The Astronomical Tables of Giovanni Bianchini

The Alfonsine Tables became the main computing tool for astronomers for about 250 years, from their compilation in Toledo ca. 1272 to the edition in 1551 of new tables based on Copernicus s astronomical models. It consisted of a set of astronomical tables which, over time, was presented in many different formats. Giovanni Bianchini (d. after 1469), an astronomer active in Ferrara, Italy, was among the few scholars of that extended period to compile a coherent and insightful set based on the Alfonsine Tables. His tables, described and analyzed here for the first time, played a remarkable role in the transmission of the Alfonsine Tables and in their transition from manuscript to print.