Astronomy & natural philosophy · 17th century

Almagestum Novum, Book IX: On the System of the World

Giovanni Battista Riccioli, S.J. (1598–1671) · translated from the Latin of the Almagestum Novum, Bologna, 1651

The ninth book of the great Jesuit astronomer's New Almagest, complete in five sections: the substance and accidents of the heavens, drawn from Genesis and the mind of the Fathers; the movers and motions of the celestial bodies; the systems of the world built around an immobile Earth, from Ptolemy and Tycho to Riccioli's own; the celebrated examination of the system of the Earth in motion, in which the arguments for and against Copernicus are weighed at a length and with a fairness unmatched in the seventeenth century; and the harmonic system of the world. In English for the first time.

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Section I — the substance and accidents of the heavens (PDF)

Section II — the movers and motions of the heavens (PDF)

Section III — the world-systems around the immobile Earth (PDF)

Section IV — the system of the Earth in motion (PDF)

Section V — the harmonic system of the world (PDF)

Original Latin text — the Bologna printing of 1651 at Google Books

Contents

Section I — On the Substance and Certain Accidents of the Heavens and of the Celestial Bodies

Section II — On the Movers and Motions of the Heavens

Section III — On the System of the World around the Immobile Earth

Section IV — On the System of the Earth in Motion

Section V — On the Harmonic System of the World