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:


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Latest revision: 2013 May.18– 18:30 UT – All text © Storm Dunlop, 2013; photographs  © unknown persons