Halloween Special Commentarius In Sphaeram Procli Diadochi. Augustae Vindelicorum [augsburg], David Franck, 1609. In Multiple Colors [YAmZlJc6]

Presentation copy from the author to Conrad Pius Peutinger (1520-1613), son of the Augsburg diplomat and humanist.

Attractive edition in very good condition of prolific mathematician, medic, astronomer and philosopher Georg Henisch’s (1549-1618) Latin translation of the Sphaera. Henisch’s first translation was printed in Augsburg in 1575 as part of his Tabulae Institutionum Astronomicarum; for this, the first edition of the work on its own, he revised the text and added a commentary based, as he writes, on his lectures at the Gymnasium St Anna in Augsburg where he taught logic and mathematics.

While attributed to fourth-century neo-Platonist Proclus, the Sphaera was in fact an excerpt of four chapters of Geminus’ Elementa Astronomiae, written in the first century BC; mistakes of attribution were only addressed in 1585 by Francesco Barozzi. In spite of this, Henisch’s commentary, written after this discovery, ‘has few references to ancient or modern authorities and…although Geminus is cited, the Sphaera is not identified as an excerpt from his treatise’ (Todd, 47).

Provenance: Presentation inscription at foot of title page by Henisch to Conrad Pius Peutinger: ‘Clarissimo viro D. Conrado Pio Peutingero I.V.D. ac advocato Reip. AUG. dd. autor.’ Bookplate on front paste-down and inscription at head of title page of the library of Benedictine monastery of St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg (which received substantial donations over the course of its history, including from Augsburg merchant Anton Welser (1451-1518) who donated a library of over 5000 works (H.J. Künast, ‘Welserbibliotheken’, in M. Häberlein, J Burkhardt (eds) Die Welser (Berlin, 2014 reprint), p.552). Stamp in central portion of title page of the ‘Königl. Kreisbibliothek in Augsburg’, now the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, which acquired the majority of the monastery’s library after it was dissolved in 1802. Further ownership note in different hand at foot of title page.

Small tear at gutter of first fold-out plate, slightly touching text, otherwise in very good condition.

VD17 23:289511T. Schweiger (Greek), 276. Hoffman III, 291-2.

R. B. Todd, ‘Geminus, Ps.-Proclan *Sphaera’, in* V. Brown (ed.), Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, Annotated List and Guides, vol. VIII (Washington DC, 2003), pp.24-48.