Philosophia nova astronomiae nostrae particula insignis

FIRST EDITION, [50]ff., gothic black, woodcut armillary sphere printers device to title, woodcut initials, paper flaw on final leaf not affecting text, overall light toning, lacking endpapers, later bound in 17th century manuscript parchment, 12mo (150 x 100mm), Danzin, 1621.

A rare astronomical and cosmological work by Paul Nagel (Nagelius).

A key figure in early seventeenth-century Protestantism, Paul Nagel was one of the most notorious seventeenth‐century critics of orthodox Lutheranism. Nagelius presents a new philosophy of astronomy, interpreting celestial motion as divine warning and contrasting what he saw as the false astronomy of the Egyptians and Babylonians with the true astronomy that revealed the approaching end of days.

Nagel wrote numerous books and pamphlets over the next five years in which he predicted the arrival of the Last Judgement in 1666, but in this one he manages to merge astronomy with alchemy, theology, and eschatology.

Bound in contemporary reused parchment taken from a seventeenth century English legal manuscript dated 1666, recording a land lease involving Walter and Sarah Lofts or possibly Betts. An example of early manuscript recycling, illustrating how English legal documents found new use as continental bindings.

[ VD17 23:248109H; Houzeau-Lancaster 2999; Rosenthal BMP 3476; Ackermann IV, 440]