53

Ignazio Danti (1536-1586)

Trattato dell' Uso et della Fabbrica dell' Astrolabio.

Florence: Appresso i Giunti, 1569.
First edition, large octavo, woodcut printer's device incorporating a globe and the orbs used in the House of Medici arms to title page and A3 verso; illustrated with text woodcuts, many of which also display the Medici orbs; old handwritten institutional inscription on title; bound in full contemporary limp parchment (faint water stain to top edge throughout weakening the paper slightly along the top edge); 8 x 5 1/2 in.

Danti was an influential Dominican mathematician, painter, cartographer, and globe & instrument maker who worked closely with the Medici's and later, after he was exiled by the family, with the Pope. While in Florence, he designed the quadrant and armillary sphere on the façade of the convent of the Santa Maria Novella. In this work, notably published in vernacular Italian, Danti describes how to construct and use an astrolabe of his own design. The Trattato also contains his extremely accurate calculation of the obliquity of the ecliptic, or axial tilt of the earth at 23 degrees, 28 minutes. The currently calculated angle of our planet is 23 degrees, 26 minutes.

  • Notes: Ex libris Professor, Astronomer, Historian & Bibliophile Owen Gingerich.
  • Condition: A-Z4, &4, [con]4, Aa-Ff4.

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