A survey of Renaissance lore regarding magnifying mirrors and
lenses.Reeves (Comparative Literature/Princeton Univ.) is more
interested in what Galileo and his contemporaries believed about
telescopic vision than in the actual process of discovery that led
to his adoption of the telescope for astronomical observations. As
the author shows, the idea of telescopic vision can be traced to
ancient civilizations. The Pharos lighthouse in Alexandria was said
to have a mirror in which the keepers could see the enemies of the
city approaching from long distances. The Pharos mirror was also
supposedly capable of setting ships ablaze by concentrating the
sun's rays. It was variously described as magical and simply
physical, and many of its properties, notes Reeves, can be found in
descriptions of other semi-mythical mirrors, built by (or for) many
powerful historical figures including Julius Caesar, Virgil, Roger
Bacon and John Dee. The author quotes a number of Galileo's
contemporaries or immediate predecessors who claim they had made -
or were working on - mirrors with similar properties, sometimes in
combination with lenses. This flood of information - some of it
merely mistaken, some outright fraudulent - is largely responsible
for Galileo's delay in following up accounts of the real telescope
developed by Dutch lensmakers. Reeves also argues that obscure
language in several texts led Galileo and his contemporaries to
believe that the Dutch telescope used mirrors, not lenses, to
achieve its effect. In fact, a confusion of reports, some by
Galileo's rivals, has obscured the exact history of Galileo's own
adoption of the telescope. A satire by Ben Jonson, for example,
improbably portrays the Italian astronomer as an ally of the
Jesuits, using his telescope to burn attacking ships.A bit dry, but
scattered with intriguing nuggets. (Kirkus Reviews)
The Dutch telescope and the Italian scientist Galileo have long
enjoyed a durable connection in the popular mind--so much so that
it seems this simple glass instrument transformed a rather modest
middle-aged scholar into the bold icon of the Copernican
Revolution. And yet the extraordinary speed with which the
telescope changed the course of Galileo's life and early modern
astronomy obscures the astronomer's own curiously delayed encounter
with the instrument. This book considers the lapse between the
telescope's creation in The Hague in 1608 and Galileo's alleged
acquaintance with such news ten months later. In an inquiry into
scientific and cultural history, Eileen Reeves explores two
fundamental questions of intellectual accountability: what did
Galileo know of the invention of the telescope, and when did he
know it?
The record suggests that Galileo, like several of his peers,
initially misunderstood the basic design of the telescope. In
seeking to explain the gap between the telescope's emergence and
the alleged date of the astronomer's acquaintance with it, Reeves
explores how and why information about the telescope was
transmitted, suppressed, or misconstrued in the process. Her
revised version of events, rejecting the usual explanations of
silence and idleness, is a revealing account of the role that
misprision, error, and preconception play in the advancement of
science.
Along the way, Reeves offers a revised chronology of Galileo's
life in a critical period and, more generally, shows how documents
typically outside the scope of early modern natural
philosophy--medieval romances, travel literature, and idle
speculations--relate to two crucial events in the history
ofscience.
General
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