My Library

As this project has progressed, I’ve picked up a number of books related to it. So others can know what I’ve read (and have available should they be interested in reading them themselves), I’ve compiled a list of the books in my medieval astronomy library, as well as some other excellent books on historical astronomy.

Primary Sources (chronological)

  • Timaeus and Critias – Plato (translation by Desmond Lee)
  • Constellation Myths – Eratosthenes and Hyginus (translation by Robin Hard)
  • Elements – Euclid (translation by Thomas L. Heath)
  • Introduction to the Phenomena – Geminos (translation by Evans & Berggren)
  • Astronomica – Manilius (translation by G. P. Goold)
  • Almagest – Ptolemy (translation by G. J. Toomer)
  • De Sphaera – John of Sacrobosco
  • De Revolutionibus – Copernicus (translation by Charles G. Wallis)
  • Three Treatises on Copernican Theory – Copernicus (translation by Edward Rosen)
  • De Le Stelle Fisse – Alessandro Piccolomini
  • Astronomia Nova – Kepler (translation by William H. Donahue)

Secondary Sources (alphabetical by author)

  • Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art – Brian Anderson
  • The Abacus and the Cross – Nancy Marie Brown
  • The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth – Glen Van Brummelen
  • On Tycho’s Island – John Robert Christianson
  • A History of Astronomy From Thales to Kepler – J. L. E. Dreyer
  • The Light Ages – Seb Falk
  • The Book Nobody Read – Owen Gingerich
  • The Astronomy of Levi Ben Gerson (1288-1344) – Bernard Goldstein
  • Planets, Stars, & Orbs – Edward Grant
  • The History of Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue – Gerd Grasshoff
  • Time in the Medieval World – Colum Hourihane
  • Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages – David Juste, Benno van Dalen, Dag Nikolaus Hasse & Charles Burnett
  • Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe – Stephen C. McCluskey
  • Studies on the Transmission of Medieval Mathematical Astronomy – Raymond Mercier
  • Chasing Shadows – Clemency Montelle
  • A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy – Otto Neugebauer
  • A Fourteenth Century Chronologer and Critic of Astrology – C. Phillip E. Nothaft
  • Survey of the Almagest – Olaf Pedersen
  • Ptolemy’s Catalogue of Stars – Peters & Knobel
  • Eastern Astrolabes – David Pingree
  • Star Tales – Ian Ridpath
  • Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic – Ingrid D. Rowland
  • A Kingdom of Stargazers – Michael A. Ryan
  • A History of Arabic Astronomy – George Saliba
  • The Greatest Comets in History – David Seargent
  • The Babylonian Theory of Planets – Noel Swerdlow
  • Western Astrolabes – Roderick and Marjorie Webster

Post Period (alphabetical by author)

  • Einstein’s Jury – Jeffrey Crelinsten
  • The Measurement of Starlight – J. B. Hearnshaw
  • Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos – Alan W. Hirshfeld
  • Galileo’s Daughter – Dava Sobel
  • Chasing Venus – Andrea Wulf