De ivdiciis nativitatvm libri tres. With a preface by Philip Melanchthon. by SCHÖNER, Johannes - 1545

Nuremberg, Johannes Montanus & Ulrich Neuber, 1545. With 2 woodcut title-vignettes, 2 large and several small figured woodcut initials, many diagrams and tables in the text, large woodcut printer's mark at the end. 8 unn., 152 num. leaves. Folio. 19th century antique styled blind-stamped leather, spine on 4 raised bands, gilt-lettering (new endpapers). Nuremberg, Johannes Montanus & Ulrich Neuber, 1545. First edition. One of the earliest publications to comment favorably on the new discoveries of Copernicus, and one of Schöner's main works on astronomy. Johannes Schöner (1477-1547), German astronomer, mathematician, was the greatest cosmographer of the early sixteenth century. He was best known for his terrestrial globes: the one of 1515 which was, after Waldseemüller (1507), the second to show America, and the one of 1524, which was the first to delineate Magellan's circumnavigation. Schöner taught mathematics at the "Egidiengymnasium" in Nuremberg, founded by Melanchthon in 1526. The appearance of a comet in August 1531 impelled him to publish Regiomontanus' "De cometae magnitudine" (Nuremberg, 1531). This was the first of his valuable editions from the manuscripts of this great astronomer. By rediscovering Aristarch of Samos (c. 320-250 B.C.), Schöner paved the way for Kepler's heliocentric view. The present work appeared two years before the author's death, just two years after his co-publication of the foremost astronomical book, Nicolaus Copernicus "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (Nuremberg, 1543). "Schöner in 1545 printed another work of his own of considerable length, namely three books on the judgments of nativities, with another preface by Melanchthon. Schöner had been one of those who encouraged Copernicus to publish his magnum opus. Now in the present work, although preferring the method of Ptolemy in astrological judgments to those of subsequent astrologers, Schöner maintainted that the Copernican system was not unfavorable to astrology" (Thorndike). - The last copy we saw in an auction sale was the Streeter copy at Christie's N.Y., April 17, 2007 which was sold for $ 54000.- Early ms. no. "2" on title. Apart from some minor browing and staining, very few spots and an unimportant tear, a very good and clean copy - VD 16 S 3470; Adams S-681; STC, (German), 792; Zinner 1884; Houzeau/Lancaster 4827; Thorndike V, p. 367; cf. DSB XII, 199; cf. Dibner, Heralds of Science, 2. SCIENCE:ASTRONOMY & ASTROLOGY ;