Lot Essay
Philippe Danfrie (c.1532-1606) was born in Brittany, and moved to Paris in his twenties, where he became a partner in a printing and bookselling business. He designed a new typeface in cursive script, which was given the name 'civilité'. He later studied mathematics, bacame an 'ingénieur', and was appointed royal die cutter for coins of the realm. He is known for some twenty mathematical instruments, notably his astrolabes printed on paper, and for the invention of the graphomètre, on which he published in 1597 (A.J. Turner). His book was printed from copperplates engraved by himself, and the volume included a second tract on the use of the trigonomètre.
Of Danfrie's paper astrolabes, only six have been recorded until now. One, dated 1578, was described in Christie's catalogue 8 May 1998; another dated 1578 (IC 524), belongs to the Service Hydrographique de la Marine; the present one (1584) is advertised by Tesseract; another dated 1584 (IC210) belongs to the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford (Gunther); and another, dated 1584 but a printing from the 1620's (IC 2007), is at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. (Gibbs); and one of the same later period is at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Chicago (R. & M. Webster).
On this example, the first point of Aries is at 21 March. When the Gregorian calendar was introduced into Roman Catholic Europe in October 1582, Danfrie had to engrave a new copperplate for the back of his astrolabes with the first point of Aries at 21 March. When one compares the two editions of 1578 and 1584, it was only the back that had to be changed, and the front and the plates remain the same on the later edition. The 1584 back has a more grotesque face on the throne, all the months have improved vignettes, the shadow square is labelled both to 12 and to 60, and the upper central region is completely revised with just two perpetual calendar circles. For a description, see both Gunther and Gibbs. Another radical change is to a card rete; this has the same stars as on the brass rete. The alidade and rule on the 1584 astrolabe are not decorated, and the shackle is in plain brass.
The calendar change in 1582 is likely to have improved the market demand for inexpensive astrolabes, and a brass rete, even though it is more elegant and with sharper star pointers, would be expensive and time-consuming to produce. One may assume, then, that the price was less and that there was a good market.
Of Danfrie's paper astrolabes, only six have been recorded until now. One, dated 1578, was described in Christie's catalogue 8 May 1998; another dated 1578 (IC 524), belongs to the Service Hydrographique de la Marine; the present one (1584) is advertised by Tesseract; another dated 1584 (IC210) belongs to the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford (Gunther); and another, dated 1584 but a printing from the 1620's (IC 2007), is at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. (Gibbs); and one of the same later period is at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Chicago (R. & M. Webster).
On this example, the first point of Aries is at 21 March. When the Gregorian calendar was introduced into Roman Catholic Europe in October 1582, Danfrie had to engrave a new copperplate for the back of his astrolabes with the first point of Aries at 21 March. When one compares the two editions of 1578 and 1584, it was only the back that had to be changed, and the front and the plates remain the same on the later edition. The 1584 back has a more grotesque face on the throne, all the months have improved vignettes, the shadow square is labelled both to 12 and to 60, and the upper central region is completely revised with just two perpetual calendar circles. For a description, see both Gunther and Gibbs. Another radical change is to a card rete; this has the same stars as on the brass rete. The alidade and rule on the 1584 astrolabe are not decorated, and the shackle is in plain brass.
The calendar change in 1582 is likely to have improved the market demand for inexpensive astrolabes, and a brass rete, even though it is more elegant and with sharper star pointers, would be expensive and time-consuming to produce. One may assume, then, that the price was less and that there was a good market.