Storm Dunlop
Thanks for the help
The response from members of the History
of Astronomy (HASTRO-L) discussion list to my request for any information about
these images was extremely prompt, and I am grateful (in particular) to Prof. Tom
Settle for his identification of the first three, and to Giancarlo Truffa for
identifying the source of the fourth (the constellation chart). Because of the
interest shown, I am leaving these images here for the time being, with the
details that were provided, plus a few more that I have subsequently been able
to establish.
Image 1: This is one of the hexagonal
panels that originally adorned Giotto’s campanile in Florence, and which have
now been removed and replaced by replicas. The originals are now in the Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo. This particular panel, if the details in the Wikipedia entry
are correct, depicts Gionitus (Astronomy).
Image 2: Thomas Settle was able to
identify the façade as that of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. The instrument
shown is an equinoctial armilliary.
Image 3: This is again the façade of
Sant Maria Novella and this projecting base once held a vertical plate engraved
with a quadrant and astronomical symbols. Both instruments were designed and installed by Egnazio Danti,
during the reign of the first Duke, and then the Grand Duke, of Tuscany, Cosimo
I, in the early 1580s.
Image 4: This is a scan of the
transparency. The diagram is of the southern sky, and is taken from a manuscript
now in the Tübingen University Library.Details are at: http://www.handschriftencensus.de/14973,
and the pages themselves are visible at: http://idb.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/diglit/Md2
book. This particular image is of 323 recto. Although clear in my scan, the
image appears soft when viewed in this web page. The text is German, and is
shown magnified here:
Latest
revision: 2013 May.18– 18:30 UT – All text © Storm Dunlop, 2013;
photographs © unknown persons