Al-Tusi's famous astronomical memoir
Al-Tadhkira fi 'ilm al-Hay’a [Memoir on Astronomy].
4to (177 x 252 mm). Arabic manuscript on laid paper. 117 pp. on 60 ff. 21 lines of black naskh. With numerous astronomical diagrams in black, red and occasional blue ink, some pasted in, one full-page. Modern full brown morocco with blindstamped covers.
€ 4,500.00
A later 19th century manuscript of Al-Tusi's famous astronomical memoir, which is in fact an Arabization of some of the author's own earlier Persian works: completed in AH 659 (1261 CE), the "Tadhkira" was "basically an Arabic synthesis of the Mu'iniyya and the Hall-i mushkilat-i Mu'iniyya, which were composed some 25 years previously" (Ragep, p. 22). Couched as a summary account of astronomy based on Ptolemy's Almagest, the "Tadhkira" in fact constitutes "neither a commentary nor a straightforward summary of the contents of the Almagest. It rather sets forth those contents within a textual structure meant to give a physical accounting of the Universe - in short, a cosmography" (ibid., p. 24).
Occasional light browning; some waterstains to margins of the first few leaves. Untrimmed in a modern oriental-styled binding.
GAL I, 511 (674), 40. F. J. Ragep (ed.), Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s Memoir on Astronomy, Vol. I (Springer, 1993).
Related
-
Astronomical manuscript.No place, 1929 CE = 1345 H.
€ 2,000.00 -
Marifetname [The Book of Knowledge and Skills].Ottoman Empire, early 19th century - ca. 1820 CE.
€ 9,500.00 -
[Book on Astronomy and Signs].No place, probably later 19th century.
€ 3,500.00 -
A manuscript collection of three treatises on astronomy and mathematics.Safavid Persia; copied in al-Jauhariyya School, Isfahan, each treatise dated 1619/20 CE = 1029 H.
€ 35,000.00
