Charting the Heavens - The Oldest Books in the RAS Library

Synopsis:

This talk will focus on the first astronomical books to be published in print in the late fifteenth century. These books are known as 'incunables', from the Latin for swaddling clothes which alludes to the 'cradle' of the European printing press. Using examples held in the library of the Royal Astronomical Society, we will consider the work of authors like Regiomontanus, whose books contained not only precise astronomical tables, but also instruments that readers could use for their own observations. We will look at multiple copies of Johannes de Sacrobosco's Sphaera Mundi (The Sphere of the world), which was widely used as a textbook in European universities. Published in multiple editions over centuries, it become one of the most popular astronomical books of all time. The library's collection of over 50 books produced before 1501 provides evidence for the transmission of astronomical thought via Arabic scholars, and reveals how astronomy…