Critical Editing of Early-Modern Astronomical Diagrams

Jardine N. Segonds A. (eds), La guerre des astronomes: La querelle au sujet de l'origine du système géo-héliocentrique à la fin du XVIe siècle (2 vols, Paris, 2008).

See, for example, Kepleri opera omnia , ed. by Frisch Ch. (Frankfurt and Erlangen, 1858; facs. Hildesheim, 1971), i, 282, Fig. 9 (discussed below). In Frisch's edition, as in N. Jardine's, in The birth of history and philosophy of science: Kepler's A defense of Tycho against Ursus with essays on its provenance and significance (Cambridge, 1984; rev. edn, 1988), and in V. Bialas's, Johannes Kepler: Gesammelte Werke, xx/1 (Munich, 1988), the cases of diagram letters are altered to bring them in line with the text. Moreover, nostra culpa, the Les Belles Lettres edition, like the earlier editions, fails to distinguish freehand manuscript diagrams, tidied up by the editors, from ruler and compass ones.

Règles et recommandations pour les éditions critiques: Série latine (Paris, 2003), 35.

Hunter Michael , Editing early modern texts: An introduction to principles and practice (Basingstoke, 2007), 67–8.

See Eastwood B. , Astronomy and optics from Pliny to Descartes: Texts, diagrams and conceptual structures (London, 1989), The revival of planetary astronomy in Carolingian and post-Carolingian Europe (Aldershot, 2002), and Ordering the heavens: Roman astronomy and cosmology in the Carolingian Renaissance (Leiden, 2007); also Eastwood B. Graßhoff G. , Planetary diagrams for Roman astronomy in medieval Europe, ca. 800–1500 (Philadelphia, 2004).

Nonnoi G. , Saggi galileaiani: Atomi, immagini e ideologia (Cagliari, 2000); Remmert V. , Widmung, Welterklärung und Wissenschaftslegitimierung: Titelbilder und ihre Funktionen in der wissenschaftlichen Revolution (Wiesbaden, 2005). On these and related works, see Jardine N. , “Imagineering the astronomical revolution”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxvii (2006), 2006–84.

See Zittel C. , “Abbilden und Überzeugung bei Descartes”, in Enenkel K. A. E. Neuber W. (eds), Cognition and the book: Typologies of formal organisation of knowledge in the printed book of the early modern period (Leiden, 2005), 535–601; Lüthy C. , “Where logical necessity becomes visual persuasion: Descartes's clear and distinct illustrations”, and I. Pantin, ” Kepler's Epitome: New images for an innovative book”, both in Kusukawa S. MacLean I. (eds), Transmitting knowledge: Words, images, and instruments in early modern Europe (Oxford, 2006), 97–133 and 217–237, respectively. These roles of images loom large in the articles in the present collection.

Commentaires de Pappus et de Théon d'Alexandre sur l'Almageste, ed. by Rome A. (Rome, 1931), i, p. xxiv.

Grafton A. , “Editing technical neo-Latin texts”, in Grant J. N. (ed.), Editing Greek and Latin texts (New York, 1989), 163–86.

Netz R. , The works of Archimedes, translation and commentary, i: The two books On the sphere and the cylinder (Cambridge, 2004).

Netz R. Noel W. , The Archimedes codex: Revealing the secrets of the world's greatest palimpsest (London, 2007), 86–114.

Ibid., 8.

See Jardine Segonds , La guerre des astronomes (ref. 1), ii/1, 74–5. Cf. Kepler , Gesammelte Werke, ed. Bialas (ref. 2), 70, where the blob appears as if it were a very large planet.

Jardine Segonds , La guerre des astronomes (ref. 1), ii/1, 30–3. Authors' translation.

Ibid., ii/1, 57.

On hermeneutic circularity in relation to genres and conventions, see Kent T. , Interpretation and genre: The role of generic perception in the study of narrative texts (Cranbury, NJ, 1986); on it in relation to visual interpretation, see Hooper-Greenhill E. , Museums and the interpretation of visual culture (New York, 2000), chap. 5; on its history, see Maraldo J. C. , Der hermeneutische Zirkel (Freiburg, 1974).

Malpangotto M. , “Graphical choices and geometrical thought in the transmission of Theodosius' Sphaerics from Antiquity to the Renaissance”, Archive for history of exact sciences, lxiv (2010), 75–112.

Ibid., 79.

Ibid., 80.

For a classic defence of “domesticating” translation, see Nida E. A. , Towards a science of translating: With special reference to the principles and procedures involved in Bible translating (Leiden, 1964); for an aggressive promotion of “foreignizing” translation, see Venuti L. , The translator's invisibility: A history of translation (London, 1995).

Commentaires de Pappus et de Théon d'Alexandre sur l'Almageste (ref. 7), p. xx.

As, on occasion, in the Frisch edition of Kepler's works (ref. 2).

On the early-modern proliferation of printed page-layouts, see, for example: Janssen F. A. , “The rise of the typographical paragraph”, in Enenkel Neuber (eds), op. cit. (ref. 7), 9–32; Pantin I. , “Mise en page, mise en texte et construction du sens dans le livre moderne”, Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome, Italie et Méditerranée, cxx/2 (2008), 343–61.

Field J. V. , “Renaissance mathematics: Diagrams for geometry, astronomy and music”, Interdisciplinary science reviews, xxix (2004), 259–77.

Malpangotto , op. cit. (ref. 17); Pantin I. , op. cit. (ref. 7) and “L'illustration des livres d'astronomie à la Renaissance: L'évolution d'une discipline à travers ses images”, in Meroi F. Pogliano C. (eds), Immagini per conoscere: Dal Rinascimento alla Rivoluzione Scientifica (Florence, 2001), 3–41.

This section builds on Jardine B. , “Editing early-modern astronomical diagrams”, unpublished M.Phil. essay, Cambridge, 2007.

See Grafton , op. cit. (ref. 9), 169–76. The discussion of “eclectic” texts is in J. J. McGann's A critique of modern textual criticism (Chicago, 1983). The three recent editions of Copernicus's De revolutionibus are those of F. and C. Zeller (Munich, 1949), Gansiniec R. (Warsaw, 1975), and Nobis H. M. Sticker B. (Hildesheim, 1984).

On the errata, see: Swerdlow N. M. , “On establishing the text of De revolutionibus”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xii (1981), 35–46; Grafton , op. cit. (ref. 9); and Gingerich O. , An annotated census of Copernicus' De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel, 1566) (London, 2002), Appendix ii, “The extended errata list”.

On the process of composition of the holograph and its relation to the printed version, see: Zathey J. , “Analiza i historia rekopisu De revolutionibus”, in Zathey (ed.), Rekopis dziela Mikolaja Kopernika O obrotach facsimile (Warsaw, 1972), 1–39; a summary version of Zathey's analysis is, “The analysis and history of the manuscript”, Czartoryski in P. (ed.), The manuscript of Nicholas Copernicus' On the revolutions, facsimile (London, 1972), 1–23. Also: Swerdlow N. M. , “The holograph of De revolutionibus and the chronology of its composition”, Journal for the history of astronomy, v (1974), 1974–98; Pantin I. , “Histoire du texte et principes d'édition”, in Lerner M.-P. Segonds A. (eds), De revolutionibus (Paris, forthcoming).

Cerquiglini B. , In praise of the variant: A critical history of philology (Baltimore and London, 1999). On Lachmann's method, see Timpanaro S. , The genesis of Lachmann's method [1963], transl. by Most G. W. (Chicago, 2005).

Kinney J. D. , “On transposing a context: Making sense of More's humanist defences”, in Rummel E. (ed.), Editing texts from the age of Erasmus (Toronto, 1996), 39–48.

See Kusukawa S. , “The uses of pictures in the formation of learned knowledge: The case of Leonhard Fuchs and Andreas Vesalius”, in Kusukawa MacLean (eds), op. cit. (ref. 7), 73–4.

On the controversy over the solidity of the Copernican spheres, see: Rosen E. , “Copernicus' spheres and epicycles”, Archives internationales d'histoire des science , xxv (1975), 82–92; Swerdlow N. M. , “Pseudodoxia copernicana: Or, enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths, mostly concerning spheres”, ibid., xxvi (1976), 1976–58; Rosen E. , “Reply to N. Swerdlow”, ibid., 301–4; Jardine N. , “The significance of the Copernican orbs”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xiii (1982), 1982–94; Lerner M.-P. , Le monde des sphères. i: Genèse et triomphe d'une représentation cosmique (Paris, 1996), chap. 4.

Grafton , op. cit. (ref. 9), 175–6.

The opposition to this view is set out in Tanselle G. Thomas , “Recent editorial discussion and the central questions of editing”, Studies in bibliography, xxxiv (1981), 23–65.

See, for example, Cerquiglini , op. cit. (ref. 30), 8–12. On changes in practices and conceptions of authorship, especially in relation to privileges and (later) copyrights, see, for example: Rose M. , Authors and owners: The invention of copyright (Cambridge, MA, 1993); Woodmansee M. Jaszi P. (eds), The construction of authorship: Textual appropriation in law and literature (Durham, NC, 1994); Johns A. , The nature of the book: Print and knowledge in the making (Chicago, 1998); Jardine N. , “Books, texts and the making of knowledge”, in Frasca-Spada M. Jardine N. (eds), Books and the sciences in history (Cambridge, 2000), 393–407.

Lévi-Strauss C. , The savage mind (Chicago, 1966), 17ff.

Doubtless in literary studies this effect is often desired, hence the adaptation of Lévi-Strauss's term to literary studies by Jacques Derrida in “Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences”, in Derrida J. , Writing and difference [1978], transl. by Bass Alan (London, 2002), 278–94.

McGann J. J. (ed.), Textual criticism and literary interpretation (Chicago, 1985), p. ix.

McGann J. J. , “The monks and the giants”, in Ibid., 180–99, p. 189.

Copernicus, De revolutionibus, 4v.2–6; Nicholas Copernicus On the revolutions, ed. by Dobrzycki J. , transl. by Rosen E. (London, 1978), 13.32–5.

This usage of infinitus has classical precedents (e.g., Cicero, De divinatione, II, 43, 91). A notable early-modern occurrence is in Kepler's manuscript Ad Ursi tractatum; Kepler — A firm advocate of the finitude of the Copernican cosmos — Here refers to the “immensity of the fixed stars [infinitatem fixarum]”. See Jardine Segonds , La guerre des astronomes (ref. 1), ii/1, 91.

One area of study that has proved useful in this connection is instrument studies, and in particular work on printed paper instruments, which often served either as stand-alone instruments or prints in books. See, for example: Eagleton C. Jardine B. , “Collections and projections: Henry Sutton's paper instruments”, Journal of the history of collections , xvii/1 (2005), 1–13; Bryden D. J. , “The instrument maker and the printer: Paper instruments made in seventeenth-century London”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, lv (1997), 1997–15.

On Wilhelm Schickard's life and works, see, for example: Seck Friedrich (ed.), Zum 400. Geburtstag von Wilhelm Schickard (Sigmaringen, 1995); Seck Friedrich (ed.), Wilhelm Schickard 1592–1635. Astronom. Geograph. Orientalist. Erfinder der Rechenmaschine (Tübingen, 1978). On Schickard's production of woodcuts and engravings a little is to be found in Pantin, op. cit. (ref. 7).

See: Gingerich O. van Helden A. , “From occiale to printed page: The making of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxxi (2003), 251–67; Bredekamp H. , Galilei der Künstler. Der Mond. Die Sonne. Die Hand (Berlin, 2007); Gingerich O. , “The curious case of the M-L Sidereus nuncius“, Galilæana, vi (2009), 2009–65; Reeves E. , “Mere projections: Sunspots and camera obscura”, Galilæana, iv (2007), 2007–77.

Goodman N. , Languages of art (London, 1969). For development and critique of Goodman's approach, see Hopkins R. , Picture, image and experience (Cambridge, 1998), and Kulvicki J. V. , On images: Their structure and content (Oxford, 2006).

Baxandall Michael , Shadows and enlightenment (New Haven and London, 1995).

The value of close attention to the vocabulary of imagery is well demonstrated in Wragge-Morley A. , “The work of verbal picturing for John Ray and some of his contemporaries”, Intellectual history review, xx/1 (2010), 165–79. Useful observations on terminology are to be found in the articles of Lüthy and Müller in the present collection.

On the history of editorial practices, see, for example: Grafton A. , Defenders of the text: The traditions of scholarship in an age of science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1991); Walsh M. , Shakespeare, Milton, and eighteenth-century literary editing: The beginnings of interpretative scholarship (Cambridge, 1997); Tanselle G. T. , Textual criticism since Greg: A chronicle, 1950–2000 (Charlottesville, VA, 2005).

For fascinating essays on the impacts of digitizing on editorial practices, see Deegan M. Sutherland K. (eds), Text editing, print and the digital world (Farnham, 2009).