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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…
This illustration of an armillary sphere is from a treatise on astronomy, Sefer mareh ha-ofanim (The Appearance of the Heavenly Beings), by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor. The treatise was mostly a…
I found it written somewhere that the eleven offerings brought on Rosh ḥodesh [the New Moon] correspond to the eleven extra days of the solar year over and above those of the…
This elaborate Italian kabbalistic manuscript depicts the inner processes of the divine (the sefirot) in the shape of a tree (in Hebrew, ilan), or tree of life. Visualization plays an important part…
This astrolabe, an astronomical instrument, from the sixteenth century is inscribed in Hebrew characters.
Nicolaus Copernicus, from [Polish] Prussia, was a great man, who was more proficient in the field of astronomy than all the wise men of his age. Indeed, all the wise men of our time unanimously attest…
This illustration of the (Aristotelian) cosmos appears in an eighteenth-century manuscript of Neḥmad ve-na‘im (Nice and Pleasant), David Ganz’s posthumously published book on astronomy.
Now the daughter of the King of the Kittim, on hearing this, became highly enraged, and she said, “Is there any room to defend the cause of these people who were lacking in wisdom and set down a…
In correctly understanding the truest theory, there were many opinions; but I will bring two…
To the Most Serene Great Prince of Etruria, Hero and Admirable Man, Cosmo the Third
To the Most Serene Great Prince.
In this era of ours, Most Serene Great Prince, when the various branches of…