Johannes Werner - (ASTROMETEOROLOGY) Canones - 1546

First edition of a notably rare work by the mathematician–astronomer Johann Werner, a pioneering milestone in environmental science during the Scientific Revolution.

MOUSEION CURATOR NOTE:

“This treatise stands at the crossroads where astrology yields to physics.
Werner ushers meteorology into a data-based discipline, it foreshadows systematic modern forecasting. Very rare, since 1981 this is only the second recorded market appearance.”

THE VOLUME:

Johannes (Johann) Werner (1468–1522), Canones sicut brevissimi, ita etiam doctissimi, complectentes praecepta & observationes de mutatione aurae. Nuremberg: in officina Johannis Montani & Ulrici Neuber, 1546. First edition. Complete. 4to. Collation: A–E⁴ = [20] ff., final blank E4 present. With woodcut initials. Modern half leather over speckled paper boards. Approx. 197 × 152 mm (7 ¾ × 6 in).

DESCRIPTION:

First edition, second copy to reach the market since 1981.

Werner—a Nuremberg priest and humanist mathematician of the early sixteenth century—left a durable imprint on astronomy, mathematics, and geography: he championed precise observation, wrote on spherical trigonometry and instruments, shaped cartographic practice (the cordiform “Werner” projection), and, well ahead of its widespread adoption, proposed the lunar-distance method for determining longitude.

Werner’s contemporary and later reputation explains why this tract matters. As the Dictionary of Scientific Biography observed, “In meteorology Werner paved the way for a scientific interpretation,” attempting to bring the subject “into physics” and thereby standing as “a pioneer of modern meteorology and weather forecasting.” His broader program joined practical observing to computational astronomy; already in 1514 he “suggested using the Moon as an astronomical clock” for determining longitude—an idea that would mature into the lunar-distance method two centuries later. The present first edition is accordingly prized as the printed nexus of his weather work—rare in commerce and institutionally uncommon.

"In meteorology Werner paved the way for a scientific interpretation. Meteorology and astrology were connected, but he nevertheless attempted to explain this science rationally. . . . The guidelines that explain the principles and observations of the changes in the atmosphere, published in 1546 by Johann Schöner, contain meteorological notes for 1513-1520. The weather observations are based mainly on stellar constellations, and hence the course of the moon is of less importance… He attempted to incorporate meteorology into physics and to take into consideration the geographical situation of the observational site. Thus he can be regarded as a pioneer of modern meteorology and weather forecasting". - Dictionary of Scientific Biography.

Modern reference works single out Werner for sustained, regular weather watching and for bringing meteorology toward “physics” and locality. As the Deutsche Biographie notes, he merits “das hohe Lob, consequente… Witterungsbeobachtungen angestellt zu haben,”.

PROVENANCE:

Ex libris Owen Gingerich (1930–2023)—Harvard astronomer and historian of science whose lifelong work on early astronomy (notably The Book Nobody Read) made him a touchstone for copy-specific histories of scientific books.
His ownership gives this exemplar a distinguished modern scholarly lineage.

CONDITION REPORT:

Text and content: A remarkably clean interior, pages uniformly crisp and bright, with almost no toning.

Binding: Modern quarter brown leather over tan speckled paper-covered boards, flat spine, with the binder’s stamp “ATELIERS LAURENCHET” on the pastedown.

A handsome, bright and notably fresh internally volume.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The tract opens with a general set of rules—“Catholica aphorismi super aeris mutatione”—in which Werner grounds his forecasts in the four primary qualities (heat, cold, dryness, moisture) and, crucially, fixes them to place: he situates Nuremberg at the “seventh climate” and on the “fifteenth parallel,” making local latitude integral to interpretation.

Weather change is read from planetary aspects and the risings/settings of prominent fixed stars. Werner repeatedly correlates specific configurations with characteristic outcomes—e.g., Sun–Saturn alignments tending to cold or snow (especially in watery signs), Venus–Mars to mild warmth and showers, and Jupiter–Mercury to stirring winds—while urging attention to Ptolemy’s calendar of stellar phenomena.

The aphorisms are followed by dated exempla drawn from Werner’s own observations. On 9 February 1513 he notes “ingens gelu, cum multa nive… ventus Argestes” (severe frost and snow with a WNW wind). The winter of 1513–14 receives a memorable vignette: German rivers froze so hard that mills near Nuremberg stopped; traffic crossed on ice; bread prices rose; and rural communities resorted to makeshift staples. Subsequent entries (e.g., late 1517) register shifts from hard frost to thaws and storms as planets separate or apply by aspect. These pages make the Canones an unusually concrete record of early sixteenth-century Central European weather.