Leighton Library, Dunblane

Scotland's oldest purpose-built independent library founded in 1687

Leighton Library has 1634 first edition of "Commentum de terrae motu circulari : duobus libris refutatum” by Alexander Ross

Added at 07:51 on 25 August 2025

The Leighton Library has a 1634 first edition of "Commentum de terrae motu circulari : duobus libris refutatum. Quorum prior Lansbergi, posterior Carpentari, argumenta vel nugamenta potius refellit" by prolific Scottish writer and controversialist Alexander Ross.

He was concerned to defend Aristotle and repel the Copernican theory, as it gained ground, (that the Earth revolves around the Sun) so in this book on the immobility of the earth, he attacked English author, philosopher, and geographer Nathanael Carpenter and Flemish Calvinist Minister, astronomer and Mathematician Philip Landsberg, born #OnThisDay 25 August 1561.

Landsberg is best known as the author of a set of astronomical tables, Tabulae motuum coelestium perpetuæ, for predicting planetary positions. Lansbergen supported the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, who claimed that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

< Leighton Library has a 1662 edition of Book of Common Prayer Leighton Library has 1569 edition of "P. Rami Scholarum mathematicarum, libri unus et triginta" by Petrus Ramus >