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the heavens revealed Classics of Astronomy from Ptolemy to Copernicus to Einstein from the Collection of Professor Jay M. Pasachoff CHAPIN LIBRARY · WILLIAMS COLLEGE MAY-SEPTEMBER 2003 Jay M. Pasachoff has taught astronomy and astrophysics at Williams College since . His special research interests are the study of the sun at total solar eclipses, cosmic deuterium and its relation to cosmology, and the atmosphere of Pluto, as well as the history and art of his discipline. He has written many books and articles, including A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets for the Peterson Field Guide Series; Astronomy: From the Earth to the Universe; Fire in the Sky: Comets and Meteors, the Decisive Centuries in British Art and Science (with Roberta J.M. Olson); and The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium (with Alexei Filippenko). The star maps shown in the hall display case were drawn by Wil Tirion for A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets. The painting of the constella- tion Taurus on display in the Library gallery is by local artist Robin Brickman. Professor Pasachoff’s important personal collection of rare books related to astronomy and astrophysics is on deposit in the Chapin Library, where it is used in concert with the Library’s esteemed History of Science collection to further the educational program at Williams. Woodcut initial P from Ptolemy, Almagest, 1515 (Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff) Bible. Latin. of the universe, and the sun, moon, planets, and Mainz: Johann Gutenberg, [ca. ] stars revolve around it in circular paths on concentric Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff spheres – as shown in the exhibition by a woodcut in Peter Apian’s introduction to cosmography. It is only fitting, in an exhibition which celebrates The so-called Alfonsine Tables, of which a copy of the study of the heavens and earth in rare printings, the first printed edition is in the Pasachoff collection, also to display part of the holy word of the Creator were compiled at Toledo in Spain at the request of from the earliest printed Bible. This leaf from Alfonso X “the Wise” of Leon and Castile. Their start- Gutenberg’s famous -line Bible contains part ing point is May , the eve of the king’s corona- of the text of Chronicles from : to :, which tion. Based on Ptolemy’s nd-century Almagest with describes the building of the Temple of Solomon. certain mathematical refinements, and following the general format of tables by the th-century Cordoban astronomer al-Zarqali, the Alfonsine Tables permitted Jakob Pflaum, ca. – the user to determine the position of the sun, moon, Calendarium planets, and stars at any given time or place, and to Ulm: Johannes Zainer, predict eclipses and conjunctions. Such ephemerides Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff were used primarily by astrologers, but were also an aid to navigation. Regiomontanus, – Calendarium Venice: Bernhard Maler (Pictor), Erhard Ratdolt, Peter Löslein, Gift of Alfred C. Chapin, Class of Pflaum’s Calendarium is one of the earliest calendars published in book form, providing essential astronom- ical tables valid from to , and lists of predicted solar and lunar eclipses from to . It is displayed next to an illustrious predecessor, the Calendarium by Regiomontanus published at Ulm in . Peter Apian, – Hartman Schedel, – Cosmographicus Liber Leaf from Liber Chronicarum Landshut: Johann Weyssenburger, Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, Gift of Alfred C. Chapin, Class of Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff Alfonso X, “el Sabio”, King of Castile The Nuremberg Chronicle is a history of the world and Leon, – from Creation to the year of the book’s publication. Tabulae Astronomicae Alfontii Regis Castellae Produced as a monument to the greatness of Nurem- Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, berg, it is one of the most thoroughly designed and Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff lavishly illustrated books of the th century. Both Latin and German editions were published in . The nd-century Alexandrian astronomer Claudius In addition to its importance in trade and printing, Ptolemy described what came to be known as the Nuremberg was a center of mathematical and astro- Ptolemaic system, in which the earth is at the center nomical studies, and for the production of celestial and terrestrial globes. It is fitting, therefore, that Claudius Ptolemy, nd Century several astronomical instruments, and a portrait Almagestum Cl. Ptolemei of the astronomer Regiomontanus, appear in Venice: Petrus Liechtenstein, January the Chronicle. The book also notes, with pictures, : thirteen appearances of comets from to . Georg Peurbach, – Tabulae Eclypsium Magistri Georgii Peurbachii Regiomontanus, – Epytoma in Almagestum Ptolemaei Johannes Regiomontanus, – Venice: Johannes Hamman, August Tabula Primi Mobilis Joannes de Monte Regio Gift of Alfred C. Chapin, Class of Edited by Georg Tanstetter Vienna: Johannes Winterburger, Ptolemy’s explanation of how the universe works held Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff sway for some fourteen hundred years. It was based on the common-sense view that the sun, planets, and stars, In Professor Pasachoff’s collection is a copy of the first as well as the moon, revolve around the earth, as they printed edition of the complete Almagest, translated appear to do as one sees them in the sky, and it pro- into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the th century claimed the perfection of the heavens by describing from a translation into Arabic, made in turn from the motion in circular paths and on concentric spheres. original Greek. In addition to its explanation of celes- To account for the movement of the planets, however, tial movement, it includes a star catalogue based on which sometimes appear to double back in their Hipparchus and descriptions of instruments for use courses, Ptolemy had to suppose (to put it simply) in astronomical observations. The Pasachoff copy is that each followed a smaller circle (epicycle) while also in a contemporary stamped pigskin binding with moving on a larger circle (deferent) and turning with original clasps. the associated sphere. Although a complicated system, Here Ptolemy’s work is bound with the first print- it allowed for astronomical and astrological predic- ing of the Tabulae Eclypsium or tables of solar and tions, as shown by the Alfonsine Tables. lunar eclipses by Peurbach, completed probably in The Islamic world, with its penchant for measure- , based on the Alfonsine Tables but expanded, ment, gladly received and preserved Ptolemy’s mathe- rearranged, and altogether improved; and the Tabula matical analysis of celestial motion, which came to Primi Mobilis (“Table of the First Movable Sphere”) be known as the Almagest or “greatest work”. Its first by Regiomontanus, which describes the apparent appearance in print was as the Epitome begun by the daily rotation of the heavens. Austrian astronomer Georg Peurbach and completed by his pupil Johannes Müller of Regensburg, called Regiomontanus. It is not merely an abridgment of Nicolaus Copernicus, – Ptolemy but includes later observations, revised De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium computations, and critical reflections. (By this time, Nuremberg: Johannes Petreius, in fact, its deficiencies were known to scholars such Two copies shown: Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff; as Peurbach and Regiomontanus, who held to higher Gift of Alfred C. Chapin, Class of standards of accuracy in celestial computation.) Its frontispiece shows Regiomontanus sitting next to Copernicus, a canon of Frombork in Poland, pursued a crowned Ptolemy beneath an armillary sphere. an interest in astronomy which was ultimately to overthrow the dominance of the Ptolemaic system. He was drawn to ideas of the sun and stars as nobler bodies than the earth, and of the earth’s daily rotation and annual revolution. By May he wrote a small Leonard Digges, ca. –? tract presenting a theory of celestial motion which A Prognostication Everlasting of Ryght Good Effecte included a central sun and a moving earth. He circu- The seconde impression augmented by the author lated a draft of this heliocentric theory among trusted London: Thomas Gemini, friends, but evidently concluded, upon the publication Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff of Ptolemy’s complete Almagest in , that a more extensive mathematical treatment was required to Digges is concerned here with practical astronomical support his own conclusions. and astrological rules connecting the heavens (on the Ptolemaic model), the weather, the tides, and the human body. Thus (for example) “the conjunction, quadrature, or opposition of Iuppiter with the Sunne [signifies] great and moste vehement wyndes”; “cometes signifie corruption of the ayre”; and “these Signes are moste daungerous for bloud letting, the Moone beyng in them: Taurus, Gemini, Leo, Virgo and Capricornus, with the last halfe of Libra, and Scorpius.” Some of his tables, such as that of the altitude of the sun, are said to have been helpful to sailors. In the author’s son, astronomer Thomas Digges, published a new edition of the Prognostication which included a version of the Copernican arrange- ment of planets, for the first time within a universe of stars said to be at varying distances rather than on a fixed concentric sphere. His De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (“On Christoph Clavius, – the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres”) was pub- In Sphaeram Ioannas de Sacro Bosco Commentarius lished at last in . Some copies were printed; Venice: Bernard Basam, one was presented to Copernicus on his deathbed. Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff The work was widely admired as a sophisticated treatise, even by many readers who rejected a sun- Clavius entered the Jesuit order in , and for most of centered system out of hand; within a hundred years his life was a professor of mathematics at the Collegio its central thesis was generally accepted. Meanwhile, Romano in Rome. His treatise on the Sphaera Mundi it led to the more advanced work of Tycho Brahe, of Joannes de Sacro Bosco (John of Holywood, fl. ), Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei.

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