Search Results | Caltech Archives

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: St. Stephen’s, Walbrook
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 90

Title: Galileo, the Pleiades from Sidereus Nuncius (The Sidereal Messenger), Venice, 1610
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1610
Description: The observation of the Pleiades and of the previously invisible stars nearby was made possible by Galileo’s new telescope, presented to the scholars of Venice during the summer of 1609. In his published illustration of 1610 he outlined the stars that were already known and represented the others by single lines. He also tried to preserve the distinction in size.

Title: Common Council Chamber, Guild Hall
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 42

Title: Kepler - Model of the Universe
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1621
Description: Model of the universe (the outermost sphere is Saturn’s) from Johannes Kepler’ s “Mysterium Cosmographicum” (1597, edition of 1621) Count Rocco Collection.

Title: Portrait of Giovanni Domenico Cassini
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1695
Description: Portrait of Cassini from his account of his heliometer in Bologna, published 40 years after its installation in La Meridiana del tempio di S. Petronio..., 1695.

Title: Galileo, illustration from the Sidereus Nuncius (the Sidereal Messenger), Frankfurt, 1610
Format: photograph: print
Date: 1610
Description: Cincvll et Ensis Orionis Asterismvs.

Title: Medium-sized azimuth quadrant of brass, from Tycho Brahe, Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1602

Title: Perspective rendering and plan of the main building of Uraniborg on the island of Hven, built by Tycho Brahe about 1580, from Tycho Brahe, Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1602

Title: William Whiston - title page to A New Theory of the Earth, 5th edition (London, 1737)
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1737
Description: Whiston succeeded Isaac Newton as third Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University in 1701. An early apostle of Newtonian philosophy, he entered the debate on Biblical chronology with his book, “A New Theory of the Earth” (1696), which sought to refute the widely read work of Thomas Burnet, “The Sacred Theory of the Earth.” Although both Whiston and Burnet were to some degree skeptical of Biblical (or Mosaic) accounts of creation, Whiston proposed a theory that the flood was caused by the impact of a comet.

Title: Tattersall’s, Horse Repository
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 83

Title: Royal Cock Pit
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 18

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: Title page: “Nova Reperta” (New Discoveries)
Format: photograph: negative
Description: Shows nine new discoveries of the time. The collection consists of twenty plates showing new discoveries, including navigation by compass. Watson Collection, History of Science.

Title: Workhouse, St. James’s Parish
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 96

Title: Sadlers Wells Theatre
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 69

Title: The Great Hall, Bank of England
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. I, London 1808 Plate no. 7

Title: Water spout from Benjamin Franklin “Experiments and Observations on Electricity”, 5th ed., London.
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1774

Title: Great Subscription Room at Brooks’s, St. James’s Steet
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1808
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. II, London 1809 Plate no. 39

Title: View of the Tower
Format: photograph: negative
Date: 1809
Description: Ackermann, R., The Microcosm of London, Vol. III, London 1809-1810 Plate no. 85