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Description

The Transit of the Great Comet of 1664 Through Cetus and Pisces

Rare celestial map showing both the figural representations of the constellations and the stars of which they are composed, which appeared in Stanislaus Lubienieck's Theatrum Cometicum, one of the great illustrated works on comets of the 17th Century.

Includes a key describing the symbols for five different magnitudes of stars at the bottom left.

The progress of the Great Comet of 1664 through this area of the sky is demarcated, along with the dates that each observation was made. The comet observation begins December 31, 1664 below the mouth of Cetus and transits across the mouth of Cetus to a point between Pisces and Aries on February 2, 1665.

The map from Lubienicki's Theatrum Cometicum are rare on the market. 

Lubieniecki's encyclopedic treatise gathered together the observations of dozens of his contemporaries including Bayer and Hevelius, covering all known comets up to the year 1665. The fine engravings consist of celestial maps showing the paths of comets and the figures of the constellations traversed. "Since each map represents the observations of a different astronomer, taken together they illustrate the variety of cartographic traditions popular during the seventeenth century." (Warner, The Sky Explored, p. 164). The second part  ) provides a chronology of 415 comet sightings from the flood (the first report is dated to 2312 BC) to 1665, with commentaries, drawn from a range of historical sources.

Rarity

Lubieniecki's book is rarely encountered in anything near a complete state. Only two complete copies of the first edition are recorded at auction since 1975 by ABPC: the Honeyman and Dunham copies. Of the three copies held by the British Library, two are substantially defective.

Stanislaus Lubieniecki Biography

Stanisław Lubieniecki was a Polish Socinian theologist, historian, astronomer, and writer.  He published an important work on comets, entitled Theatrum cometicum, duabus partibus constans, an illustrated anthology of 415 comets from the biblical epoch of the deluge up until 1665.