and arranged an observatory for their joint use. Instruments, as fine as the skilful artisans of Nürnberg could make them, adorned the earliest of European observatories, and the two friends made good use of them (they observed already the comet of 1472), and originated several new methods of observing. But Regiomontanus did not forget the printing operations, and published not only Purbach's Theoricæ Novæ and trigonometrical tables, but also his own celebrated Ephemerides, the first of their kind, which, some years afterwards, were made known to the navigators through the German geographer Martin Behaim, and guided Diaz, Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and many others safely across the ocean. Nothing spread the fame of the astronomer like these Ephemerides, and the Pope was thus induced to invite Regiomontanus to Rome to reform the confused calendar. The invitation was obeyed in 1475, but Regiomontanus died in July 1476 very suddenly at Rome. He only reached the age of forty, and no doubt much might have been expected from him if death had not so early stopped his career; but he had rendered great service to science, not only by his endeavours to save the Greek authors from oblivion,[1] but by his Ephemerides, his development of trigonometry, and his observations. Walther survived him twenty-eight years, and continued his observations, which were published in 1544.
By Purbach and Regiomontanus the astronomy of the Alexandrian school had been introduced at the German Universities, and the increased demands which navigators made on astronomers continued to help forward the study of astronomy in Germany, which country, by having a sovereign in common with Spain, for a while had much intercourse with the latter country. Of the astronomers
- ↑ The Greek text of Ptolemy's work from the MS. brought home by Regiomontanus was published at Bâle in 1538.
