Observing the World Through Images : Diagrams and Figures in the Early-Modern Arts and Sciences

Through well-illustrated essays, Observing the World through Images explores the making and uses of printed diagrams and pictures in the practice and communication of early-modern sciences and medicine. Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Introduction: 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* Index of Names The 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. The 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.-- Source other than Library of Congress