pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

text; separate titlepages to the Rheticus dated 1621 (but the register
and pagination continuous) and to the ‘Apologia’, dated 1622 with
large woodcut printer’s device (on a1, starting the second register and
pagination sequence).
5 folding engraved plates. 1 engraving signed Chirstophorus Leibfried.
V. Tübing: 1597’ (at p. 26) and 4 woodcuts with letterpress headings
and captions (2 at p. 18 and at pp. 54 and 56).
318 x 197mm. Worm holes and tracks in the upper and lower margins,
not aVecting the text but touching a few lines and letters in the last
two plates; quite heavy waterstaining throughout.
Binding: Contemporary British blind­ruled calf, old rebacking with
most of the original spine preserved. Endleaves at front and back
removed.
Provenance: Nineteenth­century Inscription ‘Dupplin Castle R. 175.10’
and shelf mark ‘H. C.31’ scored out and replaced with ‘H. 7.3.’
Dupplin Castle is a mansion house in Strathearn, Perth and Kinross,
built in 1828–32 to replace an earlier castle destroyed by Wre, the seat
of the Hay Earls of Kinnoull. The mansion later became the home
of the Perth whisky baron John Dewar, Lord Forteviot (1856–1929).
Inscribed ‘Bernard Pagel MCMLVII’ in Walter Pagel’s hand.
Second, enlarged edition of ‘Mysterium Cosmographicum’
(Wrst 1596), containing, as in the Wrst edition, a reprint of
Rheticus Narratio prima (Wrst 1540), and issued with the
Wrst edition of Kepler’s Pro suo Opere Harmonices Mundia
apologia. Caspar 67 and 68.
Kepler’s Wrst book, usually referred to as ‘Mysterium Cosmographicum’
is a Copernican treatise which set the course for
his life’s work. It contains his theory that the orbit of each of
the Wve planets is determined by the circumference of the Wve
platonic solids nested one inside the other. This is illustrated in
the famous engraved plate.
As well as Kepler’s own introductory chapter expounding
and defending the Copernican theory, the book contains a
reprint of Rheticus’ Naratio prima, the Wrst announcement
of the Copernican theory, Wrst published in 1540, before De
revolutionibus in 1543. This second edition contains Kepler’s
additional notes reXecting the development of his thinking in
the intervening 25 years. Also appended is the Wrst edition of
Kepler’s response to attacks by Robert Fludd on his Harmonices
mundi of 1619.
The illustration of the nested solids is a Wne engraving, copied
in reverse from the engraving that appeared in the Wrst edition
of 1596, and still bearing the date 1597 (it is not clear why the
engraving was dated a year after the date on the titlepage of
the book).
‘Quixotic or chimerical as Kepler’s polyhedrons may appear
today, we must remember the revolutionary context in which
they were proposed. The Mysterium cosmographicum was