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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.

Title: Christie’s Auction Room
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 6

Title: The College of Physicians
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 20

Title: J.T Desaguliers - plate 30 from A Course of Experimental Philosophy (London, 1734-44)
Format: photograph: negative
Description: 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. This image is an epitome of William Whiston’s scheme of the solar system. This supposedly conveyed the relative distances, magnitudes, periods, and other quantities involved in the motions of the planets and comets. So detailed was it that Desaguliers expressed concern that viewers might place too much faith in its accuracy.

Title: Diagram of eyes, from Astronomia pars optica
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1604

Title: Bootes
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: The Long Room, Custom House
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 28

Title: Exhibition Room, Somerset House
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 2

Title: Centaurus
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: 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: Francis Hauksbee: illustration of pendulae
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1709
Description: Francis Hauksbee was the demonstrator for the Royal Society during the early years of Newton’s tenure as president. The engraving is from his book, Physico-mechanical experiments on various subjects : containing an account of several surprizing phenomena touching light and electricity, producible on the attrition of bodies : with many other remarkable appearances, not before observ’d, together with the explanations of all the machines, (the figures of which are curiously engrav’d on copper) and other apparatus us’d in making the experiments.

Title: Astley’s Amphitheatre
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 4

Title: Billingsgate Market
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 9

Title: Court of Exchequer, Westminster Hall
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 25

Title: Orion
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: Hamilton, Sir William, “Campi Phlegraei: Observations on the Volcanos of the Two Sicilies”, plate 9.
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1779
Description: One of 54 plates by Peter Fabris illustrating volcanis activity in the region of Naples. Sir William Hamilton was at this time royal envoy to the Count of Naples and published his investigations of volcanos for the Royal Society.

Title: Title page of Newton’s “Opticks”
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1706
Description: Latin editon. Newton published his first edition in 1704 in English, but without his name on the title page, it is thought in order to avoid controversy. Knighted by Queen Anne in the following year, he displayed his name linked to his new title here for the first time in print, “Isaaco Newton, Equite aurato” (golden knight); his new rank entitled him to gild his armor. The Latin edition was intended for distribution outside of England. This copy, in an old and well-preserved binding, bears inside the bookplate of an aristocratic German family, probably dating from the 18th century. Purchased in Rome following World War II by George W. Housner.

Title: George Atwood - Atwood’s Machine from A treatise on the Rectilinear Motion and Rotation of Bodies (Cambridge, 1784)
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1784
Description: As mathematics tutor at Cambridge University in the 1770s and 80s, George Atwood was responsible for introducing students to Newtonianism. To help with this task -- and to quell lingering debates about inertia and the living force of matter -- Atwood fashioned a machine that soon became known eponymously. The machine employed an ingenious system of weights, pulleys and a pendulum clock which demonstrated Newton’s laws of motion.

Title: Illustration of water pump
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1567
Description: From Ceredi, Giuseppe, Tre Discorsi.