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THE FIRST BOOK TO HAVE A TITLE PAGE. Second edition, an extraordinary and absolutely complete copy, of Regiomontanus Calendarium, the first printed in Italy; it was first issued in Latin in 1474 from Regiomontanus own press at Nuremberg. Printed calendars and almanacs became extremely popular in the fifteenth century and provided ordinary people with the basic knowledge required to plan their daily routines. The market for calendars was first tapped by Gutenburg, who published a calendar which calculated the times of new and full moons and planetary positions, with readings every two to three days. All earlier calendars, however, were superseded by those of Regiomontanus (1436-1476) whose calculations were far more accurate. Regiomontanus Calendarium represents the first application of modern scientific methods of astronomical calculation and observation to the problems of the lunar calendar, such as Easter, and the accurate prediction of eclipses. Regiomontanus almanacs contained planetary positions for a particular year as calculated from astronomical tables, freeing astronomers from performing the laborious task themselves. He designed a sundial to work independently of one s latitude, and a volvelle, or circular dial, to locate the position and phase of the Moon according to date and time. Books had become observational instruments in their own right. This Venetian publication is rightly famous for bearing the earliest known example in the history of printing of the "idea of the modern title page. That is, instead of signing the books in a colophon on the final page in accord with manuscript tradition, they placed their names and that of the place and date of printing at the bottom of the opening page" (Stilwell). Prior to this date, and throughout the remainder of the 15th century, the title, place, and date of printing, as well as the printer's name were usually printed on the colophon leaf at the end of books, in the manner of medieval manuscripts. It is also the first book to be dated with Arabic rather than Roman numerals, and the first Italian book with extensive use of woodcut initials. The German astronomer "incorporated in his productions the first solutions to a host of typographical problems: tabula data [.]; pioneering printed geometrical diagrams, illustrations of eclipses and planetary models (some systematically coloured by hand under the supervision of the press); the first volvelles and sundials with built-in brass arms in a printed book" (M. H. Shank, The Geometrical Diagrams, p. 27). The border framing the title page is designed in the purest Renaissance style. As Goldsmith states, the floral and foliate motifs recall the ornaments carved in relief by Lombardi in the marble pilasters of the Venetian church Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Between 1474 and 1500 no less than 14 editions of the Calendarium were printed in Latin, German and Italian. Ratdolt also issued an edition of the Calendarium in Italian in the same year as the present work, but that edition omits the disquisition on the true date of Easter and table of its incidence from 1488 to 1531. Although this book is reasonably well represented in institutional collections, complete copies are very rare on the market, and copies of this magnificence probably unique. "The most popular of Regiomontanus s works, after the almanacs, were the calendars. The oldest printed calendars are not his, for there is evidence of a printed calendar for 1448. Wall calendars appeared later. All of these earlier calendars were superseded by Regiomontanus s calendars, which contained times of the true new moon and full moon, the true solar and lunar paths, the length of the day, and a table of locations for 57 years. Besides this, they contained figures for reckoning time and converting hours of equal length to planetary hours … "[Neither the German nor the Latin calendars] contain the calendar the days of the month and feast days then the true solar path through the.
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