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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: 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.

Title: Whitehall
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 95

Title: Dodart, D. Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des plantes.
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1676
Description: With a pharmacy and botanic garden in the background, Dodart’s seventeenth-century vignette depicts the process of preparing medical simples from plant to bottle. While laborers toil at the scales and distilling furnace, gentlemen-philosophers, clerics and physicians discuss the latest developments in pharmacoepia.

Title: Galileo, two illustrations of the moon from Sidereus Nuncius (The Sidereal Messenger), Venice, 1610
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1610
Description: Two illustrations of features of the moon’s surface, showing strong light and dark shadings on the light side. According to the prevailing Aristotelian cosmology, heavenly bodies were perfectly smooth and spherical. Galileo’s observations of the moon’s roughness tended to support the new Copernican system, which no longer upheld the distinction between terrestrial and heavenly bodies.

Title: Dining Hall, Asylum
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 5