- RB-* (x)
- 1602 (x)
- Rare Books (x)
- Search Results
-
-
Title
-
Ara
-
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
-
Debating Society, Piccadilly
-
Format
-
photograph: print
-
Date
-
1808
-
Description
-
Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 29b
-
-
Title
-
Military College, Chelsea
-
Format
-
photograph: negative
-
Date
-
1810
-
Description
-
Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 99
-
-
Title
-
Capricorn
-
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
-
Trinity House
-
Format
-
photograph: negative
-
Date
-
1809
-
Description
-
Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 87
-
-
Title
-
Cetus
-
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
-
Pegasus
-
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
-
Newton - frontispiece to the Method of Fluxions
-
Format
-
photograph: negative
-
Date
-
1736
-
Description
-
Isaac Newton & John Colson (editor & “perpetual commentator”) The Method of Fluxions and Infinite Series (Cambridge, 1736) John Colson was Cambridge University’s fifth Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. The image accompanied a text that was published to evince Newton’s priority of the calculus and to respond to attacks on “infidel mathematicians” by men such as George Berkeley. Colson hoped to show that the calculus is a rational and tangible means of expressing real motions in real space. To explain the second derivative Colson has the reader imagine an attempt to pot two ducks with one shot. The bottom fowl flies at a constant velocity while the top flies with a uniformly accelerating motion, thus representing “contemporaneous fluents.” The “fluent” curve which the hunter’s eye traces represents the second derivative.
-
-
Title
-
Draco
-
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
-
J.-A. Nollet’s popular public lectures on physics
-
Format
-
photograph: print
-
Date
-
1757
-
Description
-
J.-A. Nollet’s popular public lectures on physics given in Paris during the 1730s included demonstrations on some 350 different instruments. The lectures were published in 6 volumes as Leçons de physique experimentale and then widely translated, into Italian, English, German, Spanish, and Russian. This page is from the Spanish edition, Lecciones de physica experimental, of 1757. George W. Housner Rare Book Collection.
-
-
Title
-
John Keill - title page for An Examination of Dr. Burnet’s Theory of the Earth: with some Remarks on Mr. Whiston’s New Theory of the Earth (London, 1734)
-
Format
-
photograph: negative
-
Date
-
1734
-
Description
-
John Keill, Oxford’s Savilian Professor of Mathematics, was one of the principal apostles of Newtonian mathematics who helped to establish Newton reputation in the face of the claims of Leibniz and others. in this work Keill attacked Thomas Burnet for his Cartesian Sacred Theory of the Earth, and William Whiston for his own natural philosophical account of the Earth’s early history. Keill accused Burnet of manifesting arrogance by proposing a systematic solution to such difficult problems - and he pointed out that Newton had proved in his Principia that the vortices to which Descartes appealed were physically impossible. In his assault on Whiston, he singled out the latter’s argument that a comet had given rise to Noah’s flood and, in consequence, the oceans that persist today.
-
-
Title
-
Hand-painted illustration from the autograph album of Johann Jakob Frisch
-
Format
-
photograph: negative
-
Date
-
1624
-
Description
-
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.
-
-
Title
-
Oculus Enoch et Eliae, sive Radius Sideromysticus pars Prima
-
Format
-
photograph: negative
-
Date
-
1645
-
Description
-
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.
-
-
Title
-
Temple Church
-
Format
-
photograph: negative
-
Date
-
1809
-
Description
-
Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 84
-
-
Title
-
Galileo, portrait of three astronomers, frontispiece 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
-
The portrait by one of the ablest engravers of the time, Stephano Della Bella, depicts (left to right) Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus earnestly discussing astronomical matters. The subject of their debate is represented by the armillary sphere which Ptolemy holds in his right hand, while Copernicus holds a representation of the new heliocentric system. An arrow, barely visible on the ground to the left of the publisher’s seal, points to Copernicus.
