Description
Book SynopsisThe well-illustrated articles in Observing the World through Images offer insights into the uses of images in astronomy, mathematics, instrument-making, medicine and alchemy, highlighting shared forms as well as those peculiar to individual disciplines. Themes addressed include: the processes of image production and communication; the transformation of images through copying and adaptation for new purposes; genres and traditions of imagery in particular scientific disciplines; the mnemonic and pedagogical value of diagrams; the relationship between text and image; and the roles of diagrams as tools to think with. Contributors include: Isabelle Pantin, Jennifer Rampling, Samuel Gessner, Renee Raphael, Karin Ekholm, Hester Higton, and Katie Taylor.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: New Light on Visual Forms in the Early-Modern Arts and Sciences, Isla Fay and Nicholas Jardine Analogy and Difference: A Comparative Study of Medical and Astronomical Images in Books, 1470–1550, Isabelle Pantin Depicting the Medieval Alchemical Cosmos: George Ripley’s Wheel of Inferior Astronomy, Jennifer M. Rampling Anatomy, Bloodletting and Emblems: Interpreting the Title-Page of Nathaniel Highmore’s Disquisitio (1651), Karin Ekholm The Use of Printed Images for Instrument-Making at the Arsenius Workshop. Samuel Gessner Reconstructing Vernacular Mathematics: The Case of Thomas Hood’s Sector, Katie Taylor Instruments and Illustration: The Use of Images in Edmund Gunter’s De Sectore et Radio, Hester Higton Teaching through Diagrams: Galileo’s Dialogo and Discorsi and his Pisan Readers, Renée Raphael
