Literature

This is a replica of a microscope that is very much like one of the microscopes Galileo might have created. Indeed, it was once believed to have been made by Galileo, but is now attributed to Campani.

Dante’s love for astronomy pervaded this epic poem. Not by accident did he bring each of the three volumes to a close with the word “stelle,” or star.

In Works and Days, the poet Hesiod, a roughly contemporary of Homer, compiled guidelines for conducting life and forecasting the weather according to the stars.

Chaucer’s astronomical knowledge, like Dante’s, was anything but casual; in addition to his stories, this volume also contains his detailed technical manual for use of the astrolabe.

Planetary and stellar influences affect one’s physical temperament, so one must take steps not to catch the melancholic “influenza” of Saturn: “There’s some ill planet reigns: I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favorable” (A Winter's Tale).

This poem became one of the most widely read works of European literature in the 17th century. Tasso created serious characters with human flaws, psychological depth, and even melancholy, setting them in the inspirational but ambiguous era of the Crusades.

Members of the Academy of the Lynx preferred to communicate with each other in code. Della Porta was the most accomplished cryptographer of the Renaissance. This work includes a set of movable cipher disks to code and decode messages.

Topsell’s natural history includes both familiar and exotic creatures, drawn from sources both new and old. Topsell describes the horse, reindeer and chameleon. He portrays the magnificent appearance of the rhinoceros in the artistic tradition of Dürer.

The crest of the Barberini family, showing three busy bees, appears at the top of the frontispiece. Galileo’s supporter, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, had become Pope Urban VIII. The election of Barberini seemed to assure Galileo of support at the highest level in the Church.

Gerard, an estate manager for Queen Elizabeth’s chief executive, was in contact with naturalists around the world who sent him both plants and soil to grow them in. The first illustration of the “Virginia potato” appears in this volume.

Featuring Galileo's Handwriting. This is Galileo’s witty and entertaining dialogue in defense of Copernicus. In the frontispiece, Aristotle and Ptolemy hold an Earth-centered armillary sphere (left). Copernicus holds a Sun-centered model of the universe (right).

Eyewitness to Black Plague: In the opening section, the Florentine writer Boccaccio (1313-1375) recounted his observations of the plague. According to Boccaccio, most people died within about three days of the appearance of tumors.

“The night hath been to me a more familiar face than that of man, and in her starry shade of dim and solitary loveliness, I learned the language of another world.” (Manfred, Act 3, Scene 4)

“Heaven’s utmost deep Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep They pass before his eye, are number’d, and roll on.” “Prometheus Unbound,” Act IV (lines 418-420)

In a comical ballad called “The Star-Splitter,” Robert Frost described a man outdoors splitting firewood after the first frost of autumn: “You know Orion always comes up sideways.