Astrolabium, Das ist: Gründliche Beschreibung und Unterricht, wie solches herrliche und hochnützliche Astronomische Instrument, auff allerley Polus Höh, so wol auch nach eines jeden selbst gefälligen Gröss auffgerissen, und verfertigt werden soll. Darnach wei dasselbe vielfältig zu gebrauchen: Mit Kupferstücken verfertiget. by Ritter, Franz

2 parts in 1, quarto (174 x 142 mm). Contemporary binding of vellum manuscript leaf over boards, manuscript title to head of spine. In a brown morocco-backed folding box, together with an early-20th century 112-page typescript English translation bound in half brown morocco with marbled sides, top edges gilt. Engraved half title and 21 integral engravings in the first part, 15 folding plates in the second part. Elaborate head and tail-pieces and decorative initials. Engraved seventeenth-century armorial bookplate with initials "OGHZS" to front pastedown. Inked initials "OG" in the margin of the frontispiece, next to a faint signature in ink. Bookplate of Samuel Verplank Hoffman (1866-1942) to the front free endpaper and also the front pastedown of the typescript. Some loss from the lower half of the spine and the upper joint, a little spotting to the frontispiece, a little offsetting affecting gatherings G and H in the second part, tiny spots of dampstain on the first two folding plates, some small closed tears in the folds. A very good, unsophisticated copy. A very attractive copy, with the rare suite of fifteen folding plates missing from almost all copies, of this magnificently illustrated treatise on the construction and use of astrolabes. These fifteen plates appear first in this edition. In an attractive binding incorporating a late-medieval manuscript leaf, and from the library of astrolabe collector Samuel Verplank Hoffman with what is presumably his typescript translation into English.