Peurbach’s influential textbook

Abstract

Michela Malpangotto’s beautifully produced book provides a new translation and a contextual history for the most important astronomy book of the 16th century, if we judge from the viewpoint of the 16th century. In 1454 Georg Peurbach delivered a series of lectures on mathematical models for planetary motion at the university of Vienna. Although to a large extent he followed the conventional topics of the established theorica tradition, he began the discussion of each planet with a model of three-dimensional, geocentric orbs that would create its motion. The half-page illustrations of each model became icons of astronomy after they were published in book form by Regiomontanus in 1473. Over the next century, this book—the New Theoricae of the Planets—displaced the older Theoricae planetarum all over Europe and became the main teaching text for the advanced part of the university astronomy course. When Copernicus presented De revolutionibus, or Kepler and Galileo defended heliocentrism, Peurbach’s was the standard astronomy text for most students. Malpangotto’s first four sections are a book-within-a-book that consists of some 246 pages and covers the life and work of Peurbach, the context and content of the Theoricae novae, the first manuscript versions, and then a very detailed narrative of the printed editions from 1473 to 1653. This is followed by the translation itself. Malpangotto offers us the first critical edition of Peurbach’s important text, based primarily on Regiomontanus’ printed edition. Her translation gives French and Latin on facing pages. Although the main headings have been retained, the paragraph breaks from the first edition have been replaced by a numbering system based on change of topic, providing a handy reference system. Illustrations in the original text have been reproduced, in color, with a much more detailed modern redrawing of the figures at the corresponding position in the translation. The translation is followed by appendices reproducing all the figures from three important manuscripts, the first by Regiomontanus, next the spectacularly colored version dedicated to Archbishop JánosVitez, and probably used by Brudzewo, and the last dedicated to Cardinal Bessarion. Immediately following (pp. 338–45) is a detailed table of contents for the entire Theoricae novae based on Malpangotto’s numbering system. This gives a synopsis of the entire work and allows the rapid location of a particular topic. Next Malpangotto offers a technical commentary based on the numbering system she has introduced. Here she makes good use of the later editions, especially the images from Schreckenfuchs (1556), which show physical models for individual theoricae, and the 1110573 JHA0010.1177/00218286221110573Journal for the History of AstronomyBook Reviews book-review2022