pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

ook was the Wrst product of Kepler’s private press at Sagan where he had
moved in 1628 under the patronage of Albrecht von Wallenstein. Schreck
had been a student of Galileo and a member of the Academia dei Lincei in
Rome before being sent to China by the Jesuits.
‘The letter from Johannes Terrentius [Schreck] with commentary is a tidbit
with a connection to the Jesuits’ practice of science in China. Terrentius
wrote to his brothers from Hangchow with a report on his calendrical
activities and a request for the newest Wndings of Western astronomy
regarding lunar theory and the calculation of eclipses, speciWcally Kepler’s
“Hipparchus” (unpublished until modern times) and anything by Galileo.
Kepler commented on the letter line by line and gave an outline of his physical
lunar theory. Published two years later as the Wrst oVering from his new press
in Sagan, it apparently did not make it back to China before Terrentius’s
death (Voelkel p. 85).
Kepler’s commentary is on B1v–C6r, and the appendix, ‘ex Ephemeride
Anni M.DC.XXX’ on C6r–v dated at the end 15 January 1630.
James R. Voelkel, essay review, ‘Johannes Kepler: Gesammelte Werke, Band IX’,
Journal for the History of Astronomy, 28 (1997) 83–86.
170
SE˛DZIWÓJ, Michal, or SENDIVOGIuS (c. 1556–c. 1646)
A new light of alchymie: taken out of the fountaine of nature, and
manuall experience. To which is added a treatise of sulphur: written by
Micheel Sandivogius... Also nine books of the nature of things, written
by Paracelsus... Also a chymicall dictionary explaining hard places
and words met withall in the writings of Paracelsus, and other obscure
authors. All which are faithfully translated out of the Latin into the
English tongue, by J.F. M.D.
London, 1650.
4to: p A 4 A–V 4 ; p 2A 2A–2S 4 ; 3A–3F 4 , 184 leaves, pp. [16] 147 [5];
[8] 145 (i.e. 143, 105–106 omitted) [1]; [48]. Dated titlepage ‘Of the
nature of things’ on p 2A1 but lacking the titlepage to the last
section (an inset single leaf). Woodcut headpieces and initials.
177 x 133mm. Titlepage soiled and chipped in lower corner; p 2A4
cropped with loss of a line at the foot of the verso (removing the words
‘Dated at Villacum in the yeare, 1537’); paper browned and brittle and
with some isolated ink stains and water stains.
Binding: Eighteenth­century half calf, Xat gilt tooled spine. Joints
cracked but sound, spine and corners worn.
Provenance: underlining and a few annotations in an early hand in the
Wrst part, also some pencil annotations; later ink annotations in the last
part. Nineteenth­century bookseller’s ticket of W. Booth, Manchester;
cancelled Cambridge university Library stamp dated 1 Jan [18]72 and
shelf mark 19.10.76 on verso of title and pencil note on free endleaf,
‘duplicate see L.6.5’.