This five-year digital project, funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), is sponsored by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of Cambridge University. The project is led by Nicholas Jardine, Liba Taub, Sachiko Kusukawa, Isabelle Pantin, and Katie Taylor.

Liba Taub is an alumna of the OU History of Science program (PhD, 1987) and the Curator of Cambridge University’s Whipple Museum of the History of Science.

The project website, to be located at the Whipple Museum website, will feature a collection of case studies. Each case study will include an image, transcription, English translation and commentary. This website will make available the rare primary sources along with the results of research workshops. A preliminary website entitled Starry Messenger is already available.

For more information, including a full project description and preliminary bibliography, see the project website.

The OU History of Science Collections image galleries offer many diagrams and figures related to astronomy, 1450-1650, including the following:

15th century

• Alphonso X, Tabule astronomice (1518)
• Aristarchos, De magnitudinibus (1572)
• Roger Bacon, Perspectiva (1614), orbs
• Bonatti, (1491), constellation figures
• Al Fraganus, Astronomorum (1546)
• Hyginus, Poeticon astronomicon (1482), constellation figures
• Hyginus, Poeticon astronomicon (1485), constellation figures
• Hyginus, De mundi (1517), constellation figures
• Abu Mashar, Introductorium in astronomia (1489)
• Peurbach, Nouas Theoricas Planetarum (Basil, 1556)
• Ptolemy, Almagest:
  1. 1496
  2. 1541
  3. 1545
  4. 1549
  5. 1553
  6. 1554



• Regiomontanus, Kalendarium (1476), entire book
• Sacrobosco, Sphaera:
  1. 1478
  2. 1479
  3. 1488
  4. 1490
  5. 1518 and 1518b
  6. 1519
  7. 1531
  8. 1534
  9. 1537
  10. 1548
  11. 1550
  12. 1582
  13. 1587
  14. 1606

16th century

• Achillini, 1545



• Apian, Instrumentum primi mobilis (1534)
• Apian, Cosmographiae (1535)
• Apian, Cosmographia (1540)
• Apian, Cosmographia (1545), entire book
• Apian, Cosmographia (1551)
• Apian, Cosmographia (1560)
• Apian, Cosmographia (1584)
• Barozzi, Cosmographia (1585)
• Tycho Brahe, Opera Omnia (1648) and other works by Tycho.
• Clavius, Sphaeram (1570), entire book
• Clavius, Sphaeram (1591)
• Clavius, Sphaeram (1602)
• Clavius, Sphaeram (1606)
• Clavius, Sphaeram (1607)
• Copernicus, De lateribus (1542)
• Copernicus, De revolutionibus (1543), entire book, with annotations from the Paris circle of Offusius.
• Copernicus, De revolutionibus (1566)
• Copernicus, De revolutionibus (1617)
• Thomas and Leonard Digges, Prognostication (1605)
• Fine, Opera (1570)
• Fracastoro, Homocentria (1538), entire book
• Frischlin, De astronomicae artis (1586)
• Luca Gaurico, Tractatus astrologius (1552), horoscope diagrams only
• Cornelius Gemma, De arte cyclognomica (1569)
• Cornelius Gemma, De naturae divinis characterismis (1575), and Tome 2; comets, auroras, etc.
• William Gilbert, De magnete (1600); including the Earth as a magnet



• Kepler, Mysterium cosmographicum (1596), entire book
• Kepler, Astronomiae pars optica (1604)
• Kepler, De stella nova (1606)
• Kepler, Astronomia nova (1609)
• Kepler, Strena (1611), entire book
• Kepler, Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae (1618)
• Kepler, Harmonices mundi (1619)
• Kepler, De cometis (1619)
• Additional Kepler images
• Lansberge, Astronomi celeberrimi (1663)
• Michael Maestlin, Cometae (1578)
• Michael Maestlin, Epitome astronomiae (1610)
• Magini, Ephemerides (1607), tables only; more Magini
• Offusius, De divina astrorum (1570), tables only
• Peucer, Elementa doctrinae de circulis coelestibus (1569)
• Peurbach, Tabulae eclypsium (1514)
• Peurbach, Theorica (1531)
• Peurbach, Novae theoricae planetarum (1534)
• Peurbach, Theoricae novae planetarum (1542)
• Peurbach, Theoricae novae planetarum (1543)
• Peurbach, Theoricae novae planetarum (1553)
• Erasmus Reinhold, Demonstratio halonis (ms); compare with Aristotle’s diagram of a halo
• Erasmus Reinhold, Prutenicae tabulae coelestium (1585)
• Reisch, Margarita filosofica (1599), includes zodiac man
• Joachim Ringelberg, Institutiones astronomicae (1528)
• Jacob Ziegler, Astronomicae (1531)

17th century: 1600 to 1650

• Bayer, Uranometria (1661)
• Bayer, Uranometrias (1697)
• Biancani, Sphaera mundi (1620)
• Maria Cunitz, Urania propitia (1650)
• Descartes, Principia philosophiae (1644)
• Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica (1617)
• Fontana, Novae coelestium (1646), lunar map
• Galileo, Sidereus nuncius (1610), entire book



• Galileo, Istoria e dimostrazioni (1613), solar disk diagrams
• Galileo, Il saggiatore (1623), phases of Venus
• Galileo, Dialogo (1632), cosmic models on frontispiece
• More Galileo images.
• Otto von Guericke, Experimenta nova (1672), lunar map
• Hevelius, Selenographia (1647), lunar atlas
• Hevelius, Cometographia (1668), cometary models on frontispiece
• Huygens, Systema Saturnium (1659), entire book; planet diagrams
• Kircher, Iter exstaticum (1650), Tychonic cosmic section
• More Kircher images.
• Adrian Metius, De genuino usu utriusque globi (1624), with Institutio geographica
• Placido Titi, Il Corriere Astronomo (1650)
• Riccioli, Almagestum novum (1651)
• Scheiner, Oculus (1619)
• Scheiner, Rosa Ursina (1630)