ARATUS of Soli. Hugo GROTIUS ed..

Syntagma Arateorum: antiquitatis et astronomiae studiosis utilissimum... Leiden, Christophorus Raphelengius, 1600

4to (236 x 155 mm), pp [xii] 42 [2, blank]; 36; 94 [2]; 24; 128, with printer's device on title, one folding engraved plate, and 43 engraved plates in text; short marginal tear repaired not affecting text or plate, a very nice copy in contemporary limp vellum.                        

First edition of Grotius's edition of Aratus, beautifully illustrated with engraved maps of the Hyginus constellations by the Dutch engraver Jakob van Gheyn. This is the first engraved star atlas. The van Gheyn versions of Hyginus served as the models for Bayer's figures in his Uranometria, Augsburg 1603.

The texts comprise the Greek text of Aratus' Phaenomena and Diosemeia, with Grotius' Latin verse translation along with Cicero's version; Germanicus Caesar's Latin translation of the Phaenomena, illustrated with the van Gheyn engravings, together with Germanicus' Fragmentum prognosticorum; Avienus's paraphrase of the Phaenomena, and a further Fragmentum prognosticorum by Germanicus. Finally there are Grotius's extensive notes to the above texts and illustrations, including the Arabic names of the constellations which had been published by Scaliger.

Warner, who lists this work under Gheyn, mistakenly refers to the plates as woodcuts.

Warner p 93; Meulen and Diermanse Grotius 413