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Work 10,570 of 57,235
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* This information may change as the result of ongoing research.
Michael Ostendorfer (German, active 1520-1549)
Petrus Apianus (German, active 1526 - 1540), , German, 1495–1552
Georg and Petrus Apianus (German)
Astronomicum Caesareum
May 1540
Ingolstadt
Hand-colored woodcuts
h: 45.4 cm x w: 32.3 cm x depth: 3.3 cm
Book
Gift of Herbert N. Straus, 1925
25.17
This most sumptuous of all Renaissance instructive manuals explained the use of the astrolabe (for calculating the altitude of stars) and other instruments used for computing planetary positions. The author, court astronomer to Emperor Charles V, also provided new observations on the comet of 1531 (Halley's Comet). Only about forty copies of this work survive; very few still have the seed pearls that were originally attached to the string markers on each of the eighteen disks.