Search Results | Caltech Archives

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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Session House, Clerkenwell
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 70

Title: Magdalen Chapel
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 54

Title: Pillory Cross, Charing Cross
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 62

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.