European Celestial Cartography from the Late Middle Ages to 1800

Name: European Celestial Cartography from the Late Middle Ages to 1800
Start: 2018-10-06T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2018-10-06T01:00:00-05:00
Location: European Celestial Cartography from the Late Middle Ages to 1800

Oct 06, 2018

Cost and Registration Information

Early Registration Price (August 7 at 10 am – August 31 at 4 pm): $210
Regular Registration Price (August 31 at 4 pm – first day of class): $231

Members, seniors, and students get a 10% discount.

Mark your Calendar!

The Newberry Bookstore will re-open on August 14, and you will once again be able to find most of your assigned books for sale there.

Seminar Description

Early European celestial cartography includes constellation and cosmological maps, each of which have their own beauty, form, structure, and cultural content. This seminar will explore these artifacts in context, beginning with Medieval manuscript star charts and maps on vellum and paper, which reflect Greek constellation and cosmological traditions, and continuing through the Golden Age of printed celestial cartography, when great atlases of stars and the planets were published. The contributions of astronomical discoveries and cartographic advances will also be discussed.

Five sessions. E - $210, L - $231

Lee Minnerly, MA in anthropology, teaches classes at the Newberry on both Old and New World archaeology, cultural astronomy, early science fiction, and the extraterrestrial life debate. He also volunteers at the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at the Adler Planetarium.

Materials List

Required:

Michael Hoskin, The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 978-0192803061
Emilie Savage-Smith, “Celestial Mapping,” in The History of Cartography, Vol. 2, Book 1: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (Harley and Woodward,eds. 1992). Available online at: https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V2_B1/Volume2_Book1.html%3e
Anna Friedman Herlihy, “Renaissance Star Charts,” and R. H. Van Gent and A. Van Helden “Lunar, Solar, and Planetary Representations to 1650,” in The History of Cartography, Vol. 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance (Woodward, ed. 2007). Available online at: https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V3_Pt1/Volume3_Part1.html%3e

First Reading:

For the first class, please read chapters 1 and 2 in The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program. Learn more about our registration procedures.