SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS COLLECTION
From the very first years of the new Libraria’s life, the Dominicans worked to enrich the original library holdings with major purchases of both printed and manuscript works. But not only that: they wished, consistent with the encyclopedic vision of culture proper to the period, to endow the Library with those apparatuses that would contribute to an increase in its prestige and decorum.
Globes and Armillary Sphere
Before March 1703, in fact, it was the Master General of the Order, the Frenchman Antonin Cloche (Saint-Sever 1628 – Rome 1720), who decided to purchase from Girolamo Caccia, the Armillary Sphere, still located in the Monumental Hall. Cloche himself also ordered the necessary changes so that it would be “more copious and of greater intelligence to make known li due sistemi di Ticone e di Copernico,” and in 1715 he approved the expense of making two Globes, terrestrial and celestial, works drawn and painted on paper by cartographer Silvestro Amanzio Moroncelli (abbot of the Silvestrina congregation of S. Stefano del Cacco, born in Fabriano in 1652). Globes and spheres, which testify to the interest with which advances in the field of cartography and cosmology were followed, well complemented the valuable astronomical and geographical funds that were being established in the Casanatense.
Magnet
Natural magnet encased in a brass casing. On two opposite side faces the indication of the poles and the inscriptions: Polus Arcticus, Polus Antarcticus. On the other two opposite faces the inscriptions: Magnetis pondus est unciarum 24 and Magnes hic trahit usque ad uncias 108.
Astrolabe
The instrument consists of two copper plates, rectangular in shape (cm 25,5×36; spessore mm 8).
Some parts are made of brass. It can be kept upright thanks to an armilla suspensoria, a support ring that is, which allows it to be kept raised off the ground so that its meridian line falls perpendicular to the horizon.
The front is decorated with elegant figurative engravings. In the center is a circular area 16 cm in diameter. The border is divided into 24 sectors corresponding to the 24 hours. Engraved on the outer circular band are allegorical depictions, names and symbols of the Sun, placed at the top aligned with the supporting ring, the Moon and the 5 known planets, among others.
Astrolabe
The instrument consists of two copper plates, rectangular in shape (cm 25,5×36; spessore mm 8).
Some parts are made of brass. It can be kept upright thanks to an armilla suspensoria, a support ring that is, which allows it to be kept raised off the ground so that its meridian line falls perpendicular to the horizon.
The front is decorated with elegant figurative engravings. In the center is a circular area 16 cm in diameter. The border is divided into 24 sectors corresponding to the 24 hours. Engraved on the outer circular band are allegorical depictions, names and symbols of the Sun, placed at the top aligned with the supporting ring, the Moon and the 5 known planets, among others.
Read more:
M. Calisi, Description of an original instrument preserved in the Casanatense Library, in “Gli arcani delle stelle: astrologi e astrologia nella Biblioteca Casanatense”, Gaeta, Gaetagrafiche, 1991, p. 161-165.
R. Fioravanti, Scientific instruments, in “La Biblioteca Casanatense”, Florence, Nardini Publisher, 1993, p. 264-267
Read also:
Giovanni Battista Audiffredi and the observation of the multiple system of Spica by Costantino Sigismondi