Europe in the sixteenth century experienced a period of unprecedented vitality and innovation in the spheres of science and commerce. The Americas had been discovered and the colonizing nations had an urgent need for mathematical instruments for navigation and surveying. In 1540 the Elizabethan age saw the establishment of the precision instrument-making trade in London, a trade that would become world-famous in the succeeding two centuries. The mathematical instruments needed by astronomers, navigators, and surveyors owe much of their development to the work of the Flemish mathematician and astronomer, Gemma Frisius, and to the map and globe maker, Gerard Mercator, both of whom studied at Louvain. However it was Thomas Gemini who is credited with starting the London trade in 1540: his reputation came from making the plates for his own printing of the Anatomy of Vesalius, and the astrolabs he made and presented to Edward VI and Elizabeth I, which survive today. He was followed by Humphrey Cole, and other makers whose instruments have survived, including Ryther, Knyvyn, and Whitwell. This book first describes the context in which the Elizabethan trade began, and the influence of the instruments taken to Florence by Sir Robert Dudley in 1606. The second part catalogues in detail every surviving instrument from this period, signed and unsigned, that has been traced. The catalogue is accompanied by fine photographs which illustrate both the instruments and the techniques used to identify unsigned instruments.

Elizabethan Instrument Makers: The Origins of the London Trade in Precision Instrument Making

Business & Money

Turner, Gerard L'E.

Economics

Oxford University Press

The impulse to collect is an almost universal one, satisfying the hunting and acquisitive instincts, the love of beauty, and intellectual curiosity. The wealthy have collected rare and beautiful things from the earliest days of civilization, but the collection, or "cabinet," containing natural curiosities dates from the sixteenth century, and it was this type of collection in which scientific instruments found a home. In the twentieth century, we have come to accept a vast range of technical, often complex, equipment for everyday use. Science has become the very substance of our life style. But the appeal of historic scientific instruments remains, and from them much can be learned of the practice and development of science over four centuries. This book traces the historical origins and development of instruments as they spread across the globe, explaining their manufacture, use, and adaptations. This must-have book for the active collector gives practical advice on dealing with instruments and checking their authenticity. It features a comprehensive international list of major museums and instrument collections. Over 100 superb illustrations show the instruments to their full advantage.

Scientific Instruments, 1500–1900: An Introduction

Science & Math

Experiments, Instruments & Measurement

University of California Press

Nineteenth-century Scientific Instruments

Sotheby / California

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Books by Turner, Gerard L'E.