O’CONNELL, Rev. F.W. & HENRY, R.M. Ed. by. An Irish Corpus Astronomiae. Being Manus O’Donnell’s Seventeenth Century version of the Lunario of Geronymo Cortès, edited with introduction, translation, notes and glossary.

London: David Nutt, 1915. First and only edition. Crown octavo. pp. xxxvii, 252. Green decorative cloth, title in gilt on spine. A very good copy.

An important contribution to the study of Irish scientific and literary culture, preserving the seventeenth-century Irish translation of the celebrated Lunario Perpetuo of the Spanish cosmographer and astrologer Gerónimo Cortés (fl. sixteenth century). The translation was made by Manus O’Donnell of Donegal, a member of one of Gaelic Ireland’s most distinguished learned families, and represents a remarkable example of the transmission of European scientific and astronomical knowledge into the Irish language during the post-medieval period.
The work contains calendars, astronomical observations, astrological calculations, and practical guidance relating to agriculture, medicine, weather forecasting, and navigation, reflecting the close relationship between astronomy and everyday life in early modern Europe. The extensive introduction and notes by Rev. F. W. O’Connell and R. M. Henry place the text within the broader context of Irish manuscript scholarship and the survival of Gaelic intellectual traditions following the collapse of the old Gaelic order.
A valuable source for the history of Irish science, astronomy, and language, and one of the more significant publications of the early twentieth-century revival of interest in Ireland’s manuscript heritage. Scarce.

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