The Eye of the Lynx - Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (Paperback, New edition)

Some years ago, David Freedberg opened a dusty cupboard at Windsor Castle and discovered hundreds of vividly coloured, masterfully precise drawings of all sorts of plants and animals from the Old and New Worlds. Coming upon thousands more drawings like them across Europe, Freedberg finally traced them all back to a little-known scientific organization from 17th-century Italy called the Academy of Linceans (or Lynxes). Founded by Prince Federico Cesi in 1603, the Linceans took as their task nothing less than the documentation and classification of all of nature in pictorial form. In this first book-length study of the Linceans to appear in English, Freedberg focuses especially on their unprecedented use of drawings based on microscopic observation and other new techniques of visualization. Where previous thinkers had classified objects based mainly on similarities of external appearance, the Linceans instead turned increasingly to sectioning, dissection and observation of internal structures. They applied their new research techniques to an incredible variety of subjects, from the objects in the heavens studied by their most famous (and infamous) member, Galileo Galilei - whom they supported at the most critical moments of his career - to the flora and fauna of Mexico, bees, fossils and the reproduction of plants and fungi. But by demonstrating the inadequacy of surface structures for ordering the world, the Linceans unwittingly planted the seeds for the demise of their own favourite method - visual description - as a mode of scientific classification. Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, "The Eye of the Lynx" uncovers a crucial episode n the development of visual representation and natural history. And perhaps as important, it offers readers a dazzling array of early modern drawings, from magnificently depicted birds and flowers to frogs in amber, monstrously misshapen citrus fruits and more.

General

Imprint:	University of Chicago Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	September 2003
First published:	September 2003
Authors:	David Freedberg
Dimensions:	254 x 178 x 35mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	513
Edition:	New edition
ISBN-13:	978-0-226-26148-5
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > History of science Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1600 to 1800 > General Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1500 to 1750 Books > Humanities > History > European history > General Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Iconography, subjects depicted in art > Nature in art, still life, landscapes & seascapes > General Books > History > European history > General Books > History > World history > 1500 to 1750 Promotions
LSN:	0-226-26148-4
Barcode:	9780226261485

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