Lunarium in quo reperiuntur Coniunctiones & Oppositiones lune: & eclypses solis & lune: per Anni circulum. Festa mobilia. Aureus numerus

Granollachs, Bernardus

S.a. [c.1511]. S.l. [Rome]. 8vo. 23 ff. gothic letter, large woodcut on title. Modern vellum boards. Tiny wormholes towards the end and at gutter, restored, some mil staining and foxing, overall in very good condition.

The author of this popular lunar almanack was a Barcelona Doctor of Medicine and astrologer. The calculations are set according to the meridian of Barcelona, and run from the year 1511 to 1550. The Lunarium was immensely popular, as proven by the numerous editions it went through during the 15^th and early 16^th centuries.

 

Granollachs (1421-1485?) was born in Barcelona to a minor noble family of medical doctors, he studied medicine and received his master’s in Montpellier in the 1440’s; despite his training, what is mostly remembered for is this Lunarium, a set of calculations calculating the phases of the Moon, from 1491 to 1550, including eclipses and feasts. The work came out in Catalan, Spanish, Italian and Latin of course, and went through over 40 editions during the incunable period, all of which are either known in a sole or handful of copies, or have completely perished. This edition is updated from 1511 to 1550, given us a terminus post quem for this edition, it could have been published in 1510, but not after 1511. Because of the ephemeral character of such publications copies have become very rare.

 

Granollachs’ work is in based on the previous work of Jewish astronomer Jacob ben David Bonjorn of Girona (b. 1333) a royal astronomer for King Pere el Ceremoniós of Aragón,

Most of the title is taken by a cut showing an astronomer seated and making astronomical calculations; another figure holds a scroll with the inscription: "Altior incubuit animus sub imagine mundi", with the letters curiously set in reverse order.

 

Provenance: Dolphin Rare Books, England.

 

Rare, according to OCLC we locate copies at the Huntington, Bundy Library, Southern Methodist Library, University of Texas Ransom, and National Library of Poland.

 

Chabás Bergón, José and Antoni Roca i Rosell. “The Early Printing of Astronomy: The Lunari of Bernat de Granollachs”, Centaurus 40/2 (1998), pp. 124-134;

 

Chabás Bergón, José. “Interactions between Jewish and Christian Astronomers in the Iberian Peninsual”, in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. Gad Freudenthal, pp. 147-154, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

S.a. [c.1511]

$7,000.00