Galileo's Telescope

A European Story

Massimo Bucciantini, Michele Camerota, Franco Giudice, Catherine Bolton

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780674425460
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de la ciencia

Between 1608 and 1610 the canopy of the night sky changed forever, ripped open by an object created almost by accident: a cylinder with lenses at both ends. Galileo's Telescope tells the story of how an ingenious optical device evolved from a toy-like curiosity into a precision scientific instrument, all in a few years. In transcending the limits of human vision, the telescope transformed humanity's view of itself and knowledge of the cosmos.Galileo plays a leading—but by no means solo—part in this riveting tale. He shares the stage with mathematicians, astronomers, and theologians from Paolo Sarpi to Johannes Kepler and Cardinal Bellarmine, sovereigns such as Rudolph II and James I, as well as craftsmen, courtiers, poets, and painters. Starting in the Netherlands, where a spectacle-maker created a spyglass with the modest magnifying power of three, the telescope spread like technological wildfire to Venice, Rome, Prague, Paris, London, and ultimately India and China. Galileo's celestial discoveries—hundreds of stars previously invisible to the naked eye, lunar mountains, and moons orbiting Jupiter—were announced to the world in his revolutionary treatise Sidereus Nuncius.Combining science, politics, religion, and the arts, Galileo's Telescope rewrites the early history of a world-shattering innovation whose visual power ultimately came to embody meanings far beyond the science of the stars.

Figure 7. Jan Brueghel the Elder, Landscape with View of the Castle of Mariemont, 1611

ONE

From the Low Countries

This is the very first image of a Dutch spyglass (Figure 7 and Plate 1).¹ Despite the fact that the scene is dominated by the lush landscape around the castle, the most striking aspect is the detail with the instrument. Although at first glance it seems to hold little significance, it is impossible not to notice it, above all when we close in on the figures at the lower left to examine the man holding it up to his eye. Along with the instrument, he is the true focal point of the painting (Figure 8).

The man with the spyglass is Archduke Albert of Austria, brother of Emperor Rudolf II, and the artist who portrayed him in this pose was Jan Brueghel the Elder, nicknamed “Velvet Brueghel.” The castle is Mariemont, a few miles south of Brussels, boasting a park full of luxuriant flora and wild animals, crossed by brooks and dotted with impressive fountains.

The instant we understand the focus of this image, the whole picture emerges in a different and unexpected light. The landscape simply becomes an evocative setting observed by the protagonist, yet this is not a natural gaze of the naked eye. In an interplay of allusions, the painting also flaunts a status symbol, the unequivocal sign of power, conveyed by the fact that the archduke possesses the latest technological invention.

Brueghel depicted the castle of Mariemont a number of times, and the spyglass also appears in several of his paintings, often executed in collaboration with Peter Paul Rubens, such as the famous Allegory of Sight (1617), now at the Prado in Madrid (Plate 2).

But this is the only work in which Mariemont and the spyglass are depicted together. It was executed between 1609 and 1612, shortly after a twelve-year truce was reached between the southern provinces, controlled by the Habsburg dynasty, and the rebellious provinces of the north. Starting in 1598, Albert and his consort, Infanta Isabella of Spain and Portugal, ruled over all the Low Countries, although this sovereignty was effectively limited to the Belgian provinces. That truce had been pursued zealously, as it acknowledged the independence of the United Provinces but also put an end to the religious and civil wars that had lacerated the Low Countries for over forty years.

Figure 8. Jan Brueghel the Elder, Landscape with View of the Castle of Mariemont, 1611, detail

Taking advantage of the truce, the archdukes wanted to bring new prosperity to their territories, rebuild the cities that were in ruins, restore dignity to the churches devastated by iconoclasm, and renovate the palaces in which they lived. These works reflected their status and prestige as sovereigns, and were aimed at reviving the lost splendor and ancient grandeur of the Burgundian court.² This was certainly an ambitious plan, and to implement it they decided to call in artists and architects of the caliber of Otto Van Veen, Wenceslas Coebergher, Brueghel, and Rubens.³

The royal palace in Brussels was renovated, and one of its wings was completely rebuilt and filled with lavish tapestries. Then it was the turn of the castle of Tervuren, the archdukes’ hunting lodge, followed by their summer residence, Mariemont. Albert and Isabella transformed the three residences into microcosms, a living encyclopedia, decorating them with hundreds of paintings by Flemish artists as well as Italian masters, and filling them with rare plants, precious stones, and exotic animals. The vast collection of scientific instruments was equally important, with priceless astrolabes, solar quadrants, theodolites, and celestial globes, all of which were exquisitely crafted at the workshops of Michel Coignet in Antwerp and Juan Cocart in Madrid.⁴ These were tangible signs of a court that expressed its political power in part through the magnificence of its venues and the furnishings chosen to adorn them. Just as we now associate the name of Louis XIV with Versailles, the people of the era connected Albert and Isabella with their castles in Brussels, Tervuren, and Mariemont.⁵

Brueghel’s painting, now in the United States at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, unquestionably reflects this cultural policy. The painting shows the castle of Mariemont as it appeared between 1608 and 1611, by which time most of the initial expansion and renovation work had been completed.⁶ To the right of the main palace we can clearly see the new ramparts and the red-brick clock tower, built between 1608 and 1610 (Plate 1).⁷ Moreover, Brueghel, appointed court painter in 1609, reproduced this very image in two other paintings, one now at the Prado in Madrid and datable around 1611–1612, and the other at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon, signed by the author and dated 1612.⁸

The castle of Mariemont became one of the archdukes’ favorite residences the moment they set foot in the Low Countries, and their court was officially headquartered there in the summer.⁹ When the truce was signed with the United Provinces in 1609, Mariemont became the symbol of renewed peace and the legitimate sovereignty of Albert and Isabella over the Low Countries of the south. In effect, Brueghel’s paintings so masterfully illustrated their full splendor that one of them—now at the Prado—was sent to the king of Spain for this very purpose.¹⁰

Yet there is something unique about our painting: the spyglass through which the archduke observes the birds flitting around the park. Albert obtained it at the end of March 1609, just a few days before the truce was formally signed (April 9 of that year). It was during the decisive stages of these negotiations—the last week of September 1608—that the spyglass officially debuted at The Hague, the headquarters of the States-General of the Republic of the United Provinces. In a certain sense, this too was a political symbol, set within the context of the grueling and stormy negotiations that would culminate in a temporary agreement.

Underlying the painting is the troubled management of the truce, yet the artwork’s light colors and orderly presentation of objects intentionally convey the archduke’s palpable aura of serenity while, out for a stroll, he enjoys the scenery using an instrument from the place where the negotiations had been held. Few people had such an instrument at their disposal in March 1609. Yet just a few months later, these odd new spectacles reached Europe’s most important cities and, one way or another, were tied to what would occur in The Hague in September and October 1608.

The history of the Dutch spyglass clearly went through Mariemont. This story has been narrated time and again, but it has always been sketched out in the vaguest of terms, so it merits retelling. Here we will investigate some of the key details that, for some reason, have been overlooked, but we will also probe others that have never been discussed before.

Toward the end of September 1608, Hans Lipperhey, a German-born spectacle maker, set out for The Hague from his adopted home, Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, which was one of the seven United Provinces of the Low Countries. Lipperhey hoped to be granted an audience with Count Maurice of Nassau, stadtholder and commander of the armed forces of the United Provinces, and one of Europe’s most adroit military strategists.¹¹ He brought with him a letter of presentation from the councilors of his province, dated September 25, 1608, saying that he wanted to show Maurice a new invention: “a certain device through which all things at a very great distance can be seen as if they were nearby.”¹²

The Middelburg spectacle maker reached The Hague at the height of a political crisis that had yet to be resolved. A terrible clash was unfolding, sparked not only by the Spanish Habsburgs’ acknowledgment of the independence of the United Provinces but also by the right of the latter to continue trade with the East Indies. This was a crucial point, given the huge financial interests involved. It was so important, in fact, that it led to a breakdown in negotiations at the end of August 1608. In effect, just a few weeks later the United Provinces proved they had no intention of relinquishing their contacts with the Far East when Maurice of Nassau received two Siamese ambassadors on their first visit to a European country.¹³ These emissaries arrived with the retinue of Admiral Corneille Matelief, who had left three years earlier at the helm of a fleet of eleven ships owned by the Dutch East India Company, with the aim of establishing commercial relations with China. Since the admiral’s mission had ultimately failed, however, the United Provinces hoped to achieve their goal through the good offices of the king of Siam.¹⁴

It was during this course of events that Lipperhey traveled to The Hague and entered its difficult climate, bogged down by the hustle and bustle of delegates participating in the umpteenth series of negotiations in an attempt to resolve this impasse. The United Provinces were represented by Maurice of Nassau and Grand Pensionary Johan Van Oldenbarneveldt, and the archdukes by the Genoese Ambrogio Spinola, who had led the Spanish Armada in the Southern Low Countries since 1605. Other leading European diplomats were also seated around the negotiating table, including Pierre Jeannin, the special envoy of Henry IV, and the ambassadors of James I, Sir Ralph Winwood and Sir Richard Spenser.

Discussions revolved around the proposal advanced by England and, above all, France to stipulate an extended truce with Brussels.¹⁵ News about the developments of these complex negotiations reached the main European courts through the usual confidential diplomatic channels—in other words, dispatches and reports sent by ambassadors stationed in Holland. At the same time, however, the news began to circulate more widely thanks to handwritten notices and the first printed folios, which arose in this very period.

One of these is especially important to our story. This document is just twelve pages long and does not cite the printing venue; its title—in ungrammatical French—reads Ambassades du Roy de Siam envoyé à l’Excellence du Prince Maurice, arrivé à la Haye le 10. Septemb. 1608. Even though the only indication on the title page is a generic “L’an de grace 1608,” it is very likely that it was published in October of that year.

The anonymous author, indubitably a partisan from the United Provinces, gives us a rather singular opinion of the negotiations. He does not refer directly to the difficulties and perplexities the motion for a truce raised among delegates. Instead, he was struck by two episodes that, during the days so decisive for the fate of the Low Countries, may have seemed irrelevant or marginal: the visit of the ambassadors of the king of Siam and the presentation of Lipperhey’s “new invention” to Maurice of Nassau.

This well-informed chronicler can be credited with the vivid account of the curious outcome of the Middelburg spectacle maker’s journey to The Hague. This is how things went in his reconstruction.

A few days before the departure of Spinola from The Hague, a spectacle maker from Middelburg, a humble, very religious and God-fearing man, presented to His Excellency [Prince Maurice] certain glasses by means of which one can detect and see distinctly things three or four miles removed from us as if we were seeing them from a hundred paces. From the tower of The Hague, one clearly sees, wit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations, Plates, and Maps
• Prologue
• 1. From the Low Countries
• 2. The Venetian Archipelago
• 3. Breaking News: Glass and Envelopes
• 4. In a Flash
• 5. Peregrinations
• 6. The Battle of Prague
• 7. Across the English Channel: Poets, Philosophers, and Astronomers
• 8. Conquering France
• 9. Milan: At the Court of “King” Federico
• 10. The Dark Skies of Florence
• 11. The Roman Mission
• 12. In Motion: Portugal, India, China
• Epilogue
• Illustrations
• Notes
• References
• Credits
• Acknowledgments
• Index