6 results
The Art of Making Mechanical Timepieces for Church Towers, Rooms, and Pockets
Manuel del Río was a Spanish Franciscan, said to have been a skilled watchmaker, who probably learned the trade in Oporto, Portugal, with Tomás Luis de Sáa. Del Río belonged to the Franciscan community in Santiago, where in 1759 he published Arte de los reloxes de ruedas (The art of making mechanical timepieces). The work was reissued in 1789 in Madrid by del Río’s disciple Ramón Durán. That edition is presented here. The prologue states that one of the reasons for writing the book was the lack of manuals ...
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National Library of Spain
Treatise on the Craft of Weight Measurement
This work is a treatise on the construction and use of the weighing balance (qabān, also qapān). It brings together geometric, mechanical, and arithmetic knowledge needed to construct and utilize measuring devices for weighing heavy and irregularly-shaped objects. The author’s name is unknown, but excerpts from another work by an already-deceased Shaykh ‘Abd al-Majīd al-Shāmulī al-Maḥallī are quoted in the treatise. The last page of the manuscript contains a sheet of verses that describe the basics of using a weighing balance, in a form that is easy to remember ...
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National Library and Archives of Egypt
Works of Galileo Galilei, Part 1, Volume 16, Records
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), in addition to being an important scientist and mathematician, was an accomplished instrument maker, who in 1597 invented a military compass to assist in artillery bombardments and other military activities. While occupying the chair in mathematics at the University of Padua, Galileo established a workshop where, assisted by the mechanic Marcantonio Mazzoleni, he built precision instruments, above all compasses, which he then sold to supplement his university stipend. This document contains the list of accounts for the workshop. Recorded are the debits and credits of the ...
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National Central Library of Florence
Small Treatise on the Calculation of Tables for the Construction of Inclined Sundials
The challenge of calculating the positions and movements of celestial bodies for the purpose of preparing astronomical tables helped to stimulate the development of very sophisticated mathematical tools at least as far back as the Middle Ages. The link between mathematics and astronomy was so strong that important authors in the field of astronomy were often distinguished mathematicians and vice versa. This was the case with Badr al-Dīn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ġazal (1423–1506), also known as Sibt al-Māridīnī, who, according to contemporary sources, produced ...
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Library of Congress
The Book of the Sundials
This 19th-century manuscript is a treatise on gnomonics, the mathematical discipline concerning the calculation of the projection of shadows for timekeeping purposes. The relatively recent date of the work attests to the great and lasting importance attributed in the Islamic world to the reckoning of time through the observation of shadow lengths. The use of gnomonics and the construction of sundials were perceived as the most religiously correct way to calculate the right times of prayers, since religious texts already define the midday (zuhr) and afternoon (‘asr) prayers in terms ...
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Library of Congress
Clock Made by Voloskov, in the Tver Museum
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.
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Library of Congress