This book presents the first detailed scientific examination of Alessandro Piccolomini’s two early astronomical works – De la Sfera del Mondo and De le Stelle Fisse. First published in Venice in 1540, the two treatises are amongst the earliest scientific texts written in the vernacular (Italian) and were specifically composed to make astronomical principles and practices available to a lay reader. Whereas De la Sfera del Mondo is essentially an updated adaptation of the theoretical astronomical material contained in Sacrobosco’s De Sphaera, this book examines his views on a number of key topics – such as precession, the motion of the solar apogee and the size and distance of the planets from Earth. The author also presents a radical reassessment of De le Stelle Fisse, focusing on the innovative methods Piccolomini employed to create a viewer-centric approach for identifying the stars. As such, Piccolomini’s guide to the heavens should be seen as a distant forerunner of the successful genre of elementary handbooks that were developed in the late 18th century, and which remain popular with amateur stargazers even in the 21st century. The book also addresses how Piccolomini’s treatises were used by contemporary astronomers by examining the manuscript notes that were left in various surviving copies of his books. It provides a convincing explanation of the unique directional notation on his stellar maps and assesses the relative accuracy of his stellar co-ordinates against contemporary and modern ephemerides and pictorial sources. It also argues that Piccolomini probably designed his distinctive series of maps of the constellations and the related Tables by using a celestial globe to compile his astronomical data. Finally, the author examines the series of refinements and corrections in the successive editions of Piccolomini’s two treatises, thereby showing the extent to which his two early astronomical treatises remained an on-going enterprise for over 60 years. This book is a companion volume to Alessandro Piccolomini’s Early Astronomical Works: I. An Exploration of Their Cultural Significance by Kristen Lippincott in the same series.

This book presents the first interdisciplinary study of Alessandro Piccolomini’s two early astronomical works – De la Sfera del Mondo and De le Stelle Fisse. First published in Venice in 1540, the two treatises are amongst the earliest scientific texts written in the vernacular (Italian) and were specifically composed to make astronomical principles and practices available to a lay reader. The book includes modern editions of the original Italian texts and an English translation of both treatises (all appended as Electronic Supplementary Material to the online edition), while also examining the contents of each treatise in depth. It explores the way in which Piccolomini addresses the theoretical underpinnings of the science of astronomy in his De la Sfera del Mondo by providing a version of Sacrobosco’s De sphaera, which he has expanded and updated to include the views of more recent natural philosophers and astronomers. The book also presents an extended study ofDe le Stelle Fisse and the unique method that Piccolomini devised for observing the stars, as well as explanatory notes on the sources behind his explanations of the mythographic sources of each constellation. In addition to this, the book presents a detailed examination of the cultural context in which Piccolomini wrote his treatises, focussing on such issues as how astronomy was taught in Italian universities in the 16th-century; the on-going debates on the viability of Italian as language as a means for discussing scientific ideas; and how Piccolomini navigated through the competitive and complicated world of book production in 16th-century Venice. Given that Piccolomini originally dedicated both treatises to his female friend, the Sienese aristocrat Laudomia Forteguerri, there is also a discussion of the mysteries behind their personal relationship; of the dynamics of Sienese society at the time; and, in particular, the role that the Sienese Accademia degli Intronati played in Piccolomini’s own intellectual development and the composition of his astronomical treatises. This book is a companion volume to Alessandro Piccolomini’s Early Astronomical Works: II. An Examination of Their Scientific Content by Elly Dekker in the same series.

This open access book explores commentaries on an influential text of pre-Copernican astronomy in Europe. It features essays that take a close look at key intellectuals and how they engaged with the main ideas of this qualitative introduction to geocentric cosmology. Johannes de Sacrobosco compiled his Tractatus de sphaera during the thirteenth century in the frame of his teaching activities at the then recently founded University of Paris. It soon became a mandatory text all over Europe. As a result, a tradition of commentaries to the text was soon established and flourished until the second half of the 17th century. Here, readers will find an informative overview of these commentaries complete with a rich context. The essays explore the educational and social backgrounds of the writers. They also detail how their careers developed after the publication of their commentaries, the institutions and patrons they were affiliated with, what their agenda was, and whether and how they actually accomplished it. The editor of this collection considers these scientific commentaries as genuine scientific works. The contributors investigate them here not only in reference to the work on which it comments but also, and especially, as independent scientific contributions that are socially, institutionally, and intellectually contextualized around their authors.

A collection of cutting-edge scholarship on the close interaction of philosophy with science at the birth of the modern age.