Science and Instruments in Seventeenth-century Italy

Ten articles published over the course of 30 years focus on the role of the mathematical practitioners who made the early optical instruments of 17th-century Italy and the men who used them for scientific discovery. They discuss the instruments of Galileo, Giuseppe Campini, and Bernardo Facini, and the Vatican's astronomical paintings, science collections, and compound microscopes. Also included is a translation of a brief manuscript from the period describing how to make a wooden tube for a telescope; it is anonymous but may be by Campini. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR