Sacrobosco and His Commentators

In conjunction with History of Science 323, The Scientific Revolution, as taught by Prof. Florence Hsia and Dr. Robin Rider, the Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, has digitized selected pages and illustrations from each of its editions of the works of Sacrobosco (Joannes de Sacro Bosco, or John of Holywood, fl. 1230), for use in class presentations.

The Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin has since undertaken a project entitled The sphere, including a database of “359 books printed between 1472 and 1650, which contain the text of or are closely related to John of Sacrobosco’s treatise De sphaera mundi.” See the description of the Corpus for the five book types represented in the database. The site also includes more information about persons associated with the books in the corpus.

Additional information from another survey of editions is available at the Web site Johannes de Sacrobosco Tractatus de Sphaera, now maintained by the Group of History, Theory of Science and Science Teaching, State University of São Paulo, Brazil.

• 1482

  Explore a 1482 edition of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s astronomical work from the W. Reeder Family Collection, featuring images of the text’s cover and interior pages.

• 16th-Century Manuscript

  View a 16th-century manuscript of Sacrobosco’s “Commentary on the Sphere” (MS 83) from the UW–Madison Libraries. Includes digitized images of folios and astronomical diagrams.

• 1518

  Explore an exhibit of Sacrobosco’s *Sphaera mundi*, featuring images of this 1518 Venice edition and details from its annotated pages and folios.

• 1550a

  Explore annotations in Sacrobosco and O. F. Mauro’s 1550 Florence edition of *Sphaera mundi*, featuring detailed images of manuscript marginalia and analytical notations.

• 1550b

  Explore this 1550 edition of Sacrobosco’s “Libellus de sphaera,” featuring a gallery of historical manuscript pages, title pages, and detailed annotations from the UW-Madison collection.

• 1551

  Explore the 1551 Antwerp edition of Sacrobosco’s “Libellus de anni ratione,” featuring images of manuscript pages, tables, and historical marginalia from the library collection.

• 1562

  Explore this 1562 edition of Sacrobosco’s “Sphaera,” featuring works by Peter Apian and Georg von Peuerbach, complete with historical images and manuscript annotations.

• 1564

  Explore a 1564 edition of Sacrobosco’s “Sphaera,” featuring commentary and supplemental texts, bound with Gemma Frisius’s “De principiis astronomiae.” Includes historical images.

• 1568

  Explore an exhibit of Sacrobosco’s “Libellus de sphaera” (1568), bound with works by Hartman Beyer and Sebastianus Theodoricus, featuring detailed images of the historic volume.

• 1620

  This digital exhibit features the 1620 edition of Sacrobosco’s “Sphaera,” including scholarly commentaries by Elias Vinet, with images of key pages and woodcut illustrations.

• Clavius (1596)

  This digital exhibit features the 1596 Venetian edition of Christoph Clavius’s commentary on Johannes de Sacrobosco’s “De Sphaera,” complete with detailed images of diagrams and text.