KEPLER, Johannes and Tycho BRAHE, ed. MORIN, Jean-Baptiste

A sammelband of two very rare works by the French mathematician Jean-Baptiste Morin (1583-1656), from the library of Narcissus Luttrell (1657-1732), in contemporary French morocco in the style of the binder known as ‘Le Gascon.’ This is an interesting conjunction of the first edition of Morin’s critical edition of Johannes Kepler’s (1571-1630) Rudolphine Tables, originally published in 1627 and prepared using data collected by Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) at his Uraniborg observatory, and only the logarithmic tables appended to Morin’s work on the geometry of triangles. Kepler exploited logarithmic calculations to determine the longitude of a given planet at a given time, which required calculating the geocentric and heliocentric positions of each planet separately. These logarithmic calculations were therefore based on Kepler’s heliocentric model with planets in elliptical orbit, a model that the fractious and doggedly geocentric Morin rejected throughout his life.  

Morin also remained a firm believer in the validity of astrology for making predictions, which he synthesises here with Kepler’s astronomical calculations. In the preface to the Tables, Morin notes that he frequently used Kepler for astrological calculations, advocating meanwhile the practice of making predictions from nativities. However, he attacks the Rudolphine Tables for being obstruse and tedious to use, hence his attempt to simplify them by cutting the extraneous material. As a result, here we have only the tables of elliptical orbit, solar, lunar and planetary motion, followed by explanatory material and problems associated with calculating planetary longitude and the motion of the sun, illustrated with diagrams. Morin includes examples of personal events that he argues were predicted by planetary motions and positions, such as ‘a furious attack made by worthless rascals upon me and my household on May 2 1650’ (p. 115).

The mid-C17th French binding on this volume resembles those produced in the ‘pointillé’ style, i.e. using tools augmented with small dots, by the workshop of an elusive binder known as ‘Le Gascon.’ In particular, the tooling at the foot of the spine of our volume, consisting of contiguous circles, squares and diamonds, each with a central dot, corresponds to that on a binding of c.1630 attributed to Le Gascon by Isabelle de Conihout and Pascal Ract-Madoux (Reliures Françaises du XVII Siècle: Chefs-d’Oeuvre du Musée Condé (Chantilly: 2002), no. 5). Many of Le Gascon’s bindings were identified by Raphael Esmerian in the catalogue of his collection (1972), who dated some examples to the early 1620s, though de Conihout and Ract-Madoux suggest a date range of c.1630-50 for most of his output. 

Narcissus Luttrell was an English political historian and diarist, and a noted and prolific book collector. ‘After more than three decades of acquisitions (beginning in his student days), he calculated in 1706 that he had laid out over £1500 on such purchases; unfortunately, his wish that his library pass intact to some ‘public’ institution … was not wholly heeded by his descendants. So while a substantial number of the printed works from his library were eventually acquired by the British Library, many (often bearing his colophon) have found resting places elsewhere’ (ODNB).

In the US, OCLC notes copies of the first work at NYPL and Linda Hall only, the second at Columbia and Yale.