cumprimis vero, Cometae anno 1652, 1661, 1661 & 1665….
Gdansk: Simon Reiniger per l’autore, 1668, Folio (363 x 223mm). Half-title, engraved frontispiece, 38 engraved plates of which 4 double-page and folding, numbered A-OO, engraved illustrations throughout, woodcut and engraved initials, head and tailpieces (without blank a2, half title mounted on stub, plate OO folded, Contemporary vellum (rebacked, within modern decorative slipcase.
A crisp copy printed on paper of exceptional quality of the first edition of Hevelius’ renown work dedicated to comets. The engraved frontispiece depicts Hevelius sitting at a table with a cometary orbit shown as a conic section combined with a spiral, the sun at the focus of the former. By contrast, a figure of Aristotle holds an illustration of some linear and sublunary cometary paths. Below is a valuable illustration of Hevelius’ house and observation platform’ (DSB).
“The Danzig brewer and astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687). in his monumental work Cometographia of 1668, discussed comets thoroughly and brought the various theories that previously existed into a single overall picture … Like Kepler, Hevelius initially adopted a linear motion, but later established that curved paths must be involved, and that comets moved fastest when near the Sun. He took parabolas or hyperbolas as the probable form of orbit. Hevelius supported the view that comets themselves were disc-shaped and lay at right-angles to the Sun. They arose in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn by the transpiration of vapours – a reflection of the then common view that such vapours were to be found on many heavenly bodies: as spots on the Sun, for example. Hevelius chose Jupiter and Saturn on the basis of the colour of comets. The tail was formed from particles ejected from the core of the comet, and which were then swept away from the head by the Sun.” (R. Stoyan, Atlas of Great Comets. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015, p.28).
“The Cometographia advocated the idea that the motions of comets are fundamentally parabolic. “One of the major works of Hevelius, which had been almost fifteen years in preparation. The first book gives the observational data on the Comet of 1652, the subsequent two books attempt to prove the existence of comets far beyond the atmosphere of the earth. The fourth book gives a detailed account of the actual parallax of the Comet of 1652, while the fifth book deals with the true position of the comet and its distance from the earth. The subsequent books are concerned with the tail of the comet, its size and its structure. A description of the comets of 1661, 1664, and 1665 is followed by a complete listing of about four hundred comets known from ancient times up to 1665” (B.Y.U.).
Provenance: Heinrich Wilhelm von Starhemberg (1593-1675; bibliophile, contemporary ownership inscription on top margin of frontispiece).
