Alexandre Piccolomini - La Sphere du Monde - 1550

Alexander Piccolomini.
The Sphere of the World.
Paris, Guillaume Cavellat, 1550.
In-8, old re-used binding in flexible parchment, with a flap and a cord. 136 leaves

French Renaissance edition of the famous cosmographic treatise by Alexander Piccolomini, translated by Jacques Goupyl and printed in Paris by Guillaume Cavellat, whose printer's mark appears on the title. A major work of astronomical popularization in the 16th century, expounding the Ptolemaic conception of the cosmos, the structure of the celestial spheres, the terrestrial climes and astronomical phenomena in a language accessible to readers not versed in Latin.

The work is complete with its four books and abundantly illustrated with wood engravings in the text: armillary spheres, diagrams of climatic zones, meridians, zodiacal figures, demonstrations of eclipses and cosmographic diagrams, kept clean and well printed.
Old dampstains and signs of use. Eight leaves are missing (25 to 32) and were formerly replaced by modern reproductions; the last leaf incomplete, partially supplemented in the same way. Despite these structural defects, the copy remains solid, legible and representative of the humanist scientific dissemination of the mid-16th century.

Copy for study of an important cosmographic treatise of the French Renaissance, preserving all its iconographic richness despite ancient restorations.