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EXTREMELY RARE LARGE AND THICK PAPER COPY. First edition, extremely rare large and thick paper copy, of the most lavishly illustrated astronomical work published in the first half of the seventeenth century, with many full-page illustrations of Scheiner s observations of the sun and of the optical instruments he had designed for the purpose. "For his masterpiece, Scheiner produced the first monograph on a heavenly body, the Sun. Even today it is still an impressive volume, with scores of engravings of sunspots and the various instruments needed for solar observations" (Jesuit Science in the Age of Galileo). "Scheiner s drawings in the Rosa Ursina are of almost modern quality, and there was little improvement in solar imaging until 1905" (Britannica). In this work "Scheiner agreed with Galileo that sunspots are on the Sun s surface or in its atmosphere, that they are often generated and perish there, and that the Sun is therefore not perfect. Scheiner further advocated a fluid heavens (against the Aristotelian solid spheres), and he pioneered new ways of representing the motions of spots across the Sun s face" (Galileo Project). Scheiner was one of the first to observe sunspots by telescope, in March 1611, and in 1612 he published his findings anonymously. This led to a famous controversy with Galileo, who claimed to have observed sunspots earlier, involving the exchange of several letters. Galileo then turned to other matters, notably the preparation of the Dialogo, but Scheiner continued his observations of sunspots, culminating in the publication of the present work more than a decade later. Scheiner devised a number of new instruments in order to make his observations. Kepler had conceived the astronomical telescope, consisting of two converging lenses, but he never constructed one. Scheiner was the first to do so, and he added a third convex lens which transformed the inverted image into an erect one and greatly increased the field of view and brightness of the image. Scheiner also invented the first equatorially mounted telescope. All of these instruments are described and illustrated in Rosa Ursina, in which "Scheiner confirmed his method and criticized Galileo for failing to mention the inclination of the axis of rotation of the sunspots to the plane of the ecliptic" (DSB). But when the Dialogo was published in 1632, Scheiner was dismayed to find that Galileo dismissed Scheiner s work and claimed there that he [Galileo] had known of the curved motion of sunspots and its explanation in terms of the inclination of the Sun s axis since 1614 (although the evidence casts serious doubt on Galileo s claims). "It has been said that his [i.e., Scheiner s] enmity toward Galileo was instrumental in starting the process against the Florentine in 1633" (Galileo Project). Although this book appears on the market from time to time, we have been unable to locate any large paper copies in auction records. This copy measures 405 x 260mm; for comparison, the Macclesfield copy (in contemporary binding) was 350 x 230mm. Scheiner (1573-1650) was appointed professor of Hebrew and mathematics at the Jesuit College at Ingolstadt in 1610. The following year Scheiner, together with his student Johann Baptist Cysat (1587-1657), constructed a telescope with which to observe the satellites of Jupiter, partly to investigate the claims made by Galileo in Sidereus nuncius (1610). At sunrise one day in March, they decided to observe the sun and noticed dark spots on its surface, although initially they were unsure whether this might be due to flaws in the lenses or to clouds. Scheiner was preoccupied with observations of Jupiter, and also of Venus, but Cysat persuaded him to return to the solar observations using coloured glass to enable them to observe in full daylight, a technique that was used by sailors when taking the altitude of the Sun. This was on 21 October, as Scheiner tells us in Rosa Ursina (Ad Lectorum, p. [2]). Others soon became aware o. Seller Inventory # 5198
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