Folio (530 x 340 mm), 36 double-page size engravings, all on their original stubs, and with publishers’ hand-colouring; a few contemporary annotations in French, occasional dampstaining (generally more visible on versos only), a very attractive copy in a contemporary flexible wallet binding of blind-stamped brown calf, inside of flap lined with patterned paper, ‘Atlas astronomique’ embossed in gilt on front cover, binding slightly rubbed, lower edge of flap a little worn at folds. £27,500
A SUPERB COMPOSITE CELESTIAL ATLAS, combining charts by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayer, Johann Tobias Mayer, and Georg Moritz Lovits, some of the best available at the time. Atlases in general were often assembled from the large stocks of the thriving Nuremberg map manufacturers and distributors at the customer’s request. Ours is a fine example of a purely astronomical atlas from the officina Homann supplemented by several charts by Seutter, and assembled and bound at the customer’s specifications. The maps are consecutively numbered in ink (beginning with 0), possibly in reference to the customer’s order, with some numbers cropped upon binding. The larger part of the engravings are by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayer, whose Atlas novus coelestis was published separately by the heirs of Homann in 1742. The remaining charts in our composite atlas are a fine engraving by Seutter of terrestrial and celestial globes, followed by Homann’s version of the same, Mayer’s (2) on the partial lunar eclipse of 1748, Lovits’ (2) on the solar eclipse of the same year, an unsigned cartographic chart incorporating diagrams of both the Copernican and Tychonic systems, Seutter’s engraving of the comet of 1742, and a plate on recent developments in astronomy and geography by the same.
‘Doppelmayr was an astronomer of high repute; he was born at Nuremberg in 1671 and was educated at Halle University. He was a professor of mathematics in his native city for nearly fifty years, and for some time made a speciality of lunar observations’ (Brown, Astronomical Atlases, Maps and Charts p 51). ‘His reputation was such as to gain him memberships in the Academia Caesarea Leopoldina, the academies of Berlin and St. Petersburg, and the Royal Society of London… His major work is the Atlas novus coelestis… Besides star charts and a selenographic map, Doppelmayer’s Atlas includes diagrams illustrating the planetary systems of Copernicus, Tycho, and Riccioli; the elliptic theories of Kepler, Boulliau, Seth Ward, and Mercator; the lunar theories of Tycho, Horrocks, and Newton; and Halley’s cometary theory’ (DSB IV, p 166). ‘The positions of the stars on the maps are correct for the year 1730’ (Warner, The Sky Explored p 66).
Following a brief period in Augsburg, Johannes Tobias Mayer left the city in 1747 ‘to take up a post with the Homann Cartographic Bureau. He spent five years there, which he devoted primarily to improving the state of cartography. To this end he collated geographical and astronomical data from the numerous printed and manuscript records to which the Homann office permitted him access. He also made personal observations of lunar occultations and other astronomical eclipse phenomena, using a nine-foot-focus telescope and a glass micrometer of his own design… In order to facilitate the lunar eclipse method of longitude determination, Mayer in 1747 and 1748 made a large number of micrometric measurements of the angular diameter of the moon and of the times of its meridian transits. In his determinations of the selenographic coordinates of eighty-nine prominent lunar markings, he took account of the irregularity of the orbital and libratory motions of the moon and of the effect of its variable parallax’ (DSB). Georg Moritz Lovits, whose plates follow Mayer’s in this atlas, was equally employed at Homann’s and he eventually became a partner in the company. In 1754 he took up a professorship of practical mathematics at Nuremberg, next to Mayer. He published several works on scientific instruments and performed own astronomical observations.
The present atlas is made up of the following maps and charts (designed by Doppelmayer and published by Homann in Nuremberg unless otherwise stated; the numbering follows that of the ink inscriptions):
0. Spherae artificiales synoptica idea (depicting an armillary sphere, and celestial and terrestrial globes). Augsburg, Seutter.
1. Sphaerarum artificialium typica repraesentatio (Homann’s version of above print).
2. Hemisphaerium coeli boreale (with depictions of Tycho’s, Hevelius’, the Paris, and Nuremberg observatories in the corners).
3. Hemisphaerae coeli australis (with depictions of the Greenwich, Copenhagen, Kassel, and Berlin observatories).
4-9. Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti pars I [-VI] (complete set of Doppelmayer’s star maps, with his calculations of the positions of the stars, as completed in 1730, in the margins).
10. Schematismus geographiae mathematicae (cartographic chart incorporating diagrams of both the Copernican and Tychonic systems, dated 1753).
11. Systema solare et planetarum.
12. Systema mundi Tychonicum.
13. Phaenomena circa quantitatem dierum artificialium et solarium perpetuo mutabilem.
14. Phaenomena in planetis primaries (the surface structure of Venus, Mars, Jupiter; Saturn’s rings, comparing observations by Hevelius, Bianchini, Cassini, Halley, Hooke, Huygens, Maraldi, and Scheiner).
15. Theoria planetarum primariorum (planetary motion, mainly based on Kepler).
16. Theoria satellitum Iovis et Saturni (satellite motion).
17. Phaenomena motuum irregularium (irregularities of planetary motion).
18. Ephemerides motuum coelestium geometricae (planerary motion as per observations of 1708 and 1709, and Hooke’s calculations of the distance between the Sun and Sirius).
19. Motus in coelo spirales ... pro exemplo ad annum Christi 1712 et 1713.
20. Motus planetarum superiorum.
21. Astronomia comparativa ... è Sole, Mercurio, Venere et Luna exhibentur (the phases and surface of the earth as seen from the moon).
22. Astronomia comparativa ... è planetis nostri respectu superioribus, Marte, Iove et Staurno sistuntur.
23. Tabula selenographica (large lunar hemispheres, based on Riccioli’s and Hevelius’ observations).
24. Theoria Lunae (detailed images of two lunar regions, lunar mechanics, and the Newtonian theory of lunar motion).
25. Theoria eclipsium (a comprehensive display of lunar and solar eclipses).
26. MAYER, Tobias. Vorstellung der in der Nacht zwischen den 8. u. 9. August 1748 vorfallenden partialen Mond-Finsternis (on the lunar eclipse of August 8 and 9, 1748). Mayer ‘made theoretical and practical studies of the moon to contribute to the solution of the problem of longitude and to study the moon’s surface’ (Abetti, The History of Astronomy p 145).
27-8. LOWITZ, Moritz. Vorstellung der Sonnen- oder Erd Finsternis den 25 Jul. 1748. Zweytes Blatt. Die verfinsterte Erdkugel d. i. geographische vorstellung der Sonnen- od. Erd-Finsternis den 25ten Iulii Ao. 1748 ... 1tes Blat (dated 1747 these are on the solar eclipse of the following year, incorporating Leonhard Euler’s calculations).
29. Motus cometarum in hemisphaerio boreali (using the latest theories of Horrocks and Bernoulli).
30. Motus cometarum in hemisphaerio australi.
31. Theoria cometarum (introducing Kepler’s, Hevelius’, Petit’s and Cassini’s theories).
32. Cometa qui anno Christi 1742 apparuit ex observationibus, à die 13 Marty usque ad 15 Aprilis. Augsburg, Seutter.
33. Sphaera mundi.
34. Basis geographiae recentioris astronomica (tabular representation of the latest calculations of the longitude and latitude of different places in all four continents, the map incorporating a tiny section of the Australian West coast).
35. Novissimum astronomiae, geographiae, ac gnomonicae compendium theoreticum (a sundial, an astronomical diagram, and several astronomical instruments accompanied by extensive explanatory text). Augsburg, Seutter, 1749
GBP 27500.00
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