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Title: Title page of Federico Commandino’s Italian translation of Euclid’s Elements
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1575
Description: Commandino, described as the most competent mathematician among all Renaissance translators, produced his Italian text from Greek editions. Italian was the first vernacular language into which Euclid was translated.

Title: Kepler - preliminary diagram relating to the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter, from Mysterium cosmographicum
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1596
Description: With this first diagram, Kepler thought that he had discovered the key to unlocking a geometrical secret about the creation of the universe. His education at the university of Tubingen with Michael Maestlin had already convinced him of the truth of the Copernican system, and starting in 1595, he was trying to explain the relationship among the distances of the planets from the sun and the length of their revolutionaround the sun. The diagram came to Kepler as a revelation. As he was explaining some astrological matters to his students, he drew triangles inscribed in the same circle - or nearly triangles since the end of one made up the beginning of the next one. The crossing points of these triangles formed another circle, half the size of the first one. That proportion, he realized, was the same as the proportion between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter. The importance of the Mysterium Cosmographicum doesn’t lie in its scientific value, but more in Kepler’s processes since he didn’t just present the result of his researches (such as the world system inscribed in the five regular bodies, which he considered at that time as an real achievement in favor of the Copernican system), but he also shows to the reader all his beginnings and errors, as it is the case with that diagram.

Title: Bartholomew Fair
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 8

Title: Serpentarius
Format: print: engraving
Date: 1603
Description: From Johann Bayer’s “Uranometria” (1603), the first ‘true’ star-atlas. This and other copper-engraved images from the book demonstrate a notable feature of this atlas: the sheer beauty of the plates. Alexander Mair, the artist, clearly found some inspiration in the De Gheyn engravings in the Aratea published by Hugo Grotius in 1600, but most of Bayer’s constellation figures have no known prototype. Significantly, each plate has a carefully engraved grid, so that star positions can be read off to fractions of a degree. These positions were taken, not from Ptolemy’s catalog, but from the catalog of Tycho Brahe, which had circulated in manuscript in the 1590s, yet not printed until 1602. Another important feature of the atlas was the introduction of a new system of stellar nomenclature, Bayer assigning Greek letters to the brighter stars, generally in the order of magnitude.

Title: Old Bailey
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 58

Title: St. Luke’s Hospital
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 77

Title: Galileo, title page from Sidereus Nuncius (The Sidereal Messenger), Venice, 1610
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1610
Description: In the Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo announced to the world the discoveries made with his new telescope or “perspicilli,” especially the “four planets” circling Jupiter--in fact, Jupiter’s moons--which he names the Medicean stars for his patron, Cosimo II de Medici.

Title: Galileo, Pleiades from the Sidereus Nuncius (The Sidereal Messenger), Frankfurt, 1610
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1610

Title: The Roman Catholic Chapel, Lincolns Inn Fields
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 16

Title: Aquarius
Format: print: engraving
Date: 1603
Description: From Johann Bayer’s “Uranometria” (1603), the first ‘true’ star-atlas. This and other copper-engraved images from the book demonstrate a notable feature of this atlas: the sheer beauty of the plates. Alexander Mair, the artist, clearly found some inspiration in the De Gheyn engravings in the Aratea published by Hugo Grotius in 1600, but most of Bayer’s constellation figures have no known prototype. Significantly, each plate has a carefully engraved grid, so that star positions can be read off to fractions of a degree. These positions were taken, not from Ptolemy’s catalog, but from the catalog of Tycho Brahe, which had circulated in manuscript in the 1590s, yet not printed until 1602. Another important feature of the atlas was the introduction of a new system of stellar nomenclature, Bayer assigning Greek letters to the brighter stars, generally in the order of magnitude.

Title: Galileo, title page from Systema Cosmicum, Augustae Treboc. [Strasbourg], 1635
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1635
Description: The first Latin edition of Galileo’s Dialogo (Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems), prepared by the famous Dutch printer Elsevier but printed in Strasbourg. Not mentioned on the title page is the translater, Matthias Bernegger, who appended to the text an extract from Kepler’s Astronomia Nova (published 1609) and a letter by Paolo Antonio Foscarini. The additions presented arguments to demonstrate that the Copernican system did not conflict with the Bible. The Decree of Condemnation under which Galileo stood in Italy had not been published in France, so his work could be printed there. This Latin edition was later brought out in Leiden and London.

Title: Title page: Euclid, “The Elements of Geometrie”, London
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1570
Description: First English edition. Translated into English for the first time by Sir Henry Billingsley, with preface by M. Dee. Based on earlier Latin versions. Watson Collection, History of Science.

Title: Kepler - Table IV, from Mysterium cosmographicum
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1596

Title: Aries
Format: print: engraving
Date: 1603
Description: From Johann Bayer’s “Uranometria” (1603), the first ‘true’ star-atlas. This and other copper-engraved images from the book demonstrate a notable feature of this atlas: the sheer beauty of the plates. Alexander Mair, the artist, clearly found some inspiration in the De Gheyn engravings in the Aratea published by Hugo Grotius in 1600, but most of Bayer’s constellation figures have no known prototype. Significantly, each plate has a carefully engraved grid, so that star positions can be read off to fractions of a degree. These positions were taken, not from Ptolemy’s catalog, but from the catalog of Tycho Brahe, which had circulated in manuscript in the 1590s, yet not printed until 1602. Another important feature of the atlas was the introduction of a new system of stellar nomenclature, Bayer assigning Greek letters to the brighter stars, generally in the order of magnitude.

Title: Galileo, diagram of the Copernican system from Dialogo...sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo, Tolemaico, e Copernicano (Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican), Florence, 1632
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1632
Description: This is a diagram showing the ordering of the planets, moving out from the Sun. Galileo’s diagram is similar to that of Copernicus, except that Galileo has added the moons of Jupiter, which he discovered.

Title: The Post Office
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 63

Title: Libra
Format: print: engraving
Date: 1603
Description: From Johann Bayer’s “Uranometria” (1603), the first ‘true’ star-atlas. This and other copper-engraved images from the book demonstrate a notable feature of this atlas: the sheer beauty of the plates. Alexander Mair, the artist, clearly found some inspiration in the De Gheyn engravings in the Aratea published by Hugo Grotius in 1600, but most of Bayer’s constellation figures have no known prototype. Significantly, each plate has a carefully engraved grid, so that star positions can be read off to fractions of a degree. These positions were taken, not from Ptolemy’s catalog, but from the catalog of Tycho Brahe, which had circulated in manuscript in the 1590s, yet not printed until 1602. Another important feature of the atlas was the introduction of a new system of stellar nomenclature, Bayer assigning Greek letters to the brighter stars, generally in the order of magnitude.

Title: Pantheon Masquerade
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 60

Title: King’s Mews, Charing Cross
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 47

Title: Botanic Garden at Cambridge University
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1815
Description: Ackermann, R., A history of the University of Cambridge : its colleges, halls, and public buildings.