Tabule astronomice divi Alfonsi Regis Romanoru[m] et Castelle; nuper quam diligentissime cum additionibus emendate

by the court of Alfonso X

Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, 1518 [i.e. 1521]

120 leaves | 4to | A-C^8 D-E^4 F-Q^8 | 215 x 156 mm

An early edition of the West's most indispensable set of astronomical data, "of central importance in European astronomical calculations of planetary positions until replaced by Keplerian astronomy" (Babb). They were twice printed in the 15th century, in 1483 and 1492, and our edition is likely the fifth overall, following other Liechtenstein editions in 1502 and 1503. The tables were first computed under the direction of Alfonso X, King of Castile, in the 13th century, hence the name. They were based on 11th-century Arabic work by al-Zarkali and naturally used the Ptolemaic model. Like the first printed edition, and many late medieval manuscript versions, our tables were updated from those originally conceived at Alfonso's court. It was probably John of Lignières who updated the tables at Paris in the 14th century, and his student, John of Saxony, wrote the prefatory material found here. ¶ The Alfonsine Tables provided the raw data required to compute the shifting positions of the sun, moon, and planets. "These remarkable tables are capable of calculating up to eighty thousand years of planetary and stellar movements," (Gaston), and so they became a critical part of the intellectual infrastructure that underlay not only astronomy, but the vital science of astrology—then a reputable mathematical field, and one that influenced important decisions made throughout Europe by the high- and low-born alike. These tables directly or indirectly informed the content of countless ephemerides and almanacs, the latter easily the most popular secular genre of print. Chaucer probably used them when writing his Complaint of Mars, and John Lydgate in his own poetry. Copernicus, too, owned a copy of the 1492 edition, and he used the tables to help develop his own novel planetary theory. They stood as a pillar of European science for more than three centuries. Erasmus Reinhold's Prutenic Tables (1551) made some headway as a replacement, but the Alfonsine Tables were not definitively replaced until the appearance of Kepler's Rudolphine Tables in 1627.

PROVENANCE: A copy with compelling evidence of use, most visibly the annotations surrounding the Tabula quantitatis dierum on fol. [30]. This table provides the half-length of daylight for geographic latitudes running from 36 to 55 degrees, keyed to the solar longitude, which can identify Earth's position in its orbit around the Sun. The solar longitude runs down the first column on the left, starting at zero (the spring equinox) and advancing at intervals of three degrees. For example, when the Sun is 18 degrees from the vernal equinox, locations along the 45th parallel—the city of Bordeaux, for example—would have about 12 hours and 58 minutes of daylight (twice the table's half-length of 6 hours and 29 minutes). (Though our course we encourage you to defer to your own trusted astronomer on proper use of the table.) ¶ The lengthy annotation surrounding the table on fol. [30]r, and continuing into the upper margin on the verso, expands on the the practical use of the table. The annotation begins, for example, "Note that if you subract the semi-diurnal of a certain day from the hour 29, the meridian of the same day remains..." (Nota quam si semi diurnum alicuius subtraxeris...). The text goes on to speak of elevation, the zodiac, the diurnal arc, and more. This early reader demonstrates similar expertise with their annotations on fol. 6v-7r, and with much briefer annotations on fol. 7v, [32]r, and 33v. ¶ Perhaps more fascinating still are certain alterations to the printed text, which clarify an early owner's perceived utility of the book—augmenting, and even rejecting, those suggested by the printer. On the title, for example, this reader neatly wrote Kalendarium cum above the printed title. Far more drastic, on fol. 2r, they obliterated and replaced more than a full line of text. Where the printer had Tabule tabularum celestium motuum divi Alfonsi Regis Romanorum et Castelle illustrissimi, our reader alters it to Tabule tabularum celestium motuum planetarum cum numeris mense de rota fortuna sub signis escire solent. The reader essentially robs the stated author of his glory, replacing the authorial statement with an added content summary. Indeed, a few lines later, Alfonsi is replaced with another name (which we sadly cannot make out). The book ends with an altered colophon, replacing 1521 Venetiis with 1553 Neapolis. We assume this reflects the time and place the reader made these alterations. ¶ With an old partially washed inscription on the title, and another early ownership inscription at the foot of the title— Di Lorenzo Somis Ardi—which we expect belongs to Italian violinist and composer Lorenzo Somis (1688-1775), who adopted Ardy, or Ardi, as a kind of alias. Old shelfmark label at head of spine, and another sticker at bottom of the front board.

CONDITION: Full black goatskin, ca. 1900, with marbled endpapers and the title in gold on the spine. With quite a few decorative initials, and the printer's magnificent full-page device at end in black and red. ¶ Margins foxed, and occasional mild staining; title heavily soiled, wormed at the bottom (affecting the Somis signature), a bit tattered at the edges, and with some of the printed text touched up in manuscript; last page soiled. Leather rubbed at the extremities, joints especially, but a solid copy.

REFERENCES: USTC 808746; EDIT16 CNCE 1132 ¶ On the tables: Stanley E. Babb, Jr., "Accuracy of Planetary Theories, Particularly for Mars," Isis 68.3 (Sept 1977), p. 431 (cited above); Noel M. Swerdlow, "The Derivation and First Draft of Copernicus's Planetary Theory: A Translation of the Commentariolus with Commentary," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 117.6 (Dec 1973), p. 425-426 (on Copernicus's ownership and use; "The sources of Copernicus's early planetary theory are relatively few," but the Alphonsine Tables are among them); Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (2005), p. 251 ("Exclusive reliance on the Alphonsine Tables until the 1540s might be contrasted with the array of six different sets of tables confronting astronomers in the 1640s"); Richard I. Harper, "Prophatius Judaeus and the Medieval Astronomical Tables," Isis 62.1 (Spring 1971), p. 62 ("These tables do not give the planetary longitudes; they are tables of radices, or roots, that provide the data required for computation"); Richard Harper, "The Astronomical Tables of William Rede," Isis 66.3 (Sept 1975), p. 372 ("the most widely used version in the Latin West was that of John of Lignières with the canon on their use that was written by his student John of Saxony"); Kara Gaston, "Forms and Celestial Motion in Chaucer's 'Complaint of Mars,'" PMLA 133.2 (March 2018), p. 286 (cited above, and with a good summary of how the tables work); Johnstone Parr, "Astronomical Dating for Some of Lydgate's Poems," PMLA 67.2 (March 1952), p. 258 (for Lydgate's use); Jean-Pierre Verdet, "La diffusion de l'héliocentrisme," Revue d'histoire des sciences 42.3 (July/Sept 1989), p. 248 ("In Copernicus's time, the best known tables were still the Alphonsine Tables"); Jerry R. Craddock, "Alfonso X el Lunático," Romane Philology 73.2 (Fall 2019), p. 455 ("his Tabulae Alphonsinae remained a standard and essential texxt for astronomers for the remainder of the Middle Ages and into the early modern period"); E.S. Procter, "The Scientific Works of the Court of Alfonso X of Castille: The King and His Collaborators," The Modern Language Review 40.1 (Jan 1945), p. 13 ("The Tables enjoyed great fame during the later Middle Ages and in the Renaissance period," here with a good summary of their revision and accretions)

Item #819