Nouvelle Theorie des Planetes

Author: Noël Duret (ca1590-1650) from the library of professor, Astronomer, Historian and Bibliophile Owen Gingerich

Year: 1635

Publisher: Chez Gervais Allio

Place: Paris

Description:

A2-4 (lacking A1 blank), B4, C2, Aa-Ff4, Gg2, Hh-Kk4, Ll2, A-H4, A-S4 pages with tables and illustrations. Quarto (9" x 6 1/2") bound in old limp parchment with title to spine. From the library of professor, Astronomer, Historian and Bibliophile Owen Gingerich. Fist edition.

Noël Duret (also known as Natalis Durret) was a prominent 17th-century French mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. He actively advanced both the theoretical and applied scientific practices of his era. He served as the official Royal Cosmographer to King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu. : He worked as a professor of mathematics in Paris, teaching both pure theory and applied branches like cartography. Duret acted as a vital publisher and promoter for the famous mathematician François Viète. He helped popularize Viète's revolutionary system of symbolic algebra across France. : In 1635, he published Nouvelle Théorie des Planètes. He followed this up in 1641 by publishing detailed astronomical ephemerides and tables. These tools provided essential calculation methods for determining celestial positioning at sea and on land.

Owen Jay Gingerich (1930-2023) was an American astronomer who had been professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. In addition to his research and teaching, he had written many books on the history of astronomy.

Condition: Edge wear, some endemic browning from the original paper stock, occasional old ink marginalia else about very good.