Introduction
My period as Artist in Residence at the Museo Galileo in 2016 provided an outstanding opportunity to work with the scientific collections of the Medici family, originally housed in the Uffizi. The Museo Galileo offers a superb insight into our scientific heritage. It includes objects and documents brought to Europe by the great Italian trading empires: Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Florence.
I worked in the galleries when the museum was closed to the public and so had a magical, solitary experience of centuries of scientific history, that led the way to our modern world. Galileo’s own telescope is there! As well, I was given access to the museum’s database of images, to layer and merge with my own photographs. I was welcomed by museum staff, who were most generous with their time and knowledge. The images in this virtual exhibition are inspired by the timeline of scientific history. My thanks are extended to the Museo Galileo, as my host, and also to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana and the INAF–Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri for access to their wondrous collections.
The Path from the House of Wisdom, is a visual celebration of the transmission of scientific knowledge, from the medieval Arabic world to the West. The period, often described as the Golden Age of Arabic science, began in the 8th century AD and continued until the 15th century. My project explores the legacy passed to the West from this great flowering of sciences in the Arab world.
Beginning as the private library of his father, Caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd in 8th-century Baghdad, the public institution of learning, known as the House of Wisdom, was the brainchild of Abbasid dynasty Caliph al-Ma’mūn. Scholars, scientists, writers and translators from Muslim, Jewish and Christian backgrounds, worked together, in an open and innovative atmosphere, to create the greatest centre of learning and knowledge of its time.
Trade routes, developed by the great Italian city-states, that linked the Byzantine and Ottoman empires with Europe, extended throughout the Mediterranean. Knowledge and texts, preserved and translated from ancient Greek, as well as new discoveries in science, were transmitted to the western world, along with spices and silks.
The paths of transmission of this knowledge were varied. They included the routes of pilgrims and Templars returning from the Holy Land. Sicily continued to respect Arabic language and culture for some two hundred years after the conquest by Roger I in 1071. Al Andalus and the Maghreb provided further access.
Florence, in particular, as the cultural and scientific epicentre of its time, was highly influential in absorbing and utilising new information. The Medici family, a great supporter of arts and sciences, seized the creative opportunities presented by an influx of talented refugees, following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This influx supported the explosion of culture and science that we call the Renaissance. With Florence attracting the greatest scientist of his day, Galileo Galilei, in the 17th century, the timeline continues to some of the most important discoveries of the modern world.
The artists
Christine Gates is a photographic and video artist, living in Melbourne, Australia. Her work has been exhibited in Australia, Europe, USA and Mexico and she is represented in many international collections. Christine’s project, as Artist in Residence at the Museo Galileo, examines connections between cultures that originate through science. Working at the intersection of art and science, she draws on historic references to present contemporary events in a fresh light. Her work honours the wisdom and knowledge of past centuries, providing a new experience of our modern world.
Mehrnaz Rohbakhsh is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto, who focuses on visual art and sound. Her practice consists of studying the comparisons between music and astronomy, using methods of cartography to connect their mathematical underpinnings. She has exhibited her work in Canada, the US and Italy, and is currently pursuing a Master of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto.
The images
Istanbul, the meeting place
Istanbul was the meeting place of Europe and Asia, across the waters of the Bosphorus. Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires sailed their fleets here, while European city-states vied for a foothold on its shores. A satellite image of modern Istanbul contrasts with the oldest known map by Portuguese cartographer, Lopo Homem, showing the limits of the known world in the 16th century. An X-ray image of a huge armillary sphere by Medici family cosmographer and cartographer, Antonio Santucci, overlays Istanbul’s western side. A tympanum from a 14th-century Arabic plane astrolabe overlays the east.
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Antonio Santucci, Armillary sphere, Museo Galileo, inv. 714
Unknown, Plane astrolabe, Museo Galileo, inv. 1109
Lopo Homem, Planisphere, Museo Galileo, inv. 946
Satellite image of Istanbul, NASA
Distance by means of surface
The inscription on this 16th-century triangulation instrument reveals that it was used to “find the distance by means of the surface”. Caliph Al-Ma’mun, in 9th-century Baghdad, followed the example of 3rd-century-B.C. Alexandrian geographer, Eratosthenes, in an attempt to calculate the Earth’s circumference. His scientists had only astrolabes and measuring rods as instruments. Trade routes through the Middle East, often included the mountainous regions of ancient Anatolia, photographed here.
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Baldassarre Lanci, Triangulation instrument, Museo Galileo, inv. 3164
Moons over a desert highway
Paper fragments of a plane astrolabe, probably used by students, function here as moons, transiting the sky and offering guidance to traders, carrying goods and new knowledge to Europe via the ancient Silk Road. One of these routes runs through the deserts of Wadi Rum in Jordan. Overlaying the landscape, is an image of Titan, taken by the Cassini-Huygens mission. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, was first discovered in 1655, by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, a contemporary of Galileo.
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Unknown, Fragments of paper astrolabes, Museo Galileo, inv. 1289bis
Titan, Cassini-Huygens Mission, NASA
Venice, the trading empire
Details of the Doge’s Palace, with its crenellations resembling Cairo’s Ibn Tulun Mosque and the Fondaco dei Turchi, are Veneto-Byzantine architectural reminders of connections between Venice and the East. Elaborate ornamentation, mosaics, pointed arches and cupolas, highlight an interaction that began with Venetians trading in 8th-century Alexandria and continued through the Ottoman Empire. 13th-century Venetian, Marco Polo, was one of many travellers, who brought back stories of exotic Eastern lands. Here, a veil obscures modern-day tourists, who replace the merchants and explorers of the great trading empire.
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Unknown, Fragments of paper astrolabes, Museo Galileo, inv. 1289bis
The Mariner’s astrolabe
Scientific developments improved navigation, enabling a huge expansion of trade throughout the Mediterranean. Part of Elizabethan Admiral, Sir Robert Dudley’s bequest to the Medici collection, this Mariner’s astrolabe is of Portuguese origin. Norman, Arabic and Gothic influences unite in the architecture of Palermo Cathedral, demonstrating the melding of cultures that arose from Sicily’s strategic position on trading routes. Mohammed al-Idrisi created the Tabula Rogeriana in 12th-century Sicily. This collection of stories and a world map was an invaluable contribution to the development of geography and cartography in the West.
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Francisco de Goes, Mariner’s astrolabe, Museo Galileo, inv. 1119
Giovanni Battista Cavallini, Teatro del mondo marittimo, conforme la carta da navigare, Florence 1652
Celestial creations
In medieval Islam, astronomy and religion were inextricably linked. It was essential to find the direction of Mecca and to know prayer times throughout each day. Huge observatories were built and instruments, including the astrolabe, were developed to study the skies. Arabic astronomers translated, absorbed and advanced ancient Greek knowledge. Here, an atlas by 17th-century Venetian cartographer and cosmographer, Vincenzo Coronelli, provides a background tapestry. A 17th-century Aristotelian planetarium combines with an 11th-century Arabic celestial globe, believed to be the oldest in the world and inscribed with the name of the makers, ‘Ibrâhim ‘Ibn Saîd and his son Muhammad.
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Unknown, Aristotelian planetarium, Museo Galileo, inv. 2700
Ibrâhim ‘Ibn Saîd as Sahlì, Celestial globe, Museo Galileo, inv. 2712
Vincenzo Coronelli and Jean-Baptiste Nolin, Celestial globe gores, Museo Galileo, Room IV
Galileo and the Church
The Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence plays an important role in interactions between art and science. The geometric harmony of the facade, designed in the 15th century by Leon Battista Alberti, typifies Renaissance ideals. An astronomical quadrant and one equinoctial circle, to study the apparent motion of the Sun, were added in the 16th century by Egnazio Danti. The denunciation of the Copernican system as heresy—which ultimately led to Galileo’s condemnation—took place in the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella. The eyepiece of a telescope at the Arcetri Observatory, as well as the night sky, seen from Padua, during Galileo’s discoveries there, combine with the wall of his bedroom in Arcetri, where he lived “under house arrest” until his death.
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Photographs by Christine Gates courtesy of INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
Birthplace of Alhazen
Satellite imagery shows an area, north of Al-Basra in Iraq in 2001, when it was littered with mine fields and gun emplacements. Birthplace of polymath, Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in the 10th century, it was a centre of learning during the Abbasid dynasty. Author of the Kitāb al-Manāzir, the Book of Optics, Alhazen was the first to explain principles of visual perception. He contributed to the fields of geometry and astronomy, where he questioned Ptolemaic models. This 13th-century astrolabe has latitudes corresponding to the regions between the Persian Gulf and Turkey. The mariner’s quadrant was made in Venice in the 17th century.
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Unknown, Plane astrolabe, Museo Galileo, inv. 1112
Bernardo Facini, Mariner’s quadrant, Museo Galileo, inv. 3812
The astrolabe, concealed and revealed
The astrolabe is a complex analogical calculator. Made of wood, cardboard and copper, this astrolabe was probably made in Florence in the 17th century by Galileo’s disciple Vincenzo Viviani for teaching purposes. Here, it is obscured and revealed by waves of silk. In use since ancient times, astrolabes, as well as sundials and horary quadrants, were the most accurate time-keepers up until the 18th century. Based on the apparent motions of Sun and stars, astrolabes had many uses in the Arabic world, including time-keeping. Preserving and translating the information in Ancient Greek texts, scientists in Baghdad and Damascus further developed these scientific processes.
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Vincenzo Viviani (attr.), Plane astrolabe, Museo Galileo, inv. 1289
Picturing the world
A lens, from one of Galileo’s telescopes, links scientific developments in the 17th century with the achievements in perspective of Renaissance artist, Lorenzo Ghiberti, creator of the famous doors for the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. Trade with the Arabic world over hundreds of years, brought information on Arabic geometry and mathematics to Europe. This provided the catalyst for the artistic expression of the three dimensional world on a two dimensional plane.
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Galileo Galilei, Lens, Museo Galileo, inv. 2429
Unknown, Battistero di San Giovanni, etching, 18th century
Jean-Antoine Nollet, Leçons de physique expérimentale, Paris 1743
The muquarnas
The geometric perfection of the muquarnas, set high in the wall or dome of an Arabic building, deflects and diverts light on the surface into many parts. By the 12th century, various forms of the muquarnas could be found throughout the Arab world. Built for Norman King William I, the Zisa Palace in Palermo demonstrates the Arabic influences that continued in Sicily, following conquest by the Normans. This muquarnas decorates its walls. Together with the ornate brickwork of Palermo Cathedral they exemplify the great respect felt by the conquerors for the culture of their predecessors. A map, by famous 16th-century Portuguese cartographer Lopo Homem, merges with these architectural themes.
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Lopo Homem, Planisphere, Museo Galileo, inv. 946
The string of pearls
The astronomical names we use today, for stars in the Orion constellation, originated in Arabic. Alnilam, “the string of pearls”, Alnitak, “the girdle”, and Mintaka form Orion’s belt. Many Arabic terms such as zenith, azimuth and nadir, have entered into the astronomical lexicon of the western world. Al-Zarquali’s Tables, written in Toledo in the 11th century, spread Arabic astronomy throughout Europe. Here, Coronelli’s celestial globe gores form a backdrop to Arabic script and the Orion nebula.
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Vincenzo Coronelli and Jean-Baptiste Nolin, Celestial globe gores, Museo Galileo, Room IV
The Orion nebula, NASA
Tabula solis motus
Etchings in the rocks, at Wadi Rum in Jordan, informed ancient caravans, carrying exotic wares and new knowledge to Europe, that water could be found nearby. These caravans were following one of many branches of the Silk Road towards the Mediterranean and from there, via North Africa or Sicily, to Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe. A Florentine horary quadrant, set for the latitude of Tuscany, underlays a 16th-century sundial. The quadrant’s inscription reads, “Table of the motion of the Sun”, describing the Sun’s entry into different zodiac signs.
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Girolamo della Volpaia, Horary quadrant, Museo Galileo, inv. 239
Carlo Plato (attr.), Sundial, Museo Galileo, inv. 246
Time and the universe
The mechanism of an 18th-century turret clock creates a jigsaw of metallic gears, combined with the armillary sphere of Antonio Santucci and an horary quadrant. The measuring of time engaged scientists over many centuries. Drawing on ancient Greek knowledge of water clocks, Arabic scientists focused on clocks and time-keeping to develop ingenious devices for the measurement of time. In the West, astronomical instruments originally provided accurate and mobile devices for calculations. The astrolabe, foremost amongst these, declined in importance around the 16th century, with further developments to the mechanical clock.
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Antonio Santucci, Armillary sphere, Museo Galileo, inv. 714
Unknow, Quadrant, Museo Galileo, inv. 2523
Unknown, Turret clock, Museo Galileo
Studying the stars
Galileo published Sidereus Nuncius in 1610, following observations of the stars we know as the Galilean moons of Jupiter. Galileo’s research threatened the Aristotelian theory followed by Catholic Church doctrine, that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. As director of the Arcetri Observatory in the 19th century, Wilhelm Tempel used a telescope and his incredibly accurate drawing skills to record the night sky. Here, his drawings combine with an eclipse, drawn in the 10th century by Al-Biruni, one of the greatest scholars of the golden age of Arabic science, overlaying a 17th-century bust of Galileo by Carlo Marcellini.
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Carlo Marcellini, Bust of Galileo Galilei, Museo Galileo, inv. 3902
Wilhelm Tempel, Drawings, INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
Fibonacci
The greatest mathematician of 12th-century Europe, Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, sailed with his merchant father to North Africa, where he studied mathematics with Arabic tutors. He is credited with popularising Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe, where only a few previously knew of the system through the writings of 9th-century Arab mathematician al-Khwārizmī. Fibonacci’s book, the Liber Abaci, seen here, blends with a Ptolemaic planisphere, overlaying the Old Fortress of the port of Livorno. A 9th-century Arabic astrolabe connects the path of knowledge with the city of Florence, epicentre of developments in the arts and sciences during the reign of the Medici.
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Unknown, Plane astrolabe, Museo Galileo, inv. 1113
Leonardo Pisano, Liber Abaci, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Conv. Soppr. C.I.2616
Piero del Massaio, Ptolemaic planisphere, Ptolemei Cosmographie, Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Pl. 30.2
The fort and the fleet
Today, coast guard ships protect the entry to Livorno’s port, once home to the Medici fleet. Ferdinando I de’ Medici encouraged both international trade and freedom of religion in Livorno, so attracting displaced communities from the Middle East and Europe. Jews mingled with Greeks, Armenians and Turks, developing trade links with the Ottoman empire. In the port, Galileo conducted experiments on the use of the telescope aboard ship. Here, the Old Fortress of Livorno underlays the rare, 15th-century nautical map, Portolano 16, from the workshop of Jewish cartographer, Gabriel de Vallseca, of the Cartography School of Mallorca. Portolan charts are known for incredible accuracy, even by modern standards. The nautical circle was made by Robert Dudley, naval consultant to Grand Duke Ferdinando I of Tuscany, in the 16th century.
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Robert Dudley, Nautical circle, Museo Galileo, inv. 1116
Workshop of Gabriel de Vallseca, Nautical map, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Portolano 16
Galileo Galilei, Diagrams, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Ms. Gal. 70
The Templars and the King’s Highway
Today, coast guard ships protect the entry to Livorno’s port, once home to the Medici fleet. Ferdinando I de’ Medici encouraged both international trade and freedom of religion in Livorno, so attracting displaced communities from the Middle East and Europe. Jews mingled with Greeks, Armenians and Turks, developing trade links with the Ottoman empire. In the port, Galileo conducted experiments on the use of the telescope aboard ship. Here, the Old Fortress of Livorno underlays the rare, 15th-century nautical map, Portolano 16, from the workshop of Jewish cartographer, Gabriel de Vallseca, of the Cartography School of Mallorca. Portolan charts are known for incredible accuracy, even by modern standards. The nautical circle was made by Robert Dudley, naval consultant to Grand Duke Ferdinando I of Tuscany, in the 16th century.
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Unknown, Plane astrolabe, Museo Galileo, inv. 1113
Galileo Galilei, Diagrams, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Ms. Gal. 70
