B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

Erwin Tomash Library
Bianchini, Giovanni Bianchini, Giovanni
Pagination: pp. [12], 268, [38]
Collation: )( 4 2)( 2 A–2K 4 L 2 2A–2D 4 2E 3
Size: 191x151 mm
Reference: Pogg Vol. I, p. 183
This is a Latin version of the work described above.
While the works are similar, containing the same woodcut
diagrams and tables, the examples of calculations often
differ, and the accuracy of the tables suffers from the
same problem as in the German version. See comments
in Beyer, Johann Hartmann; Ein newe und schone Art
der Vollkommenen Visier-Kunst, 1603.
Illustrations available:
Title page
B 150
Bianchini, Giovanni (ca.1410–1469)
Tabulae celestium motuum eorumque canones.
Year: 1460–1470
Place: Italy
Edition: manuscript
Language: Latin
Figures: Manuscript tables in red and black
Binding: contemporary vellum over boards
Pagination: ff. [b], [1], [2b], [16], 1–122, [2b], [4], [4b], [1],
[2b]
Size: 294x220 mm
According to Thorndike’s History of magic and
experimental science, Bianchini was probably the
fifteenth century’s foremost astronomer. He lived and
worked for many years in the service of three successive
D’Este Dukes at Ferrara, where he was in contact with
several of the greatest astronomers of the century. Georg
Peuerbach (1423–61), the teacher of Regiomontanus
(1436–76), lectured in Ferrara in 1450, and Rose states
(Italian Renaissance of Mathematics, p. 14)
Regiomontanus himself visited Ferrara in the
1460’s, having perhaps been lured there by the
prospect of meeting Bianchini with whom he
initiated a scientific correspondence.
At this time Bianchini would have been in his late
forties or early fifties and as the leading figure of the last
generation of astronomers would have been an impressive
person to the young Peuerbach and his even younger
student and collaborator, Regiomontanus. At an even
earlier date than that cited by Rose, Regiomontanus
and Peuerbach were both calculating ephemerides from
Bianchini’s tables around 1456. Of their contemporaries
(Regiomontanus’ &. Peuerbach’s), only Bianchini …
possessed a comparable proficiency and originality.
(DSB Vol. 15, pp. 474–475).
B 150
In this manuscript work, Bianchini set out to reconcile
the Alfonsine tables—for two centuries the standard in
Europe by the time he wrote—with those of Ptolemy.
He was a great admirer of Ptolemy and critical of the
corrupted Ptolemaic and Alfonsine texts then in current
use. Thorndike observes that historically
… many have erred by neglecting, because of
their difficulty, the Alfonsine Tables for longitude
and the Ptolemaic for finding the latitude of the
planets. Accordingly in his Tables Bianchini has
combined the conclusions, roots and movements
of the planets by longitude of the Alfonsine Tables
with the Ptolemaic for latitude, and with the rules
of Ptolemy which Alfonso too had employed.
Bianchini’s Tables must have been useful and perhaps
even popular since they went through three printed
editions. The text was first published in 1495 at Venice.
A second edition was printed in 1526, and another
appeared in Basel in 1553.
The manuscript is roughly divided into two parts: the
first of fifteen leaves includes an introduction and the
Canones, which explain how the tables were calculated
and how to use them. The second comprises tables and
occupy the balance of the work. Manuscript copies of
the tables alone are recorded in some European libraries,
but here they appear together with the Canones. Of
additional interest is a letter from the Venetian humanist
and Senator Marco Sanuto (ca.1466–1533) starting on
folio 10v and 11r, running onto the lower margin of
141