Bibliopoly

BILLY, Jacques de

Tabulae Lodoicaeae seu universa eclipseon doctrina tabulis, praeceptis ac demonstrationibus explicata. Adiectus est calculus, aliquot eclipseon solis & lunae, quae proxime per totam Europam videbuntur...

Dijon, Pierre Palliot, 1656 1656

Description

4to (215 x 176 mm), pp [xvi] 186 [recte 190] [2], with numerous woodcut diagrams in text; some occasional browning or spotting, a good copy in contemporary English calf, joints rubbed. £1450

First edition of Billy's tables of eclipses, calculated for the years 1656 to 1693. The work also contains solar and lunar tables based on the Paris meridian, and a detailed examination of problems involved in astronomical calculations.
Jacques de Billy (1602-1679) was a Jesuit priest and professor of mathematics at Dijon. He was a correspondent of Pierre Fermat, and friend of Claude Gaspar Bachet de Méziriac, editor and commentator on Diophantus, who introduced Billy to indeterminate analysis.

Provenance: the Earls of Macclesfield, Shirburn Castle, with engraved bookplate, shelfmark on front pastedown, and blindstamp Macclesfield crest on blank margins of first three leaves

Houzeau and Lancaster 12051; Lalande p 243; Sommervogel II 1477 4; OCLC lists copies at Paris Observatory, Oxford, Michigan, and Marquette University