European Clocks and Watches in The Metropolitan Museum of Art


Book Description

Among the world's greatest technological and imaginative achievements is the invention and development of the timepiece. Examining for the first time The Metropolitan Museum of Art's unparalleled collection of European clocks and watches created from the late Renaissance through the nineteenth century, this fascinating book enriches our understanding of the origins and evolution of these ingenious works. It showcases fifty-four clocks, watches, and other timekeeping devices, each represented with an in-depth description and new photography of the exterior and the inner mechanisms. Among these masterpieces is an ornate sixteenth-century celestial timepiece that accurately predicts the trajectory of the sun, moon, and stars; an eighteenth-century longcase clock by David Roentgen that shows the time in the ten most important cities of the day; and a nineteenth-century watch featuring a penetrating portrait of Czar Nicholas I of Russia. Created by the best craftsmen in Austria, England, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, these magnificent timepieces have been selected for their remarkable beauty and design, as well as their sophisticated mechanics. Built upon decades of expert research, this publication is a long-overdue survey of these stunning visual and technological marvels.




A Shared Legacy


Book Description

On the occasion of the 75th +1 anniversary of the publication of Prof. J. M. Millàs Vallicrosa’s seminal work Assaig d’història de les idees físiques i matemàtiques a la Catalunya medieval by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, the Commission on the History of Science and Technology in Islamic Societies (International Union on History and Philosophy of Science), the Grup Millàs Vallicrosa d’Història de la Ciència Àrab (Universitat de Barcelona) and the Societat Catalana d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica (Institut d’Estudis Catalans) organized a conference entitled “A Shared Legacy: Islamic Science East and West”. At this conference, the Islamic Scientific Manuscripts Initiative, a new joint project for the study of manuscripts, was presented. .Although the papers published in this volume deal with a mixture of subjects and disciplines - astronomical instruments, planetary models, geometry, medicine, miqat, technology and cartography - they all have the transmission of knowledge between the two shores of the Mediterranean as a common underlying thread...Amb motiu del 75è + 1 aniversari de la publicació del llibre Assaig d’història de les idees físiques i matemàtiques a la Catalunya medieval (IEC), la Commission on the History of Science and Technology in Islamic Societies (CHSTIS/IUPHS), el Grup Millàs Vallicrosa d’Història de la Ciència Àrab de la Universitat de Barcelona (UB) i la Societat Catalana d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica (SCHCT) -filial de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans- organitzaren el congrés A Shared Legacy. Islamic Science East and West (Un llegat compartit: ciència islàmica a orient i occident). .Am motiu d’aquesta trobada s’han recopilat els articles que conté aquest volum tracten de temes variats –instruments astronòmics, models planetaris, geometria, medicina, tecnologia, cartografia, etc.- que tenen com a nexe en comú la transmissió del coneixement entre les dues ribes de la Mediterrània.










Studies in Medieval Islamic Technology


Book Description

These studies represent the major contributions to the history of Islamic technology during the second half of the 20th century beside Donald Hill’s separate publications on the mechanical devices of Pseudo-Apollonios, the Banu Musa and al-Jazari. A gifted linguist who was trained as a historian of Islamic civilisation, and also a professional engineer, Hill achieved his goal of setting his subject on a solid basis. The papers reprinted here include his early studies of the trebuchet and the camel and horse, several overviews of different aspects of Islamic technology, articles on specific topics such as the Cairo Nilometer and al-Biruni’s geared luni-solar device, and the first notice of an extremely important Andalusian treatise on mechanical devices discovered in 1975.