★ Brotbeihel (o Brothiel), Jeremias (“Artothomus”) [XVI secolo]. Practica Teütsch auf daß// M.D.XXIX Jar, durch Jeremiam Arto//thomum Astrophebum, dem freyen Kunnst geleerten Maister Mathie Brotbeyhel von Kauffbeiren, seinem// trewen Preceptori zu eeren gepracticiert. Jn dem. XXIX Jar wirt der Mon verfinsteret gat. [1529].
In 4° (21 cm), A-B4, cc. [8]. Carattere gotico. Grande incisione al frontespizio, in cui è raffigurata metaforicamente un’eclissi. Carattere gotico. A1 e B4 verso sono bianchi.
E’ la prima delle numerose Practicae scritte da Jeremias Brotbeihel, almeno fino al 1563. Practicae cui non ho dedicato schede specifiche sono sinteticamente citate nelle schede nn. 1172 e 1175.
Esemplari: Cambridge University; Staats und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg.
Bibliografia: Zinner n. 1377.
Dal Catalogo di Bernard Quaritch, Londra, maggio 2006, ricavo l’esistenza di un altro pronostico di Jermias Brotbehiel edito probabilmente nello stesso 1528, in 4°, A4, che ebbe ad oggetto l’eclisse lunare del 1529, 16 ottobre, alle 6,57 del mattino. Riproduco il commento di Quaritch all’opera, che non ho trovato altrove: “Brotbeyhel predicts a lunar eclipse, which will take place on the Sunday after the feast of St Gallus (16 October) at three minutes to seven in the morning. It will last three hours and four minutes. The darkness will first be seen in Switzerland, Alsace, Lorraine, France, and Spain, but also by those in Santiago de Compostela, Lisbon, and other such places (A3r). The event will provoke discord among the people, both lay and clergy alike, but women, maidens and their kind will have a joyful year in ali pleasures of the nesh ("inn allem wollust des leybes", A4r). Births will pass without complications. Another chapter deals with concomitant diseases, referring to Ptolemy and Albumasar, and foresces the sudden death of many great men. The rest of the work is taken up by weather forecasts for 1529. The eclipse took place on 17 October, and according to the NASA website lasted only 10 minutes 37 seconds, thereby making it the shortest total lunar eclipse of the century. The woodcut on the title shows the earth at the centre of the cosmos, with a black-faced moon shining down on it. In the lower right hand corner are the canting arms of the Brotbeyhel family (Brotbeil = 'bread-axe', transposed into Greek as Artothomus), an arm wielding an axe above three lozenges, presumably to symbolise three loaves of bread”.