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Galileo's telescope : a European story / Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, Franco Giudice ; translated by Catherine Bolton.

Title
Galileo's telescope : a European story / Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, Franco Giudice ; translated by Catherine Bolton.
Author
Bucciantini, Massimo
Publication
  • Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2015.
  • ©2015

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TextRequest in advance QB88 .B8313 2015Off-site

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Additional Authors
  • Camerota, Michele
  • Giudice, Franco
  • Bolton, Catherine
  • Camerota, Michele.
  • Giudice, Franco.
Description
x, 340 pages; 25 cm
Summary
"Between 1608 and 1610 the canopy of the night sky changed forever, ripped open by an object created almost by accident: a cylinder with lenses at both ends. Galileo{u2019}s Telescope tells the story of how an ingenious optical device evolved from a toy-like curiosity into a precision scientific instrument, all in a few years. In transcending the limits of human vision, the telescope transformed humanity{u2019}s view of itself and knowledge of the cosmos. Galileo plays a leading--but by no means solo--part in this riveting tale. He shares the stage with mathematicians, astronomers, and theologians from Paolo Sarpi to Johannes Kepler and Cardinal Bellarmine, sovereigns such as Rudolph II and James I, as well as craftsmen, courtiers, poets, and painters. Starting in the Netherlands, where a spectacle-maker created a spyglass with the modest magnifying power of three, the telescope spread like technological wildfire to Venice, Rome, Prague, Paris, London, and ultimately India and China. Galileo{u2019}s celestial discoveries--hundreds of stars previously invisible to the naked eye, lunar mountains, and moons orbiting Jupiter--were announced to the world in his revolutionary treatise Sidereus Nuncius. Combining science, politics, religion, and the arts, Galileo{u2019}s Telescope rewrites the early history of a world-shattering innovation whose visual power ultimately came to embody meanings far beyond the science of the stars."--Book jacket.
Uniform Title
Telescopio di Galileo. English
Alternative Title
Telescopio di Galileo.
Subject
  • Galilei, Galileo, 1564-1642
  • 1600 - 1699
  • Telescopes > Europe > History > 17th century
  • Astronomical instruments > Europe > History > 17th century
  • Astronomy > History > 17th century
  • Astronomical instruments
  • Astronomy
  • Telescopes
  • Europe
Genre/Form
  • History
  • History.
Note
  • Translated from the Italian.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Processing Action (note)
  • committed to retain
Contents
Prologue -- From the Low Countries -- The Venetian archipelago -- Breaking news : glass and envelopes -- In a flash -- Peregrinations -- The battle of Prague -- Across the English Channel : poets, philosophers, and astronomers -- Conquering France -- Milan : at the court of "King" Federico -- The dark skies of Florence -- The Roman mission -- In motion : Portugal, India, China -- Epilogue.
ISBN
  • 9780674736917
  • 0674736915
LCCN
^^2014033443
OCLC
890377518
Owning Institutions
Harvard Library