Tychonis Brahei work, copy in Nancy library

What it is

This is a photograph of the spine of a book written by Tycho Brahe. The copy is held in the library (BM) at Nancy, France, and the Commons record says it came from the library of the Priory of Flavigny-sur-Moselle. The image shows faded handwritten title fragments reading 'Tycho' and 'Brahe' and a small oval library label with the number 261233. The spine is chipped. The scan is one of several near-identical copies of the same work.

Why it matters

Brahe was a Danish astronomer whose careful observations of the stars and planets were among the most precise of his time. Books like this one carried his findings to other scholars across Europe. The photograph shows the object only from the outside, so it tells us little about the text inside. The label and the old binding show that the book passed through institutions and collections over the centuries.

Look closer

• What can you read on the spine, and what parts have faded or been lost?
• What do the library label and the chipped edges suggest about how this book was kept and used?
• What would you need to see inside the book to learn what Brahe wrote in it?