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Twenty years before his famous trial, Galileo Galilei had spent two years carefully considering how the results of his own telescopic observations of the heavens as well as his convictions about the truth of the Copernican theory could be aligned with the Catholic Church's position on biblical interpretation and the authority of the magisterium. The product of these two years was an unpublished letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, the mother of his patron, Cosimo II de' Medici. Much has changed since this letter was written in 1615, but much has remained the same. This collection of articles by renowned international scholars provides the historical context of the letter as well...
Since 1981, the Scientific Instrument Commission has provided a forum for annual international discussion of topics close to the hearts of those caring for and researching historic scientific instruments. During these years, increasing professionalisation of curatorship and deepened engagement by historians have led to important changes in these roles. This volume is a cornucopia illustrating how instrument studies have changed and flourished over the past forty years. Four chapters review the work of the Scientific Instrument Commission by decade. The remaining chapters consider the historiography of instrument studies, the cataloguing of collections, historic instruments in exhibitions and...
Marking the anniversary of the telescope’s invention, these collected essays highlight a number of significant historical episodes concerning this well-loved instrument, which has played a crucial role in Man’s thinking about his position – literally and philosophically – in the universe.
Contemporary biographies of Galilei emphasize, in several places, that he was a masterful draughtsman. In fact, Galilei studied at the art academy, which is where his friendship with Ludovico Cigoli developed, who later became the official court artist. The book focuses on this formative effect – it tracks Galilei’s trust in the epistemological strength of drawings. It also looks at Galilei’s activities in the world of art and his reflections on art theory, ending with an appreciation of his fame; after all, he was revered as a rebirth of Michelangelo. For the first time, this publication collects all aspects of the appreciation of Galilei as an artist, contemplating his art not only as another facet of his activities, but as an essential element of his research.
Historically, the idea that the stars and planets influence the Earth and its inhabitants has proved powerful in almost every culture, offering an important context for the use of mathematical and astronomical instruments. In the past, however, historians of astronomy have paid relatively little attention to astrology and other “non-scientific” topics, while historians of astrology have tended to concentrate on the analysis of texts rather than surviving artefacts, scientific instruments in particular. Heaven and Earth United is an attempt to redress the balance through an exploration of the astrological contexts in which instruments once found a place. Contributors are Silke Ackermann, Marisa Addomine, Jim Bennett, Marvin Bolt, Louise E. Devoy, Richard Dunn, Seb Falk, Stephen Johnston, Richard L. Kremer, Günther Oestmann, Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas, Petra G. Schmidl, Giorgio Strano, and Sylvia Sumira.
Since the dawn of time, man has been fascinated by the night sky and the heavenly bodies that inhabit it. In 1609, Galileo Galilei created an instrument that would change the way the world looked at the heavens forever - the telescope. Galileo: Images of the Universe is a magnificently illustrated volume that takes readers on a journey via the works of artists great and small, known and unknown, from the mystical and poetic visions of the heavens held in Egypt and Mesopotamia, through the Greek cosmogonies and the planetary architecture of Ptolemy, to the heliocentric theories of Copernicus that inspired the likes of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton to create the modern concept of the universe.
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