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Astronomical Images : Station and retrogradation of planets

Georg von Peuerbach

Astronomical Images

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Georg Peuerbach (Georgius Aunpekh) was born in Peuerbach, near Linz. He studied at the University of Vienna, obtaining his BA in 1448 and MA in 1453. He held positions as court astrologer to the king of Hungary, and then to Emperor Frederick III. At the request of Cardinal Johannes Bessarion, Peuerbach began an abridgement of Ptolemy's <i>Almagest</i>, which was incomplete when he died in 1461. Peuerbach had also compiled <i>Theoricae novae planetarum</i>, a revision of the <i>Theorica planetarum </i>attributed to Gerard of Cremona. This originated as lectures given in Vienna in 1454, which were attended by Johannes Regiomontanus, who published the first edition in Nuremberg around 1474. This is the 1482 edition by Erhard Ratdolt, which contains copies of the original diagrams. As in the original edition, some woodcuts were coloured. Peuerbach's text was printed in a compilation that also included Johannes Sacrobosco's <i>Sphaericum opusculum</i> and Johannes Regiomontanus' <i>Contra Cremonensia in planetarum theoricas delyramenta disputationes</i>. This collection of astronomical treatises, and other similar ones, together comprised the main elementary texts available in the late fifteenth century. This volume's printer, Erhard Ratdolt, was active in Venice and Augsburg, and was particularly interested in astronomical subjects. He also produced editions of Johannes Engel's <i>Astrolabium planum in tabulis ascendens</i> and G. Julius Hyginus' <i>Poetica astronomica</i>. The diagram ' showing the stationary points in the orbits of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - revises the one printed in Franz Renner's edition of Gerardus Cremonensis's <i>Theoricae planetarum</i> (Venice, 1478), which had erroneously shown the stationary points as being determined by drawing tangents from the epicycle to the centre of the World. In this revised version of the diagram, the lines from the centre are not tangential to the epicycle.</p>


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