams, 2 folding letterpress tables, old vellum, modern folding cloth case, some paper toning, some neat repairs, D2 holed affecting catch-word, a few other small holes in the text

Federico Cesi (1585-1630), inkstamp (oval stamp with the image of a lynx, and inscription: Ex Biblioth[eca] Lyncaea Federici Caesii L[ynceorum] P[rincipis] March[ionis] Mont[is] Caelii] II), library pressmark on endpaper (C.88.XVII); [Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), purchaser in 1633 of Cesi’s Library], possible Dal Pozzo shelfmark at head of title; Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692-1779), purchaser of the Dal Pozzo Library in 1714, Albani inkstamp on title, and library pressmark on endpaper (RR VIII 11); bought from Martayan Lan, New York, 1988, Catalogue 2, item 72, $5850

Tomash & Williams C86; USTC 2094070 (7 copies); VD17 12:640822E (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, only)

EXTREMELY RARE: we have traced no copy appearing at auction. The author was professor of logic at Heidelberg. Inspired by his inheritance of Rheticus’s library, he made astronomical observations of his own, which are set out in this work. He was the first person to include telescopic sights on instruments such as the sextant and Jacob’s staff.

This copy is from the large (some 3000 volumes) and remarkable library of Federico Cesi (1585-1630), founder of the Accademia dei Lincei. Although dominated by books on medicine and natural history, the library also included works of astronomy, notably editions of Kepler and Copernicus, works by Galileo and his disciples, and by the opponents of Galileo, such as Christoph Scheiner and Orazio Grassi. Two inventories of the Cesi library are analysed by Maria Teresa Biagetti, La biblioteca di Federico Cesi (Rome 2008); the present volume was entered in these as "Theoria lunae ex nouis Hyptothesibus Autore Iacobo Chorstmano 1611" (Biagetti p.111 no. [318]).