Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, or Quadripartite: being four books of the influence of the stars / Newly translated from the Greek paraphrase of Proclus. With a preface, explanatory notes, and an appendix, containing extracts from the Almagest of Ptolemy and the whole of his Centiloquy; together with a short notice of Mr. Ranger's Zodiacal planisphere, and an explanatory plate. By J. M. Ashmand.

  • Ptolemy, active 2nd century.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, or Quadripartite: being four books of the influence of the stars / Newly translated from the Greek paraphrase of Proclus. With a preface, explanatory notes, and an appendix, containing extracts from the Almagest of Ptolemy and the whole of his Centiloquy; together with a short notice of Mr. Ranger's Zodiacal planisphere, and an explanatory plate. By J. M. Ashmand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in 1701, under the name of “ The Quadripartite. That publication has been long removed from general sale; and its gross mis-interpretation of the author, caused by the carelessness or ignorance of Whalley and his assist¬ ants, by whom it was produced, has rendered most of its pages unintelligible: its absence is, therefore, scarce¬ ly to be regretted. The second edition of the same translation, professing to be “ revised, corrected, and “ improved,” and published by Browne and Sibley, in 1786, was not, in any one instance, purified from the blunders and obscurities which disgraced its predecessor: it seems, in fact, less excusable than the former edition, of which it was merely a reprint, w ithout being at all corrected, not even in certain typographical errata which the former printer had been zealous enough to point out in his final page. Even this second publica¬ tion, worthless as it intrinsically is, can rarely now be met with, and, like the former, only at a very heavy price. The present Translation has been made from Proclus’s Greek Paraphrase of Ptolemy’s original text: the edi¬ tion followed is that of the Elzevirs, dated in 1635*. • This edition was printed in double columns, one containing Pro¬ clus’s Greek Paraphrase, the other the Latin translation of Leo Allatius ; and William Lilly (no light authority in these matters) thus wrote of it in the year 1647 : “ Indeed Ptolemy hath been printed in “ folio, in quarto, in octavo, in sixteens : that lately printed at Lcy- “ den” [where the Elzevirs were established] “ I conceive to be “ most exact; it was performed by Allatius.” To the said edition is prefixed an anonymous address to the reader, in Latin, and to the following effect:— “ I have reckoned it part of my duty to give you, benevolent reader, some short information as to the publication of this little