Astrolabes ― A Bibliography

The Time Museum: catalogue of the collection / general editor, Bruce Chandler. Rockford (Ill.),1984.
 Reviewed by Owen Gingerich, JOURN. HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY V.19, NO. 4/NOV, P.275, 1988.

Descriptions, with colored plates, of 34 instruments. The description and use of the astrolabe is discussed on pp. 1-9. Contains a reproduction of "The Liberal Arts in Time of War" by Lucas de Heere (1534-1584), with an astrolabe by Georg Hartmann (1489-1564. Excellent extensive bibliography.

Gunther, Robert Theodore (1869-1940), The astrolabes of the world : based upon the series of instruments in the Lewis Evans Collection in the old Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, with notes on astrolabes in the collections of the British Museum, Science Museum, Sir. J. Findlay, Mr. S. V. Hoffman, the Mensing Collection and in other public and private collections / by Robert T. Gunther, M. A., Hon. LL.D., curator of the Lewis Evans Collection in the Old Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Oxford : Printed at the University Press, 1932, 2 volumes.

Volume 1 deals with Eastern Astrolabes, II with Western. Volume 1 contains a "Description of the Astrolabe" by Severus Sabokt from c. A.D. 650. Description, with many illustrations of 148 instruments. There are 336 in volume 2. Is there a census of astrolabes?

Chaucer, Geoffrey (d. 1400), A treatise on the astrolabe, edited by Sigmund Eisner. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, c2000.

This variorum edition is excellent. There are an abundance of very good diagrams and very nice explanatory notes by the editor. One has to deal with the Old English, but that is a minor nuisance after a bit of ramping up.

Astrology

Grafton, Anthony, Cardano's cosmos : the worlds and works of a Renaissance astrologer, Cambridge, Mass. ; London: Harvard University Press, 1999.

The second chapter has a good description of how to cast horoscopes.

Lewis, James R, The astrology encyclopedia, Detroit : Visible Ink Press, c1994.

I did not find this of much use. It is almost entirely devoted to interpretation of the signs. Not much of mathematical interest.