England

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.

The Forbidden City was home to the Chinese Emperor and the political center of Chinese government for hundreds of years. Despite occasional tensions, Jesuits from Schall in the 17th century to Gaubil in the 18th century were granted admission as advisors.

This dialogue between a mother and her daughter offers a delightful introduction to the night sky. It contains 23 engraved plates drawn by Whitwell herself, including four hand-colored folding plates.

Adams’ work remained in publication for decades helping generations of microscopists and hobbyists explore the unseen world.  

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.

Newton’s mathematical physics established an understanding of the dynamics of the solar system.

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.

For Robert Fludd, the universe is a monochord, its physical structure unintelligible without an understanding of music. In another section of the book, Fludd depicts the universe as a Temple of Music.

Wright proposed a model of the Milky Way as a flat wheel, and envisioned the nebulae as distant worlds upon worlds, far removed from the Milky Way itself.“That this in all Probability may be the real Case, is in some Degree made evident by the many cloudy Spots, just perceivable by us, as far...

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.

In the New Astronomy (Astronomia nova 1609), Kepler demonstrated with respect to Mars what we now call his first two laws of planetary motion. In the preface to that work, translated here, Kepler answered objections to Copernicus based upon Scripture.

Pliny’s Natural History defined the scope and breadth of the field of natural history. Natural history meant the description (or “historia”) of nature, as opposed to explaining its causes (or “natural philosophy”). Pliny died in 79 CE while investigating the eruption of Mt.

The Geneva Bible was the first lay study Bible, written in the vernacular, portable, affordable, and designed with cross-references and explanatory notes for self-study. It was the Bible of Shakespeare, of the Puritans, of settlers in the colonies of New England, and of Scotland.

The 19th century saw an unprecedented expansion of known objects in the universe. William and Caroline Herschel conducted a comprehensive search of northern skies with telescopes powerful enough to resolve many nebulae into star clusters.

Numerous Scripture passages seemed to affirm the stability of the Earth and the mobility of the Sun, including Psalm 104:5.

Artful lithographs of the Milkyway from a leading English observatory.

After studying with the chemist Robert Boyle and the naturalist John Ray, Sloane embarked on a voyage to Jamaica. In these two volumes, Sloane described about 800 species of plants he collected. Sloane included 48 extracts from Hernandez.

To move up in the world, Galileo and other members of his generation sought positions at court. To help them know what to expect, Castiglione wrote the standard manual for court etiquette, how to please your supervisor. Coach Galileo would say, pay attention to Castiglione.

Le Comte, a French Jesuit sent in 1687 by Louis XIV to work in the Kangxi court, depicted the Beijing observatory at the end of Schall’s life.

After studying with the chemist Robert Boyle and the naturalist John Ray, Sloane embarked on a voyage to Jamaica. In these two volumes, Sloane described about 800 species of plants he collected. Sloane included 48 extracts from Hernandez.

Apollonius (3rd century B.C.E.) examined the properties of conic sections; namely, the: • circle (cuts a cone horizontally, perpendicularly to the axis of the cone) • ellipse (cuts a cone to make a closed curve) • parabola (cuts a cone parallel to a side of the cone) • hyperbola (cuts a cone in...

The “influenza” of Saturn brings melancholy: On one occasion, Galileo was called as an expert medical witness in a trial to testify about the physical effects of melancholy.

This sun-centered cosmic section representes the first published defense of Copernicus in England, printed in a work of meteorology.

“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)

Thomas Burnet, a royal chaplain, classical scholar, and Cambridge Platonist, published Telluris theoria sacra in 1681. The famous frontispiece first appeared in this English edition. A circle of seven globes represents the Earth completing its journey through time.

Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood, first time in English: Concluding a series of brilliant teachers and students at the medical school of Padua that included Vesalius, Colombo, and Acquapendente (a friend of Galileo’s), Harvey marshaled a combination of quantitative,...

Thomas Burnet, a royal chaplain, classical scholar, and Cambridge Platonist, published Telluris theoria sacra in 1681. The famous frontispiece first appeared in this English edition. A circle of seven globes represents the Earth completing its journey through time.

The foundational work for modern dentistry, including tooth transplants: Hunter established a new system of nomenclature for teeth and studied the development of teeth from birth.

Dalton defined the law of partial pressures in the course of his meteorological research. Three years later, his New System of Chemical Philosophy (Manchester, 1808) presented his atomic theory and provided a way to calculate the relative weights of elements and compounds.

This page reflects Wegener’s interest in temperature fluctuations and patterns of glaciation. The theory of continental drift developed from Wegener’s researches in Greenland as a meteorologist with an interest in polar climate.

Newton believed that Solomon’s Temple encoded his inverse square law for universal gravitation. To Newton, his grandest achievement was merely a rediscovery of the treasures of ancient wisdom.

This is the first separate English edition of Galileo’s Discourse on Two New Sciences, his masterwork in mathematical physics. The “two new sciences” are tensile strength and motion.

For Newton, science and the Bible were not opposed, provided that one understood each one correctly.