Lot 30: [FINE, Oronce (1494-1555)].La Théorique des cielz, mouvemens et termes practiques des sept planetes ... rédigee en langaige francois.Avec les figures tres utiles en leurs lieux proprementinserees.Paris:Simon du Bois for Jean Pierre de Tours, 31 August 1528.

[FINE, Oronce (1494-1555)]. La Théorique des cielz, mouvemens et termes practiques des sept planetes ... rédigee en langaige francois. Avec les figures tres utiles en leurs lieux proprement inserees. Paris: Simon du Bois for Jean Pierre de Tours, 31 August 1528. 2º (299 x 194mm). Lettres bâtardes, title in large letters with calligraphic initial, last page of text and colophon decoratively arranged. 47 woodcut diagrams by the author, most showing planetary motion, also including an armillary sphere on g6v and h2v. Woodcut historiated initials. (Title short at bottom margin and with slight tears at lower corner, larger repaired tear at upper corner causing slight loss to the first few letters of the first five lines of text on title verso, the missing text supplied in pen-and-ink facsimile, the following two leaves with smaller area of restoration at corners, final two leaves likewise restored, without final blank.) Brown morocco gilt by Gruel, covers with mosaic decoration in 16th-century style made up of red, green, light brown and white onlays, front cover with title in gothic lettering at centre, spine with raised bands and rectangular red morocco onlay in each panel, gilt inner dentelles, gilt edges (spine bands and corners a little rubbed). FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY IN VERNACULAR FRENCH. WITH ALL THE WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS AFTER THE AUTHOR. Although the book appeared anonymously, Oronce Finé's device ('virescit vulnere virtus') appears on two leaves (a1v and h1r). Moreover, the woodcut with the armillary sphere on g6 is signed with his monogram OF. Oronce Finé was regarded as one of the greatest scholars in France. François I took him to Piedmont and consulted him about the fortifications of Milan and the siege of Pavia. He occupied the first chair of natural science at the royal college, founded only one year earlier, from 1531 until his death. He also promoted modern cartography and participated in the construction of the astronomical clock of the library of Sainte-Geneviève, where it can still be viewed today. The text is an adaptation of the treatise of Georg Peurbach (Theoricae novae planetarum), to whom he owes, together with his pupil Regiomontanus, the renaissance of the study of astronomy. The illustration-cycle comprises 47 woodcuts, all designed by Finé himself, representing diagrams as well as astronomical figures and planetary constellations. Bechtel F-106; Brun p. 188; Brunet II, 1260; Giovanna Grassi, Union Catalogue of Printed Books of 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries in European Astronomical Observatories, Rome, Vecchiarelli editore, 1989, p. 256 (for the 1557 printed by Cavellat); Mortimer, Harvard French 224; not in Houzeau et Lancaster, Bibliographie générale de l’astronomie; Renouard, Inventaire chronologique des éditions parisiennes du XVIe siècle, éd. par B. Moreau, année 1528, n° 1461.