The Astronomical Diagrams in Oronce Finé's Protomathesis (1532): Founding a French Tradition?

See the description of the edition in the appendix.

Two versions were printed by Simon de Colines in 1542: One abridged, the other unabridged. Two other versions (Latin and French) were printed by Michel de Vascosan in 1551 (with some copies of the Latin version dated 1552). The Latin version was reprinted by Vascosan in 1555.

See Lefranc Abel , Histoire du Collège de France (Paris, 1893); Fumaroli Marc (ed.), Les origines du Collège de France (Paris, 1998); Tuilier A. (ed.), Histoire du Collège de France, I: La création 1530–1560 (Paris, 2006); Pantin I. , “Teaching mathematics and astronomy in France: The Collège Royal (1550–1650)”, Science and education, xv (2006), 2006–207; Pantin I. , “Oronce Finé's role as Royal Lecturer in mathematics”, in Marr Alexander (ed.), The worlds of Oronce Finé: Mathematics, instruments and print in Renaissance France (Donington, 2009), 13–30.

The “arts mathematiques”, it says, are almost completely extinguished and changed into silly and false trifles (they are “quasi du tout estaintes / et transmuees en sottises trop faintes”) because of “foolish lunatics” who have introduced “un tas d'arts sophistiques”, Finé, Epistre exhortative, touchant la perfection et commodite des ars liberaulx mathematiques (Paris, 1532 new style), reprinted in Finé, Lesphere du monde (Paris, 1551), 60v.

Ed. cit., 62r. On Finé's praise of mathematics throughout his work, see Axworthy Angela , “The epistemological foundations of the propaedeutic status of mathematics according to the epistolary and prefatory writings of O. F.”, in Marr (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 3), 31–51.

On his 1519 cordiform map, see infra, ref. 16. On his ship-shaped dial dated 1524, with a salamander engraved on the central mast (now in Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli), see Eagleton Catherine , “Medieval sundials and manuscript sources”, in Kusukawa S. MacLean I. (eds), Transmitting knowledge: Words, images and instruments in early modern Europe (Oxford, 2006), 41–72. On the water-clock that he probably offered Francis I around 1530, see Turner Anthony , “Dropped out of sight: Oronce Finé and the water-clock in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”, in Marr (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 3), 191–205, esp. p. 195.

In his preface to his edition of Agostino Ricci's De motu octavæ sphæræ (Paris, 1521 new style), Finé refers to the De aequinoctiorum inventione of “our dear Pighius [nostri Alberti Pighii]”. Pighius's book had been printed in Paris, in 1520.

See Ross Richard Peter , “Studies on Oronce Finé”, Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1971, 18; Dupèbe Jean , “Astrologie, religion et médecine à Paris: Antoine Mizauld”, doctoral diss., Université de Paris X — Nanterre, 1998, 538.

Ross , op. cit. (ref. 8), 17; de Launoy Jean , Regii Navarræ Gymnasii Parisiensis historia (Paris, 1677), 678. Finé mentions his teaching activities in his editions of Siliceo and Ricci (see refs 7 and 12), and the dedicatory epistle of his Descriptio quadrantis cujusdam universalis (Paris, 1527) is still signed from the Collège de Navarre.

Theoricarum novarum textus (Paris, January 1515 or 1516 new style), reprinted in 1525 and 1534. Finé identifies himself as the editor in poems printed at the end. At the verso of the title, he has represented himself with Astrologia and Ptolemy on a full-page engraving. On this frontispiece and its successors, see Pantin I. , “Une École d'Athènes des astronomes? La représentation de l'astronome antique sur les frontispices de la Renaissance”, in Baumgartner E. (ed.), Images de l'Antiquité dans la littérature: Le texte et son illustration (Paris, 1993), 87–100; Pantin I. , “Altior incubuit animus sub imagine mundi: L'inspiration du cosmographe d'après quelques frontispices d'Oronce Finé”, in Besse J.-M. (eds), La méditation cosmographique à la Renaissance (Paris, 2009), 69–90.

Mundialis Sphere opusculum Joannis de sacro busto (Paris, 1516), reprinted in 1519, 1524, 1527, 1538.

Siliceo Juan Martinez , Arithmetica in theoricen et praxim scissa, nuper ab Orontio Fine … castigata (Paris, 1519).

Explicit tractatus … nuper vigilantissime per magistrum Orontium Fine emendatus: Ab eodem figuris accommodatissimis necnon et marginariis annotatiunculis illustratus …, D4v.

Ricci Agostino , De motu octavæ sphæræ (Paris, 1521), ff. 1v–2r.

La theorique des cielz, mouvemens et termes practiques des sept planetes nouvellement redigée en langaige François, avec les figures (Paris, 31 August 1528). Finé signed this translation with his motto, Virescit Vulnere Virtus.

See Kish George , “The Cosmographic Heart: Cordiform maps of the sixteenth century”, Imago mundi, xix (1965), 13–21; Shirley Rodney , The mapping of the world: Early printed world maps 1472–1700 (London, 1993), nos. 66 and 69; Pelletier Monique , “Die herzförmigen Weltkarten von Oronce Finé”, Cartographia Helvetica, xii (1995), 1995–37; Lestringant Frank Pelletier Monique , “Maps and descriptions of the world in sixteenth-century France”, in Woodward David (ed.), The history of cartography, iii/2 (Chicago, 2007), 1465–7.

Æquatorium planetarum, unico instrumento comprehenso (Paris, 1526); Descriptio partium et succincta utilitatum elucidatio quadrantis cujusdam universalis (Paris, 1527).

However, none of the diagrams necessary to elucidate the construction of the monalosphærium is printed in the text. Philippe Renouard supposes that the work was originally accompanied by engraved plates; see Renouard , Simon de Colines (Paris, 1894), 85 and 428.

Almanach novum insigniora Computi et Kalendarii succincte complectens ad longos annos duraturum: Viris ecclesiasticis: Medicis: Chirurgis: Trapezitis: Quibusvis tandem hominum conditionibus necessarium (Paris: Toussaint Denis, 1529). In-plano.

See ref. 10.

It was printed on very large paper (forma regalis), the size of the sheet being approximately 35 × 50 cm.

The date of the dedication is at least five months before that of the privilege. There are blank numbered pages between Parts I and II, and between Parts II and III. The gatherings are either of six or of eight folios. See the description below in the appendix.

British Library, Incunabula short title catalogue, ij00404000; ij00405000; ij00406000; ij00407000; and ij00409000.

In hoc opere contenta: Arithmetica [Jordani Nemorarii], decem libris demonstrata [per J. Fabrum Stapulensem], Musica, libris demonstrata quatuor [per J. Fabrum Stapulensem], Epitome in libros arithmeticos divi Severini Boetii, Rithmimachie ludus [Auctore J. Fabro Stapulensi] (Paris: Higman and Hopyl, 1496); In hoc libro contenta: Epitome … in libros arithmeticos divi Severini Boetii, … Praxis numerandi certis quibusdam regulis constricta [per J. Clichtoveum], Introductio in geometriam …, Liber de quadratura circuli, Liber de cubicatione sphere [Carolo Bovillo auctore], Perspectiva introductio insuper Astronomicon. [J. Fabro Stapulensi auctore.] (Paris: Estienne, 1503).

Reisch G. , Margarita philosophica (Basel, 1535). John Ferguson has shown that the Margarita had two sorts of editions: The authorised ones, printed by Johann Schott in Freiburg and later in Basel (in 1503, 1504, 1508 and 1517) without appendices, and the unauthorized, printed in Strasburg by Johannes Grüninger in 1504, 1508, 1512 and 1515. In 1508, Grüninger added Politian's Panepistemon, and in his two later editions, different sets of appendices. See Ferguson , “The Margarita philosophica of Gregorius Reisch: A bibliography”, The library, 1929, 194–216.

See Finé's Epithoma musice instrumentalis ad omni modum hemispherii seu Luthinæ et theoricam et practicam (Paris, 1530).

The De usu astrolabi compendium of Juan Martinez Poblacion was even printed by Estienne in 1519 without any diagrams.

Finé belonged to a small group of artists who introduced a German style (against the predominant Italian fashion) in Parisian miniatures and engravings. See Orth M. D. , “The Master of François de Rohan: A familiar French Renaissance miniaturist with a new name”, in Brown M. P. McKendrick S. (eds), Illuminating the book: Makers and interpreters. Essays in honour of Janet Backhouse (London, 1998), 69–91.

Münster Sebastian , Compositio horologiorum (Basel, March 1531). On Finé's De solaribus horologiis, see Eagleton Catherine , “Oronce Finé's sundials: The sources and influences of De solaribus horologiis“, in Marr (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 3), 83–99.

Apianus Petrus , Cosmographicus liber (Landshut, 1524). This book emphasizes much more than Finé's the geographical component of cosmography.

Mosley Adam , “Early modern cosmography: Finé's Sphæra mundi in content and context”, in Marr (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 3), 114–36, p. 133.

The exceptions are minuscule silhouettes, perched on the top of the Earth and observing different parts of the sky, on 105r, 107r, 112v, 113r—v, and a portion of globe with landscape and seascape on 107r.

On the relationship between the level of a book and the character of its illustration, see Pantin I. , “L'illustration des livres d'astronomie à la Renaissance: L'évolution d'une discipline à travers ses images”, in Meroi Fabrizio Pogliano Claudio (eds), Immagini per conoscere: Dal Rinascimento alla Rivoluzione Scientifica (Florence, 2001), 3–41.

For instance, the first diagram on 104v and the third on 105r can be compared, respectively, to those of the Parisian editions by Chaudière on a3v and a3r, and of the Venetian edition of 1490 on a7v.

See ref. 2.

The manuscript is now in Harvard, Houghton Library (Ms Typ 57).

See Pantin Isabelle , “Le style typographique des ouvrages scientifiques imprimés par Michel de Vascosan”, in Charon Annie Vène Magali (eds), Passeurs de textes: Imprimeurs et libraires à l'âge de l'humanisme (Paris, forthcoming).

Opere di Orontio Fineo del Delphinato: Diverse in cinque Parti; Aritmetica, Geometria, Cosmografia, e Orivoli, tradotte da Cosimo Bartoli … Et gli Specchi, tradotti dal Cavalier Bottrigaro (Venice, 1587).

The three first diagrams of Book III, representing the ‘vulgar’ rising and setting of stars (119r), derived also from that tradition and were eliminated. So was the Theorica Solis of Book IV (in the definition of natural day, 131v), borrowed from the Peurbach tradition.

Compare Protomathesis, 141r, and Sphæra (Vascosan, 1555), 43v.

Compare Protomathesis, 144r, and Sphæra (Vascosan, 1555), 47r.

Compare Protomathesis, 154v, and Sphæra (Vascosan, 1555), 54r.

Compare Protomathesis, 146r, and Sphæra (Vascosan, 1555), 49r.

Compare Protomathesis, 138v, and Sphæra (Vascosan, 1555), 42v and 43r.

On the influence of Finé in England, see Heninger S. K. , “Oronce Finé and English textbooks for the mathematical sciences”, in Randall D. B. Williams G. W. (eds), Studies in the Continental background of Renaissance English literature: Essays presented to John L. Lievsay (Durham, 1977), 171–85.

Kusukawa S. , A Wittenberg library catalogue of 1536 (Cambridge, 1995), 117.

Leopold J. , Astronomen, Sterne, Geräte: Landgraf Wilhelm IV. und seine sich selbst bewegenden Globen (Lucerne, 1986), 214.

O'Kelly Watanabe H. , Court culture in early modern Dresden (Basingstoke, 2002), 82.