The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural HistoryUniversity of Chicago Press, 01.08.2003 - 528 Seiten Some years ago, David Freedberg opened a dusty cupboard at Windsor Castle and discovered hundreds of vividly colored, masterfully precise drawings of all sorts of plants and animals from the Old and New Worlds. Coming upon thousands more drawings like them across Europe, Freedberg finally traced them all back to a little-known scientific organization from seventeenth-century Italy called the Academy of Linceans (or Lynxes). Founded by Prince Federico Cesi in 1603, the Linceans took as their task nothing less than the documentation and classification of all of nature in pictorial form. In this first book-length study of the Linceans to appear in English, Freedberg focuses especially on their unprecedented use of drawings based on microscopic observation and other new techniques of visualization. Where previous thinkers had classified objects based mainly on similarities of external appearance, the Linceans instead turned increasingly to sectioning, dissection, and observation of internal structures. They applied their new research techniques to an incredible variety of subjects, from the objects in the heavens studied by their most famous (and infamous) member Galileo Galilei—whom they supported at the most critical moments of his career—to the flora and fauna of Mexico, bees, fossils, and the reproduction of plants and fungi. But by demonstrating the inadequacy of surface structures for ordering the world, the Linceans unwittingly planted the seeds for the demise of their own favorite method—visual description-as a mode of scientific classification. Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, Eye of the Lynx uncovers a crucial episode in the development of visual representation and natural history. And perhaps as important, it offers readers a dazzling array of early modern drawings, from magnificently depicted birds and flowers to frogs in amber, monstrously misshapen citrus fruits, and more. |
Inhalt
1 | |
13 | |
ASTRONOMY | 79 |
NATURAL HISTORY | 149 |
PICTURES AND ORDER | 347 |
Notes | 417 |
Abbreviations | 479 |
Bibliography | 481 |
Headings | 501 |
Index | 503 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern ... David Freedberg Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2002 |
The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern ... David Freedberg Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2002 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
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Beliebte Passagen
Seite 128 - Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
Seite 128 - Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it : and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
Seite 474 - La filosofia è scritta in questo grandissimo libro che continuamente ci sta aperto innanzi a gli occhi (io dico l'universo), ma non si può intendere se prima non s'impara a intender la lingua, e conoscer i caratteri, ne
Seite 477 - ... when it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string : next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and, as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill : in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle...
Seite 476 - There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have been cast thither by...
Seite 477 - ... lace or string : next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and, as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill : in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose...
Seite ix - Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Seite 476 - But what our eies have seene, and hands have touched we shall declare. There is a small Island in Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have...
Seite 476 - ... in shape like those of the Muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour, wherein is contained a thing in...
Seite 16 - ... bric-a-brac: a petrified crayfish, a dried-up chameleon, a fly and a spider embedded in a piece of amber, some of those little clay figures which are said to be found in the ancient tombs of Egypt.