BAINBRIDGE, JOHN

born 1582, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, Eng. died Nov. 3, 1643, Oxford, Oxfordshire astronomer noted for his observations of comets. Bainbridge practiced medicine at Ashby-de-la-Zouch from 1614 to 1618. Soon after he moved to London, he was appointed (1619) Savilian professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford, largely on the basis of his Astronomical Description of the Comet of 1618 (1619). Although this work accepted to a point the superstitious belief that comets appear as signs of impending disaster, in Antiprognosticon (1642) he recanted and vigorously denounced astrological superstition that based predictions on conjunctions of the planets and appearances of comets. His other publication includes the translation of 5th- and 2nd-century Greek astronomical works: Procli Sphaera et Ptolomaei de Hypothesibus Planetarum (1620; Proclus' On Spheres' and Ptolemy's On the Hypotheses of Planets ').