Illustrations to Georg von Peuerbach, Novae theoricae planetarum (New Theories of the Planets)

Illustrations to Georg von Peuerbach, Novae theoricae planetarum (New Theories of the Planets)

The Austrian astronomer Georg von Peuerbach (1423–61) served as an influential mentor to Regiomontanus and an advisor to such highly placed individuals as cardinal Basilios Bessarion and the polymath theologian Nicholas of Cusa. He was appointed court astrologer to the teenage King Ladislaus V of Hungary and later to his uncle, Emperor Frederick III. Around 1454, Peuerbach composed the Novae theoricae planetarum, which was published posthumously in Nuremberg in 1473. This dependable astronomy manual became the standard reference work on the subject for over 150 years. This volume contains seventy-three full-page diagrams, one double-page diagram, and four half-page diagrams. It is likely that these moveable diagrams originated as teaching aids devised by Peuerbach himself, a skilled instrument maker, in the fifteenth century. He later wrote a treatise entitled Speculum planetarum on the construction of paper manuscript volvelles to demonstrate planetary motions as described in the Novae theoricae planetarum.

Author: Georg von Peuerbach

ca. 1550–75

Manuscript on paper, 45 fols.

University of Pennsylvania, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection, LJS 64

Padua (?), Italy