Tycho brahe in china

In the late 1660s, Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish Jesuit missionary in Peking, was instructed to re-equip the Imperial Observatory. The new instruments which he caused to be built were modelled neither upon contemporary European prototypes, nor those of traditional Chinese astronomy, but on the pieces in Tycho Brahe's Mechanica, of eighty years before. The Chinese instruments were lavishly illustrated, moreover, in 105 woodcuts that contained detailed representations of their processes of construction. It is argued that these illustrations not only give us valuable insights into what the technical Jesuits did in Peking, but show how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European craftsmen constructed their instruments, for while the location was Oriental, the technology was Western. They can also give important insights into how Tycho's prototypes had been built, and provide us with useful information regarding European instrument-making technology

Flemish · History of astronomy · Woodcut · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · History and Developments in Astronomy · History of Science and Medicine

• Instruments of authority

  Emma Perkins, Emma Gillespie Perkins•History and Technology•2018

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• John Donne's Verdict on Tycho Brahe

  Open Access•Adam Mosley•Studies in History and Philosophy…•2001

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