Joseph Moxon

A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie Joseph Moxon

Publisher Marketing: A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie comprises six parts or 'books'. In the first book, Moxon teaches the rudiments of Ptolemaic astronomy and geography. In the next two books he shows how to use globes to solve many problems in astronomy, geography and navigation. The fourth book teaches how to solve astrological problems, an important subject in Moxon's time but today considered a pseudo-science of little merit. The fifth book deals with what Moxon calls gnomonical problems, that is, by again using the globes, finding the correct hour lines for many different types of sun-dials. The final book applies the globes to the solution of spherical triangles, a necessary skill for mariners practicing the new art of celestial navigation. Knowledge of how to use globes in the solving of all these sorts of problems is a skill now largely forgotten and Moxon's treatise is a valuable historic resource on this account alone. Of course, the work may also be viewed as a simple handbook, produced as an aid to selling the celestial and terrestrial globes which Moxon was busy making and advertising at this time. The treatise has two additional books, the first of which is a retelling of ancient and mythical stories about the origins and naming of certain constellations and stars, or what Moxon calls the 'poetical reasons' why such bodies are placed where they are in the heavens. The second additional book is of particular value today to historians of astronomy, since it is a masterly exposition of the origins and discoveries of astronomy up to the middle of the seventeenth century. It comprises much myth but also a great deal of fact, the whole providing a fascinating glimpse of these matters as understood by our forebears at the dawn of the scientific age.