About

These books are from a period in which knowledge of the heavens was greatly increasing as well as discoveries of new lands.  

During this age of new discoveries, a common thread was the way a second century classical writer, Ptolemy, created the framework in which initial discoveries were understood or explained. In one case these discoveries were in cartography and in the other, history of astronomy.

The exhibit raises a question in history and philosophy of science: is the existence of an historically prior intellectual framework a condition for advances in knowledge?

The image on the left helps depicts the two spheres, as it were, that underwent great development during the 16th and 17th centuries: one in mapping, the other in astrronomy.