BAYER, JOHANNES. URANOMETRIA, OMNIUM ASTERISMORUM CONTINENS SCHEMATA... AUGSBURG: 1603

Folio (320 x 210 mm). Hand-colored architectural frontispiece, 51 double-page engraved star maps by Alexander Mair, hand-colored and heightened with gold,on guards throughout, letterpress descriptive text printed on rectos and versos of the maps, printer's woodcut device on colophon, bound with manuscript star catalogue; title creased with closed tears, primarily marginal worming to a few plates, minor toning and spotting, some spotting to manuscript catalogue. Full calf, spine with raised bands in six compartments, second gilt lettered, others with repeat gilt filigree motif, marbled endleaves, edges specked red; overall rubbed, corners bumped, joints starting. 

VD17 39:125032X; Warner, The Sky Explored, pp. 18-19; Zinner 3951

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST ACCURATE STAR ATLAS The first collection of star maps engraved on a grid so that star positions could be read off to fractions of a degree. It was also the first to use the modern system of identifying the stars within a constellation by the use of Greek letters for the brighter stars and Roman letters for the fainter ones. Bayer's main sources for star positions were the recent observations of Tycho Brahe and of Pieter Dierkzoon Keyser (with regard to the southern hemisphere). The artist Alexander Mair clearly found some inspiration in the Jacobo De Gheyn engravings in the Aratea published by Hugo Grotius in 1600, but most of Bayer's constellation figures are quite different from De Gheyn's, and generally more attractive. Many have no known prototype.