Alessandro PICCOLOMINI

DE LE STELLE FISSE

Libri Uno

Dove di tutte le XLVIII immagini celesti minutissimamente si tratta … ancora le figure come per il ciel si distendono …

e oltre ci son tavole .. per conoscere non solo le dette immagini nel Cielo

ma qual si voglia stella …

Venetia, Giovanni Varisco

1570

Small 4° (8 ½”), cc. 30, 48 full-page woodcut star maps, 69 tables with star positions, cc. 3

ABSOLUTELY COMPLETE

Condition: very good copy, some maps with old drawing in ink of the Constellations (see photos)

Binding: later half calf, title on spine

AN IMPORTANT TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY CONTAINING WOODCUT STAR MAPS

Piccolomini (1508-1579) belonged to an illustrious Senese family whose members had included Pope Pius II (1405-64). He took up a career of popular writing and produced numerous books of comedies, sonnets, and mora importantly, popularisations of science in Italian language.

De le Stelle Fisse (i.e. Concerning the Fixed Stars) is accepted as the

FIRST PRINTED STAR ATLAS

and contains xylographic (woodcut as opposed to engraved) star maps, among the last examples printed in the sixteenth century.

Houzeau & Lancaster I, 2491; Adams P 1113; Riccardi II/270