KEPLER, Johannes.

Tabulae Rudolphinae, quibus Astronomicae Scientiae, Temporum longinquitate collapsae Restauratio continetur...

Finely engraved allegorical frontispiece (blank plate-mark slightly cropped at outer edge), numerous woodcut diagrams in the text, & one large (38.5 x 68.5 cm) folding engraved map of the world. 8 p.l., 120 pp., 4 leaves [numbered 121-25 & 3 unnumbered pp. of the "Sportula"], 115 (i.e. 119) pp. Folio, 18th cent. half-sheep & paste-paper boards (a little worn). Ulm: J. Saur, 1627. First edition, with the magnificent and very rare world map. The Rudolphine Tables provided the chief vehicle for the recognition of Kepler's astronomical accomplishments; it contains the first astronomical tables to be based on Kepler's three laws of planetary motion and is the first of Kepler's books to employ logarithms. This copy is one of the very few issued with the large map of the world prepared by the German cartographer Philip Eckebrecht at Kepler's request. "The printed volume of the Tabulae Rudolphinae contains 120 folio pages of text in the form of precepts and 119 pages of tables. Besides the planetary, solar, and lunar tables and the associated tables of logarithms it includes Tycho Brahe's catalog of 1,000 fixed stars, a chronological synopsis, and a list of geographical positions. In some of the copies there is also a foldout map of the world...the map was engraved in 1630 but apparently was not distributed until many years later. This work stands alone among Kepler's books in having an engraved frontispiece -- filled with intricate baroque symbolism..."­D.S.B., VII, p. 305. The "striking and unusual [world] map was conceived by the German cartographer Philip Eckerbrecht at the request of his friend Johann Kepler to be used with his Rudolphine Astronomical tables for the calculation of longitude which were first published at Ulm in 1627. However, although the map is dated 1630, all copies known today must have been issued considerably later, certainly after 1658 when the Emperor Leopold to whom the map is dedicated came to the throne...Because of the long delay in the publication of the map it is seldom found in copies of the book it was intended to accompany, and indeed only very rarely is Eckerbrecht's map found on the open market."­Shirley, The Mapping of the World, 335. Fine copy, unusually large and fresh. Bookplate of H. Mielzynskich w Pawlowicach. As usual, the four leaves of the "Sportula" are a little foxed. Caspar 79. Gingerich, "Johannes Kepler and the Rudolphine Tables" in The Great Copernicus Chase (1992), pp. 123-31. Sparrow, Milestones of Science, 116.

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• продавец: Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller, Inc. (USA)