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The Library holds many rare and precious volumes but
has recently identified what may be its rarest, a
previously unrecorded copy of an incunable* Lunarium
ab anno 1490 ad annum 1550. Only two other copies
are known, both in Italy.
It
is a little book of lunar tables, that is phases of
the moon, collected and edited by Bernardus de Granollachs.
The book was printed in Venice, c.1489-90 by Guilelmus
Anima Mia, has a charming full-page woodcut at the
front, and is written in Italian, in the Venetian
dialect. It has a fine 19th century binding of stiff
vellum, decorated with gilt.
Astronomical
tables were very popular in the medieval period; they
were used to predict the phases of the sun, moon and
planets. This volume calculates the phases of the
moon in several Italian and Spanish cities, including
Barcelona, Milan, and Venice.
The
book is part of the library of John Thomas Graves
who had been Professor of Jurisprudence but whose
main interests were in arithmetic and astronomy. He
built up a magnificent library and bequeathed the
scientific part, amounting to some 14,000 volumes,
including manuscripts, periodicals and 76 incunabula,
to UCL in 1870.
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