Paper Astrolabe

Artist Unknown

ca. 1629

Drawing of circle with many lines forming squares and rectangles within it.
In the back of a manuscript collection of astronomical texts, which includes one of Abraham Ibn Ezra’s works on the use of the astrolabe (a tool for astronomical calculations), is a set of crude but generally accurate drawings of various parts of an astrolabe, glued into the codex. In a pinch, astrolabes could be constructed from paper, and it is conceivable that these were initially made for use but then pasted into the manuscript. This picture shows the back of the mater, or disk.

Credits

Courtesy the Russian State Library, Moscow, Ms. Guenzburg 274.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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