Event information
Please note this event is online via Zoom
Peter Apian’s Astronomicum Caesareum was published in 1540. The product of 8 years of work, it is a complex book with many interactive wheel diagrams, also known as volvelles or Apian wheels, that allowed the user to calculate the positions of the planets as they moved around the central earth. The book, published only three years before Nicolaus Copernicus’ treatise that positioned the sun at the centre of the universe, draws on a millenia of scientific knowledge and represents the pinnacle of sixteenth century print making. This online talk will position Peter Apian and his book production within its early modern scientific milieu, the long intellectual history from which it emerged, as well as more recent innovations in printing and the production of paper tools.
About the speaker: Dr Sara Öberg Strådal is an expert on pre-modern scientific diagrams, working primarily on medieval medical manuscripts and early printed books. As a Getty/American Council of Learned Societies post-doctoral research fellow she is writing a monograph on the history of volvelles, their presence in manuscript sources, transition into printed material, and frequent inclusion in the iconography on monumental astronomical clocks. She is an affiliated researcher with the Manuscripts and Printed Books Department at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the curator of the exhibition ‘A Universe in Motion’.
