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Title
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Taurus
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Format
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print: engraving
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Date
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1603
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Description
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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.
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Title
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Lupus
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Format
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print: engraving
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Date
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1603
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Description
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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.
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Title
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South Sea House, Dividend Hall
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Format
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photograph: negative
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Date
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1810
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Description
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Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 102
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Title
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tile page: Oculus Enoch et Eliae, sive Radius Sideromysticus pars Prima
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Format
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photograph: negative
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Date
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1645
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Description
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Anton Maria Schyrleus (1597-1660) was a Capuchin priest and professor, who worked in Bohemia, Trier and Ravenna. His astronomical work was completed in the low countries in the 1640s, and resulted in this rather unusual work -- a richly illustrated example of baroque natural philosophy. The Oculus might be considered a mystical work, reflecting the harmonies of an earth-centered, Tychonic cosmos in scriptural terms. The illustrations give a vivid impression of its combination of technical astronomy and mechanics with rich symbolism.
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Title
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Map of the world
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Format
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photograph: negative
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Date
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1627
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Description
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From Kepler’s “Rudolphine Tables.” (1627).
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Title
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Page from the autograph album of Johann Jakob Frisch
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Format
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photograph: print
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Date
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1624
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Description
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Frisch was a nephew of Johannes Kepler. The album was kept by Frisch while a law student at the University of Tubingen (from 1624 to 1631), where Kepler himself also had studied. Autograph entries are typicaly in Latin, and range from a few lines of verse or prose to elaborate miniature illustrations, comic and serious. Kepler’s autograph is included in the book within a Latin inscription dated 1625.
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Title
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Newgate Chapel
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Format
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photograph: negative
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Date
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1809
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Description
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Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 57
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Title
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Lloyd’s Subscription Room
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Format
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photograph: negative
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Date
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1809
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Description
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Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 49
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Title
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William Whiston - fig.2 for A New Theory of the Earth (London, 5th edn., 1737)
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Format
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photograph: negative
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Date
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1737
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Description
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This figure traces the path of a comet to show how the Earth’s elliptic orbit was caused. Newton and Edmond Halley had worked hard to demonstrate that comets were predictable, periodic bodies which therefore could not be used to prognosticate divine interventions in the natural order. Yet they also suggested that comets deposited aethers to revitalize a spiritually depleted Earth. Whiston liked this mixture of close geometrical analysis with divine mechanism, and extended the discussion. He argued that comets had been responsible for key moments in the Earth’s natural and biblical history - for instance, it was a great comet that had caused the Deluge. He even equated comets with Hell: as they moved in their highly eccentric orbits, they alternated between the “Darkness of Torment” and the “ungodly Smoak of Fire.” For Whiston, comets thus became “the place of Punishment for wicked Men after the general Resurrection.”
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Title
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Canis Major
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Format
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print: engraving
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Date
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1603
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Description
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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.
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Title
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J.T Desaguliers - plate 32 from A Course of Experimental Philosophy (London, 1734-44)
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Format
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photograph: negative
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Description
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Jean Theophilus Desaguliers, a protestant refugee from France, established himself as one of the most prominent advocates of the Newtonian philosophy in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. While trying to clarify some of the theoretical aspects of Newtonianism, he also became deeply concerned with the religious, social and political implications of Newton’s work: for example, at the accession of George II in 1727 Desaguliers published a panegyric entitled The Newtonian System of the World: the best Model of Government. The 32nd plate shows the use of the planetarium to display the phenomena produced by the Earth’s rotation about its axis.
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Title
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Plate from “Ansei kenbunshi”
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Format
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photograph: print
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Description
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Damage following the great earthquake of 1855 near Tokyo (the “Ansei earthquake”). Accounts of the disaster were suppressed by the government, making them today extremely rare. This plate is from “Ansei kenbunshi” (Observations of the Ansei Era), printed in Tokyo, 1856. George W. Housner book collection.
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Title
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Sarpens
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Format
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print: engraving
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Date
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1603
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Description
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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.
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Title
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Ara
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Format
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print: engraving
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Date
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1603
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Description
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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.
