The seventeenth century in Western Europe remains the key time and place for the development of modern science; the basic theme of this book is what the nature of seventeenth-century archives can tell us about this development, through a series of case studies (Boyle, Galileo, Huygens, Newton included). Manuscript collections created by the individuals and institutions who were responsible for the scientific revolution offer valuable evidence of the intellectual aspirations and working practices of the principal protagonists. This volume is the first to explore such archives, focusing on the ways in which ideas were formulated, stored and disseminated, and opening up understanding of the process of intellectual change. It analyses the characteristics andhistory of the archives of such leading intellectuals as Robert Boyle, Galileo Galilei, G.W. Leibniz, Isaac Newton and William Petty; also considered are the new scientific institutions founded at the time, the Royal Society andthe Academie des Sciences. In each case, significant broader findings emerge concerning the nature and role of such holdings; an introductory essay discusses the interpretation and exploitation of archives. MICHAEL HUNTERis Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. Contributors: MICHAEL HUNTER, MASSIMO BUCCIANTINI, MARK GREENGRASS, ROBERT A. HATCH, FRANCES HARRIS, JOELLA YODER, DOMENICO BERTOLONI MELI, ROB ILIFFE, JAMES G.O'HARA, MORDECHAI FEINGOLD, CHRISTIANE DEMEULENAERE-DOUYRE, DAVID STURDY

Between 1608 and 1610 the canopy of the night sky changed forever, ripped open by an object created almost by accident: a cylinder with lenses at both ends. Galileo's Telescope tells the story of how an ingenious optical device evolved from a toy-like curiosity into a precision scientific instrument, all in a few years. In transcending the limits of human vision, the telescope transformed humanity's view of itself and knowledge of the cosmos. Galileo plays a leading-but by no means solo-part in this riveting tale. He shares the stage with mathematicians, astronomers, and theologians from Paolo Sarpi to Johannes Kepler and Cardinal Bellarmine, sovereigns such as Rudolph II and James I, as well as craftsmen, courtiers, poets, and painters. Starting in the Netherlands, where a spectacle-maker created a spyglass with the modest magnifying power of three, the telescope spread like technological wildfire to Venice, Rome, Prague, Paris, London, and ultimately India and China. Galileo's celestial discoveries-hundreds of stars previously invisible to the naked eye, lunar mountains, and moons orbiting Jupiter-were announced to the world in his revolutionary treatise Sidereus Nuncius. Combining science, politics, religion, and the arts, Galileo's Telescope rewrites the early history of a world-shattering innovation whose visual power ultimately came to embody meanings far beyond the science of the stars.