Scientific Instruments

In this poster-sized work, the first publication of observations made with a microscope, Cesi and Stelluti studied the anatomy of the bee. The text includes classical references to bees as well as new knowledge, integrated in a tabular outline.

Hooke’s Micrographia is the most remarkable visual treatise of 17th century microscopy. In describing the appearance of cork, Hooke coined the term “cell.” Hooke’s large fold-out plate of the flea is unforgettable.

Griendel’s Micrographia nova was the German counterpart to Hooke’s Micrographia (1665). Greindel improved the objective lens. Many of his illustrations are of the same creatures examined by Hooke.

The Boerhaave Museum holds several of Leeuwenhoek’s original microscopes, from which this replica was created.

In the Prodromus, Hevelius explained the instruments and methods used to produce the star catalog. Hevelius’ Gdansk observatory, “Stellaburg,” was the best in Europe until the later national observatories of France and Britain.

This anthology includes letters to the Royal Society of London by various contributors, including Robert Hooke (1635-1703) and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). Here it is opened to a letter from Leeuwenhoek, faced by four small microscopic vignettes.

Once an altar is lighted, the temple doors open automatically. Hero fashioned all sorts of marvelous automata using steam, air pressure, hydraulics and falling weights. Devices included an automatic wine dispenser, siphons, garden fountains, engines, pumps, steam-powered toys, and magic tricks...

Featuring Galileo's Handwritting. Galileo dedicated the manual for his engineering compass to young Cosimo II de Medici, whom he had tutored in mathematics the previous summer.

Schickard, a friend of Kepler’s, designed this planisphere or “astroscopium” to calculate the positions of the stars for any day and hour of the year. Schickard also devised a calculating machine to produce astronomical tables according to Kepler’s laws.

In this book, Regiomontanus predicted the positions of the Sun and Moon for 40 years. He designed a sundial to work independently of one’s latitude, and a volvelle, or circular dial, to locate the position and phase of the Moon according to date and time.

In astrology, a “climactic year” marks a turning point, a moment of greatest risk. The preface explains that 1679 was Hevelius’ climactic year, for in that year his observatory burned. Fire destroyed manuscripts, books and instruments, including his sextant. He was 67 years old.

The tiny size of a volume by Coronelli belies its historical importance: in this Epitome, Coronelli explained how to use celestial and terrestrial globes, and his techniques for constructing them.

A “calendarium” contains predictions of the positions of the Sun and Moon for several decades into the future. Regiomontanus calculated their positions for 40 years beginning in 1476; Stoeffler for 62 years from 1518-1579 inclusive.

Featuring Galileo's Handwriting. Galileo published his second printed book to establish his priority rights and to inform Cosimo de Medici of the legal judgment against Capra. This copy, bound with the Compasso, is inscribed by Galileo to a Florentine physician.

A globe maker for the French royal family, J. Fortin, prepared this edition of Flamsteed’s celestial atlas in a much reduced format. Flamsteed was the first Astronomer Royal, who oversaw the building of the Greenwich Observatory. Newton relied upon Flamsteed’s star positions in his Principia.

Bode created a new constellation, Herschels Teleskop, near Auriga, to honor William Herschel’s discovery of Uranus in 1781. This Bode-Fortin-Flamsteed atlas is a 1782 German edition of Fortin’s 1776 reprinting of Flamsteed’s 1729 atlas.

For two decades, Tycho and his assistants at Uraniborg produced thousands of astronomical observations of unprecedented quality. Tycho’s large-scale observing instruments, together with sophisticated new error correction techniques, increased observational precision by a factor of twenty.

These notes comprise one of the most important papers in the history of computing. Lovelace explained how Babbage’s “analytical engine,” if constructed, would amount to a programmable computer rather than merely a calculator.

The Academy transformed the thermoscope into the thermometer by adding a graduated scale (which had been done by Galileo and his friends) and by sealing the tube to make it independent of air pressure.

Galileo’s physics, applied to medicine: Santorio Santorio (also known as Sanctorio or Sanctorius) practiced medicine in Padua, in the Venetian Republic.

Danti was a cosmographer in the court of Cosimo I de Medici. Visitors to Florence today may view his stunning maps of the world in the Hall of Maps of the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as armillary spheres and a quadrant he mounted on the facade of the church of Santa Maria Novella.

The Academy crafted a hygrometer to measure humidity in the air. They improved the barometer, and conducted many experiments with air pressure. The Academy also experimented with light and phosphorescence, radiant heat, the velocity of sound and many other topics.

To clarify the ability of the barometer to measure the pressure of the atmosphere, Pascal left a barometer at a low elevation in the town of Clermont, in Auvergne, while taking another with him as he climbed the Puy-de-Dôme.

Astronomers use quadrants and sextants to measure angular distances in the night sky, such as the angular divergence between a planet and the nearest bright star. One may also measure the height of the North Star above the horizon, which is equal to one’s latitude on the Earth.

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.

This book explains how to use the terrestrial and celestial globes, an armillary sphere (which shows the movements of the sky), and an orrery (which models the motions of the planets). Martin operated an instrument shop in London.

Boyle, who heard of von Guericke’s experiments via Schott, retained Robert Hooke to construct a similar air pump for him. Boyle’s experiments supported his “corpuscular” view of matter, that air is comprised of particles in motion.

The frontispiece of Riccioli’s treatise depicts not two, but three major systems of the world. The Ptolemaic system rests discarded (lower right corner) because of the phases of Venus and Mercury (upper left corner). All-seeing Argus looks on, holding a telescope.

Even today, while we adopt the Copernican system, we still teach observational astronomy and navigation by the stars using the traditional geocentric instruments: nocturnal dials, celestial globes, and armillary spheres.

Scientific theories may be accepted on the basis of a weighing of many complex factors rather than a single determinative observation or crucial experiment. From antiquity, Copernicanism had been rejected due to a failure to observe stellar parallax.