310 Pages
by
Routledge
310 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This book is about the archaeology of science, or what can be learnt from the systematic examination of the artefacts made by precision craftsmen for the study of the natural world. An international authority on historical scientific instruments, Gerard Turner has collected here his essays on European astrolabes and related topics. By 1600 the astrolabe had nearly ceased to be made and used in the... Read more
Contents: Preface; Later medieval and renaissance instruments; The craftsmanship of the 'Carolingian' astrolabe, IC 3042; A critique of the use of the first point of Aries in dating astrolabes; The astrolabe presented by Regiomontanus to Cardinal Bessarion in 1462; An astrolabe belonging to Galileo?; The Florentine workshop of Giovan Battista Giusti, 1556-c.1575; An astrolabe attributed to Gerard Mercator, c.1570; The three astrolabes of Gerard Mercator; A Tudor astrolabe by Thomas Gemini and its relationship to an astrological disc by Gerard Mercator of 1551; An astrolabe for Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, by Erasmus Habermel; An unusual Elizabethan silver globe by Charles Whitwell; Zinner's ghosts and a curious date:1576; Index.
Biography
Gerard L'E. Turner
'The dozen essays in this remarkably unified ensemble have been gathered together from seven different books or journals... Turner [...] has produced a tour de force of perceptive erudition. 'Material culture' now rises to a truly professional and sophisticated level.' Annals of Science
