Overview

Gerard Turner has collected here his essays on European astrolabes and related topics. By 1600 the astrolabe had nearly ceased to be made and used in the West, and before that date there was little of the source material for the study of instruments that exists for more modern times. It is necessary to ""read"" the instruments themselves, and astrolabes in particular are rich in all sorts of information, mathematical, astronomical, metallurgical, in addition to what they can reveal about craftsmanship, the existence of workshops and economic and social conditions. There is a strong forensic element in instrument research, and Gerard Turner's achievements include the identification of three astrolabes made by Gerard Mercator, all of whose instruments were thought to have been destroyed. Other essays deal with the discovery of an important late 16th-century Florentine workshop, and of a group of mid-15th-century German astrolabes linked to Regiomontanus.

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9780860789031

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'The dozen essays in this remarkably unified ensemble have been gathered together from seven different books or journals... Turner [...] has produced a tour de force of perceptive erudition. 'Material culture' now rises to a truly professional and sophisticated level.' Annals of Science

'The dozen essays in this remarkably unified ensemble have been gathered together from seven different books or journals... Turner [...] has produced a tour de force of perceptive erudition. 'Material culture' now rises to a truly professional and sophisticated level.' Annals of Science

Author Information

Gerard L'E. Turner, Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford, UK

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