REGIOMONTANUS, Johaness Müller (1436-76), and others. Scripta ... de torqueto, astrolabio armillari, Nuremberg, 1544, 4to, woodcut illustrations and diagrams, FINELY BOUND in modern morocco. FIRST EDITION of this astronomical work by various authors.

REGIOMONTANUS, Johaness Müller (1436-76), and others.  Scripta clarissimi mathematici M. Joannis Regiomontani, de torqueto, astrolabio armillari, regula magna Ptolemaica, baculoq[ue] astronomico, et observationibus cometarum, aucta necessarijs, Joannis [Schöner] additionibus. Item. observationes motuum solis, ac stellarum tam fixarum, erraticarum. Item. Libellus M. Georgii Purbachii de quadrato geometrico. Joachimus Heller Leucopetræus ad Lectorem. Nuremberg: Johannes Montanus and Ulricum Neuber, 1544. 4to (195 x 150mm). 41 woodcut diagrams and illustrations, including 3 full-page, initials, tables (some mainly marginal spotting and staining, some leaves browned, ink stains at 2 lower margins, lacks final errata leaf). FINELY BOUND in modern crushed burgundy morocco [unsigned], spine lettered in git with 5 raised bands, modern marbled endpapers. Provenance: From the Collection of Peter and Margarethe Braune; Schöner's name on the title page inked-out, leaving a mark on the verso and the following page (similar defacements are recorded in other copies); old signature effaced from foot of title. FIRST EDITION of this composite work on armillary spheres, solar and planetary observations, eclipses and comets, some of whose other contributors - Johannes Schöner (1477-1547, the general editor), Georg Peuerbach and Joachim Heller - are listed on the title page. Schöner's name might have been removed from the title on account of his association with the publication of Copernicus's De revolutionibus in 1543; it has also been suggested that Regiomontanus's commentaries on Ptolemy had foreshadowed the latter's belief in heliocentrism (cf. PMM 40, citing the same author's Epytoma in Almagestum Ptolemaei (Venice, 1496): "... and it has even been suggested that [Regiomontanus's] commentary on Ptolemy adumbrates a belief that the sun is in the centre of the universe and that the earth moves"). Adams R-279; not in Brunet; Houzeau and Lancaster 226; Zinner 1857.