Transits in the Seventeenth Century and the Credentialling of Keplerian Astronomy

Kepler Johannes , Tabulae Rudolphinae (Ulm, 1627).

Lansbergen Philips , Tabulae motuum coelestium perpetuae (Middleburg, 1632).

Duret Noël , Novae motuum caelestium ephemerides Richelianae: Annorum 15, ab anno 1637. incipientes, ubi sex anni priores è fontibus Lansbergianis, reliqui verò è numeris Tychoni-Keplerianis eruuntur, quibus accesserunt (Paris, 1641).

Junius Ulrich , Mercurii in Sole conspicui calculus (Leipzig, 1697).

Honold Matthew , Dissertatio astronomica de transitu Mercurii sub Sole D. IX. Nov. Anno MDCCXXIII (Leipzig, 1721).

Schaffer Simon , “Halley, Delisle, and the making of the comet”, in Thrower Norman J. W. (ed.), Standing on the shoulders of giants (Berkeley, 1990), 254–98.

Hevelius Johannes , Mercurius in Sole visus Gedani, Anno Christiano M DC LXI, d. III Maji, St. N. Cui annexa est, Venus in Sole pariter visa, Anno 1639, d. 24 Nov. St. V, Liverpoliae, a Jeremia Horroxio: Nunc primum edita, notisque illustrata (Gdansk, 1662); Eichstadt Lorenz , Ephemeridum novarum et motuum coelestium ab anno M. DC.LI ad M. DC.LXV (Danzig, 1644); Montebruni Franciscus , Ephemerides novissimae motuum coelestium … ab anno 1645. ad annum 1660 (Rome, 1645); Argoli Andrea , Ephemeridum iuxta Tychonis hypotheses, Tomus secundus, ab anno 1656. ad 1680 (Padua, 1638).

Lansbergen's Tabulae perpetuae (ref. 2) is paginated in three independent sections: The precepts, the tables proper, and the theory plus the Observationum astronomicarum thesaurus. The “treasury of astronomical observations” comprises pp. 37–186, a substantial part of the volume.

Found at the end of Precept XIII in Lansbergen's Tabulae perpetuae (ref. 2).

It took me a long time to confirm Duret's finding because the example given by Lansbergen for using his tables to calculate the latitude of Mercury is monumentally corrupt in its procedure. Possibly for this reason G. B. Riccioli in his Astronomia reformata (Bologna, 1665), 348, gives Lansbergen's error only in longitude for the actual time of the transit, 1°21′, with no mention of the predicted latitude.

Duret's work remains little known, including his French translation of François Viète's Algebra (Paris, 1644), in which he introduced Thomas Harriot's advanced notation. Surprisingly, a copy of his Novvelle theorie des planetes… avec les Tables Richeliennes et Parisiennes exactement calculées (Paris, 1635) found its way to Istanbul where it was translated into Arabic and Ottoman Turkish; see Ihsanoglu Ekmeleddin , “The introduction of Western science to the Ottoman world: A case study of modern astronomy (1660–1860)”, in Brooke John Ihsanoglu Ekmeleddin (eds), Religious values & the rise of science in Europe (Istanbul, 2005), 185–228.

Morin Jean-Baptiste , Tabulae Rudolphinae ad meridianum Uraniburgi supputatae … ad accuratum & facile compendium redactae (Paris, 1650), 4.

Cunitia Maria , Urania propitia sive tabulae astronomicae mirè faciles, vim hypothesium physicarum à Kepplero proditarum complexae (Oels, 1650); Renieri Vincenzo Tabulae motuum caelestium vniversales auspicijs primo editae, & Mediceae nuncupatae (Florence, 1647). For a remarkably detailed examination of Cunitia's tables, see Swerdlow Noel , “Urania Propitia, Tabulae Rudolphinae faciles redditae a Maria Cunitia; Beneficient Urania, the adaptation of the Rudolphine Tables by Maria Cunitz”, in Buchwald Jed Z. (ed.), A master of science history: Essays in honor of Charles Coulston Gillispie (Dordrecht, 2012), 81–121.

Holwarda J. Phocylides , Panselenos ekleiptike diaugazou (in Greek), id est, Dissertatio astronomica quae occasione ultimi lunaris anni 1638 deliquii manuductio sit ad cognoscendum (Franeker, 1640), 175–81. I was led to this extraordinarily rare work by the incisive analysis by Curtis Wilson in his “Predictive astronomy in the century after Kepler”, in Taton René Wilson Curtis (eds), The general history of astronomy, ii: Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics. Part A: Tycho Brahe to Newton (Cambridge, 1989), 161–206.

Boulliau Ismael , Tabulae Philolaicae (Paris, 1645), Prolegomena, 17.

Renieri , op. cit. (ref. 13), p. lx.

Translation by Whatton Arundell Blount , Memoir of the life and labours of the Rev. Jeremiah Horrox (London, 1859), 170, 173; the original Latin is found in Hevelius , op. cit. (ref. 7), 130–2. See also Applebaum Wilbur , Venus seen on the Sun: The first observation of a transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks (Leiden, 2012), 45, 48.

However, in his Admonitio ad astronomos (Leipzig, 1630), Kepler stated that the next Venus transit after 1631 would not take place until 25 May 1761 (Julian).

Although Lansbergen was indeed two days late in his predicted conjunction, Hevelius (who gives no details of his latitude computation) clearly erred in the latitude figure he gave for Lansbergen, 47′10″. My program calculates 8′17″, in rough agreement with Malvasia's Lansbergen-based ephemerides, so Lansbergen's tables clearly indicated a transit.

Grassini G. , Ephemeris Felsinea ad annos quinque contracta juxta hypotheses Lansbergii (Bologna, 1666); Rubeus T. , Ephemeris bononiensis pro anno 1666 iuxta Lansbergii hypothesi novissima supputata (Bologna, 1665); Montanari G. , Ephemeris Lansbergiana ad longitudinem almae studiorum matris Bononiae ad annum 1666 nuperrime supputata (Bologna, 1665).

Mezzavacca Flaminio , Ephemerides Felsineae recentiores ex mixtis hypothesibus clarissimorum virorum Lansbergij, Kepleri, Bullialdi, Cassini, et e caelo deductis obseruationibus ab anno 1675. ad totum 1684 (Bologna, 1672).

See also the discussion in my The book nobody read (New York, 2004), 125–9.