The Starry Messenger and the Polar Star: Scientific Relations between Italy and Sweden from 1500 to 1800

Despite an astonishing number of documents, books and travel diaries which bear witness to the close relationship between Italian and Swedish scientists from the Renaissance onward, very few historical studies have been devoted to this subject. The Starry Messenger exhibition illustrates the various and cultivated scientific relations between these two countries. On a broader level, this exhibition aims to demonstrate the cosmopolitan nature of modern scientific thought, which is not subject to linguistic, religious and geographical prejudices. The dissemination of Galileo’s work in Sweden as well as the Italian reception of the Linnean system of botanical classification a century later provide significant examples of how scientific thought circulated even in countries which were separated by great geographical and cultural distances.

 

Exhibition Dates

06.12.1995 – 28.02.1996 Stockholm, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet