Commentarius in Ruzname Naurus sive Tabulae aequinoctiales novi Persarum & Turcarum anni. Nunc primum editae è Bibliotheca Georgii Hieronymi Velshii cujus accedi Dissertatio, de earundem usu.

WELSCH, Georg Hieronymus.

Published by Augsburg: printed by Johann Schönig at the expense of Theophil Goebel, 1676

About this Item

First and only edition of this fine example of early facsimile printing, and the first printed facsimile of a whole, substantial manuscript in Arabic script, with striking reproductions of astronomical tables and diagrams. The work revolves around a 16-leaf reproduction of an Ottoman Turkish commentary on a perpetual Persian calendar that is now commonly ascribed to the famous medieval astronomer Abu'l-Wafa' al-Buzjani (940-998 CE). The engravings were made by Melchior Haffner (1623-1685), a celebrated printmaker of the city of Ulm. The facsimile is accompanied by an extensive Latin study written by Georg Hieronymus Welsch (1624-1677), discussing Islamic astronomy and early modern scholarship about it by notable orientalists. A further six plates comprise diagrams of an astrolabe, the celestial sphere and the Julian calendar, a table listing the conjunction of months and constellations, and a further table supplying the months of the year in South Arabian, Coptic, Persian, Latin, Greek, Armenian, and Georgian. A contemporary of the great polymath al-Biruni, with whom he collaborated, Abu'l-Wafa' al-Buzjani gained renown at the 'Abbasid court of Baghdad, becoming "the last great representative of the mathematics-astronomy school that arose [in that city] around the beginning of the ninth century" (DSB). Some of his writings, especially on algebra, have been lost; of his extant achievements, "especially imaginative was his work in plane and solid geometry, in computing sine-tables to an interval of 0;30°, and in simplifying the solution of problems in spherical trigonometry. In astronomy the new parameters established by his observations continued in use for centuries after his death" (Pingree). The text of the Ruzname itself attributes the work not to al-Buzjani but rather to eyh Vefa (d. 1490 CE), a celebrated saint of the early Ottoman era. This identification has been questioned by scholars including Franz Babinger, who stated in 1927 that the origin of the perpetual calendar had yet to be clarified (Babinger, p. 116). However, it is clear that the Ottoman Turkish commentary on the perpetual calendar which formed the basis of Welsch's work was written by a scholar named 'Ain-i 'Ali Mu'ezzinzade in the early 17th century (Babinger, p. 141). Welsch (1624-1677), a German physician and Arabist, stood at the nexus of the intellectual life of western Europe in the mid-17th century, corresponding with Leibniz and supplying Arabic manuscripts to the theologian Johann Heinrich Hottinger. The Ruzname manuscript was also from his own collection, having entered it from the library of Christoph Weickmann (Christophorus Vueikmannus, 1617-1681), a notable patrician of Ulm who had a celebrated cabinet of curiosities from across Asia and Africa (Jones, p. 28). In addition to publishing the present work, in 1676 Welsch also brought out his Dream of Vindicianus, or Medical Desiderata, based on Leibniz's New Method of Teaching and Learning Jurisprudence. He had previously published a noted edition of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine. DSB I p. 39; Houzeau & Lancaster 1594-5; Schnurrer 465; not in Atabey, Blackmer, Diba, Ghani, or Wilson. Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke, 1927; David Pingree, "Abu'l Wafa Buzjani," Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. 1 fasc. 4, 1983, pp. 392-394; Adam Jones, "A Collection of African Art in Seventeenth-Century Germany: Christoph Weickmann's 'Kunst- und Naturkammer'", African Arts vol. 27, no. 2, April 1994, pp. 28-43 & 92-94. Small quarto (195 x 165 mm). pp. [16], 137, [19]. Engraved frontispiece by Johann Georg Waldreich after Johann Heinrich Schoenfeld, incorporating an Arabic-script title and portraits of two astronomers flanking a plinth topped by an armillary sphere, 22 engraved plates by Melchior Haffner, including 16 plates of manuscript facsimile within a floral border, woodcut head- and tailpieces and decorative initials. Bound in 18th-century marbled boards with spine and corners from.

Seller Inventory # 169329

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Commentarius in Ruzname Naurus sive Tabulae aequinoctiales novi Persarum & Turcarum anni. Nunc primum editae è Bibliotheca Georgii Hieronymi Velshii cujus accedi Dissertatio, de earundem usu.
• Publisher: Augsburg: printed by Johann Schönig at the expense of Theophil Goebel, 1676
• Edition: 1st Edition