Great Works of Astronomy

Great Works of Astronomy

The State Library of Victoria is fortunate to have a remarkable collection of the great books that trace the development of Western understanding of Astronomy, and the basis for the modern science. Tonight I will introduce you to some of these great works, and I should say at the outset that I can make no claim as an Astronomer, although with the help of Professor Wikipedeia and Dr Google I should be able to get the chronology and key principles straight, and this slide gives you a road map of where we are about to go. If you can pardon the split infinitive I am about to boldly go where I have not gone before, perhaps in the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear ‘To infinity and beyond’. Where I do make a claim is as an historian, and my key interest is and has been in the history of the Library collections, so I will share with you along he way some of the remarkable stories of how these amazing books found their way into this collection.

1. The Almagest of Ptolemy (150 AD SLV Manuscript c. 1200 – 1225)

Western astronomy in a codified form begins with Ptolemy who spent much of his life in Alexandria and whose dates are generally given as year 90 to year 168 in the modern era. Ptolemy was one of the extraordinary scholars that gathered around the great Library in that city, and he is remembered for his work in Geography, Astrology and Astronomy. His book on Astronomy was originally known in Greek as ? Μεγ?λη Σ?νταξις or The Great Treatise; it is known to us by a different name The Almagest which is a Latin equivalent to the Arabic Al-kitabu-I-mijisti and how it got this name is part of the story of our copy of this book.

The Almagest is the most complete work capturing ancient understanding of Astronomy. Comprising 13 sections, it contains mathematical tables that predict the positions of planets and a star catalogue that identifies 48 constellations visible to the naked eye. It established a geocentric model of universe with the Earth standing motionless at the centre and the moon, sun, and visible planets rotating in great rings around our stationary planet.

Ptolemy’s books were destroyed along with the Library during the sacking of Alexandria by Emperor Aurelian as part of his campaign against Queen Zenobia in 272 of the modern era. References to the work remained in other texts and his explanation of Astronomy remained dominant. With Western revival of interest in Astronomy in the middle of the twelfth century finding a copy of the text became something of a scientific search for the Holy Grail. An early translation of an incomplete Greek text in Sicily only intensified the interest and the scholars of the day Robert of Ketton, Hermann of Carinthia and Gerard of Cremona, as well as the Sicilian translator went in search of fabled Arabic copies of the text. Gerard of Cremona, who was born around 1114 in Cremona and who died in 1187 won the race. He found variant Arabic copies in the Libraries that adorned the city of Toledo which was for a brief time a meeting place for Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars. Gerard translated 87 scientific books that had survived from the classical Greek in Arabic copies, including Euclid’s Geometry. His translation of the Almagest became the standard version, and it is his approximation of the Arabic title into Latin that gave the book its modern name.

Our copy was made in Northern Italy some time between 1200 and 1225. It is, of course, a manuscript on fine parchment, probably made from calf skin, with decorated initials at the start of each chapter. The date places it in the very first generation of copies made of Gerard’s translation the original of which has been lost. There is much evidence in our book to suggest that the copy was made from a copy in Gerard’s hand or one made under his direction. The book contains all the known variants of the first chapter and some original commentary that is only found in this copy. Gerard’s own commentary is carefully added in the margins and later scholars have added further commentary and notes as was the practice at the time. The book is very similar to copies of other mathematical texts translated by Gerard in the Bibliothéque Nationale de France and the Vatican Library, and it is possible that this is the oldest surviving Latin copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest.

The first chapter sets out a reason for the study of Astronomy as better understanding of the Divine State – this theological purpose resonated with Christian scholars who saw the wisdom of the Ancients as a presaging of the revelation of God’s plan for humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. There was no conflict in their minds between science and religion, and although written by a pagan, Ptolemy’s work was accorded a place inferior to but supporting the Divine revelation of the Bible. This lofty elevation of his geocentric model of the universe was to have dire consequences for the book published by Copernicus and for the person of Galileo.

The book had been part of the Library of the great Monastery of San Marco in Florence, and when this monastery was dissolved in 1808 under the orders of Napoleon the Library was dispersed and this book was purchased by an English collector J. T. Payne who sold it in 1833 to the most obsessive collector of manuscripts Sir Thomas Phillipps. At his death in 1872 he left a collection of 60,000 medieval and renaissance manuscripts and his mansion, Thirlestaine House, in trust to his youngest daughter and her third son Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick. Phillipps’ onerous conditions, forbidding Catholics access to the collection or the sale proceeds from any part of it were overturned in 1885, and Fenwick, a fine scholar, made twenty two judicious sales of groups of manuscripts to support the running of the estate. Fenwick died just before the Second World War and Thirlestaine House was requisitioned by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. The collection was stored in the cellars. Fenwick’s successors in the trust had little appetite for restoring the library, and obtained a judicial ruling allowing the sale of the collection. The booksellers Lionel and Phillip Robinson entered as brokers, but attempted sales to Harvard and the British Museum failed for want of a list of the contents of the hundreds and hundreds of crates. The brothers then took a huge gamble, and with a loan from merchant bankers secured with the pledge of their homes, business, entire stock, as well as half the proceeds of any sale from the collection, they purchased the manuscripts and printed books for £100,000 in February 1946. The first Auction from the collection in 1946 saw three very fine manuscripts purchased by this Library and within a year from subsequent sales the Robinsons made enough money to repay the banks. The close relationship between this Library and the Robinsons led to eight manuscripts being sent to Melbourne in 1949 for exhibition and possible sale. After feverish and not very successful attempts to raise donations, the Library was able to buy three of the books, including this one, with one other purchased for the Library by a donor, and a fifth purchased by a donor for the Franciscan Friars and subsequently placed with this Library on loan.

2. Nicholaus Copernicus De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (1543 Nuremburg; SLV copy second edition 1566 Basle)

Ptolemy’s explanation of planetary motions remained unchallenged for over a thousand years and it was not until the publication of the book Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543 that an alternative was proposed. Copernicus was born in 1473 to a well connected family in Thorn in Poland. His father died while he was still young and he came under the care of his Uncle Lucas Watzenrode, a priest who was ordained Prince-Bishop of Warmia in 1497. Watzenrode arranged for his nephew to be appointed a Canon of Frombork Cathedral, and appointed him as his Secretary in 1503.

Copernicus had shown an interest in astronomy from a very early age, and was afforded an elaborate education in Poland and in Italy, where he studied Law in Bologna and Medicine in Padua. For his Bishop Uncle he led a busy life publishing on legal and economic matters, leading the defence of the Bishop’s castle when besieged in the Polish-Teutonic Wars, and acting as a physician to important members of the Ducal court. Astronomy was a hobby, conducted in a theoretical way without the aid of an elaborate Observatory

He first proposed Heliocentrism, that is: the Sun at the centre of a Solar system, in little manuscript treatise that he shared with his friends in 1514. He continued to work on his ideas and in 1533 Johan Albrect Widdmanstetter presented a series of lectures in Rome based on the work of Copernicus to a very interested audience that included Pope Clement VII and several Cardinals. Curiosity was aroused and Copernicus became quite famous as a scholar with a very interesting idea, but he delayed publishing his work. Some scholars see this as evidence of a fear of criticism, not on theological grounds but from a concern that other natural philosophers might vigorously oppose his views. Copernicus was persuaded to publish by a pupil, Georg Joachim Rheticus, who had been sent to study with him by the protestant theologian and philosopher Phillip Melanchton. Copernicus gave the manuscript of his book to his friend Bishop Giese and it was printed in Nuremburg under the supervision of Rheticus, and later a Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander who added his own unsigned preface defending the work.

It is interesting to note how Copernicus, a Catholic cleric was aided and supported in his work by Protestant thinkers and theologians. According to legend the first copy of the book was placed into Copernicus’ hands as he lay dying. For such a revolutionary thesis (if you pardon my pun) the book attracted little controversy in its early years. The Italian Dominicans Giovanna Tolosani and Bartolemeo Spina denounced the text but it remained in open circulation until the controversies over Galileo. Arthur Koestler suggested in The Sleepwalkers that this meant the book just wasn’t read, but a close examination of the marginal notes in all of the surviving copies of the first and second editions by Owen Gringerich, suggests otherwise. Possibly Copernicus’ death, removing a personal target from the story helps partly to explain this, more persuasive is the absence of telescopes, an innovation that took observation of the night skies to new levels.

The copy of De Revolutionibus in this Library is a second edition published in Basle in 1566. It bears inscriptions and corrections in ink according to the instructions of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which must have been made after the book was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1616 as part of the controversy over Galileo. It formed part of the library of remarkable person called Robert Arthur Buddicomb, who later changed his name to Bedford. Born into a landed family, Bedford graduated in science from Oxford in 1897 and pursued a varied career as a biological scholar, museum curator, market gardener and demonstrator and lecturer at the London Hospital Medical College. This eclectic career was cut short when Bedford was implicated as a Director of the Stolz Electrophone Company in a fraudulent prospectus. He left England, divorced his wife and in the settlement acquired land in Turramurra in New South Wales. He sold this land and purchased 4000 acres for a wheat farm in Kyancutta on the Eyre Peninsula. Remarried he established himself as the local store-keeper, town Doctor (without the inconvenience of a medical qualification) and installed his wife as Matron in the Town hospital. An indefatigable booster for the tiny community he established railway refreshment rooms, a local aerodrome, a printing press and advocated in politics and farming associations. He even proposed the secession of the Eyre Peninsula from South Australia to be named Eyralia. In all of this activity he also found time to establish the Kyancutta Museum and Library with a focus on science and proving Darwinian theories. He made many expeditions discovering important fragments of ancient meteorites, some of which were noted in the scientific journals of the day. In 1947, ailing and with many of his projects failing or gone, Bedford sold the best of his book collection to the Library. In one extraordinary purchase the Library acquired for £86/5/- eight books including a first edition of Newton’s Optiks, the Copernicus and a first edition of Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia Nova published in Prague in 1609, and it is to this book that we now turn.

3. Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler Astronomia Nova (1609)

Johannes Kepler is always considered with Tycho Brahe, and the Astronomia Nova is the culmination of this extraordinary collaboration. Brahe was a Danish nobleman who was drawn to Astronomy and Alchemy while a student at the University of Copenhagen especially impressed with the solar eclipse which occurred on 21 August 1560. Wealthy enough to pursue his interests Brahe soon established a reputation as a scientist and alchemist and when it appeared likely that he might leave Denmark to relocate to Basle, King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway granted him in 1576 an island on which to build a scientific research station. With 100 students and artisans to support him, and finely calibrated instruments, Brahe began a painstaking examination of the night sky. Brahe aware of Copernicus rejected Heliocentrism in favour of a system first proposed by Heraclides in the 4th century BC that saw the Sun rotate around the earth while the Planets as then known rotated around the Sun. King Frederick died in 1588 and was succeeded by his 11 year old son Christian IV. Brahe lost influence and after quarrelling with the King left Denmark in 1597 to establish a new observatory near Prague under the patronage of Rudolf II Holy Roman Emperor.

Here he met in February 1600, Johannes Kepler, an already established Astronomer and Astrologer as well as a convinced supporter of the Copernican theory. Kepler had already published Mysterium Cosmographicum which proposed that the solar system could be explained as a concentric set of solid spheres combining Platonic theory with the Copernican model. The two astronomers did not exactly hit it off, and quarrelled almost immediately, but Brahe persisted in finding employment for Kepler and by September had secured him a commission to work on a new set of star tables to replace those in use and to be named in honour of the Emperor as the Rudolphine Tables. For Kepler this held the promise of access to the vast collections of observational data assembled by Brahe, but within a year his opportunities expanded beyond measure.

Brahe died unexpectedly on October 24 1601. Kepler was appointed as his successor and as Imperial Mathematician, and for his reputation as a scientist the best was yet to come. Yet a cloud hangs over just how he got the job. The official account of Brahe’s death, as recorded by Kepler was that it was due to a bladder infection brought on by excessive good manners. Brahe fell ill at a banquet, and according to Kepler, this was because he refused to insult his host by excusing himself from the table to relieve his overstretched bladder! The resulting infection according to the story ended his life. Science would suggest otherwise. Brahe’s remains were exhumed in 1996 and excessive traces of mercury in his hair roots suggest poisoning. It is possible that the mercury may have been self administered in some alchemical medicines, but some historians point the finger of blame at a jealous Kepler.

However he got there, Kepler made very good use of Brahe’s detailed observations and when he published Astronomia Nova or New Astronomy he proposed two laws of planetary motion. Derived mathematically from Brahe’s observational data both laws were articulations of the Copernican model and crucially established elliptical rather than circular orbits for the planets around the Sun. Ten years later in Harmonices Mundi Kepler established his third law of planetary motion: That the cube of a planet’s distance from the Sun is proportional to the square of its orbital period, and crucially for us it is this law that made detailed observations of the Transit of Venus useful and necessary, but I am getting ahead of my story.

As mentioned before, the State Library’s copy of Astronomia Nova was part of the purchase from Robert Bedford. The most expensive book was the Copernicus at £25 and Newton’s Opticks and the Astronomia Nova came in second at £15 each. When the parcel arrived at the Library we may well have felt ripped off. The Kepler is in a most dilapidated state; I was advised by Des Cowley, our Rare Printed Manager, that we couldn’t possibly show it tonight as it is almost falling into confetti. Some sections are still intact but the paper is incredibly brittle. Our conservators were surprised at this, as most paper pre 1850 is largely made from cotton rag and non-acidic materials. Curious about this I contacted Professor David McKitterick, Fellow and Librarian at Trinity College, Cambridge to enquire as to the state of their copy (I was confident that they would have one). David’s reply was classically under-stated. Thanking me for drawing his attention to a book he had not looked at before, and that his Library was yet to catalogue (I think they have had 400 years!) he confirmed that the paper in their as yet intact copy was very poor, and in his view typical of the poor paper produced in central Europe to keep up with the demand for publishing at the time. My conservator colleagues speculate that some of the material used to make the paper may have been old hempen rope, which could be contaminated by tar. We will preserve the book as best we can, but sadly it’s the one volume you cannot view this evening.

4. Galileo Galilei Dialogo sopra I due massimi sistemi del mondo, Tolemaico e Copernicano (1632)

Soon after the publication of Astronomia Nova Kepler was approached by Galileo Galilei to respond to his recent publication Siderius Nuncius which translated as Starry Messenger. This little book was the product of his use of a telescope to observe the night sky which led to the discovery of the moons of Jupiter and for Galileo supporting evidence for the Copernican Heliocentric System, and it is the 400th anniversary of these observations that prompted the International Year of Astronomy. Kepler wrote in support of Galileo’s arguments and began observations using a telescope.

Galileo Galilei was born in 1564 in Pisa. His father was a musician, and after schooling in a Monastery outside Florence Galileo enrolled at the University in Pisa to study Medicine, leaving this course to focus on Mathematics. He was appointed Professor of Mathematics in 1589 later moving to a similar position at the University of Padua. Mathematics informed his understanding of the laws of nature and combined with a keen observation of natural phenomena to create a new understanding in physics, particularly kinetics and dynamics as well as astronomy. In 1608 from rudimentary descriptions of the first practical telescope developed by Hans Lippershey in the Netherlands, Galileo constructed his own instrument and began to observe the night sky. He also began a profitable business making and selling the instruments for civil and military purposes. Galileo’s published observations and his willingness to engage in debate brought him in to conflict with the Church, and particularly with a group of Jesuit theologians and scientists at the Collegio Romano. Not noted for his diplomacy, Galileo was vigorous in his published comments on the counter arguments being made against a Copernican system, which in the eyes of the Church challenged scriptural references (chiefly in the Psalms) to a fixed earth and fixed universe. By 1616 the defenders of the Ptolemaic system had elevated the attacks on Copernicus to such a level that Galileo travelled to Rome to try to prevent the Church authorities from banning his ideas. The Jesuit Cardinal, Robert Bellarmine, was given charge of the case and on the advice of the Inquisition ordered Galileo to not to “hold or defend” the theory of Heliocentrism. Copernicus was placed on the list of Banned Books, unless amended to make clear that it was only a hypothetical theory (and hence the inscriptions in the State Library copy) but the order did not prevent Galileo discussing this as a theory, and for the time being this was the compromise that prevented him being the subject of a formal ban.

Galileo was supported in his case by Cardinal Barberini and when he was elected Pope Urban VIII in 1623 Galileo saw an opportunity for a greater freedom in expressing his views. Pope Urban asked Galileo to publish a book giving arguments in favour and against heliocentrism, being careful not to advocate it as the correct understanding, and perhaps immodestly, to make sure that the Pope’s own personal views on the matter were included in the book. Galileo took some considerable licence in responding to this invitation. The resulting book Dialogo sopra I due massimi sistemi del mondo, Tolemaico e Copernicano was published in 1632. Translated the title is Dialogue upon the two main systems of the world, Ptolemy and Copernicus, and is constructed as a conversation between two people advocating the different theories. The advocate for Ptolemy is called Simlicio or Simpleton, and to make matters worse, Galileo placed the views of the Pope into Simpleton’s mouth. The book was correctly seen as an unalloyed advocacy of the Copernican heliocentric system, and Galileo was placed on trial for heresy. Convicted, he was condemned to imprisonment but this was modified to allow him to suffer house arrest. He was forbidden to publish and his books were banned, especially the Dialogo and many extant copies were mutilated or destroyed. The copy held by the State Library is in perfect condition, a remarkable survivor of this time and was purchased from the London booksellers James Tregaskis and Son for 24 Guineas or £25/4/- in 1929.

Galileo died nine years after his conviction as a heretic at the age of 77. In 1718 the prohibition on publishing his books with the exception of the Dialogo was lifted and in 1741 a censored version of the Dialogo was published. By 1758 the general Church ban on publishing works on Heliocentrism was lifted although uncensored versions of Copernicus and the Dialogo remained banned. This ban was finally lifted with the publication in 1835 of a revised Index of Forbidden Books which mentioned neither work.

5. Sir Isaac Newton Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Galileo spent his time under house arrest revising and summarising work undertaken at the very start of his career. The resulting book Two New Sciences established kinematics and strength of materials as separate areas of enquiry and for many justify his title as ‘the father of modern physics’. One of those who praised his work and drew upon it was Sir Isaac Newton, and it is to him and his epochal work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica published in 1687 that we now turn.

Isaac Newton was born in 1642, the only and posthumous son of another Isaac Newton, a yeoman farmer in Lincolnshire. His mother remarried, enlarging the family estates, but Newton was raised by his grandparents. By the standards of the day Newton received a good education, and despite his mother’s attempts to have him leave school to run the family estates, Newton found his way to Cambridge and Trinity College, although as a Sizar, that is servant-student, suggesting that his quite wealthy mother made no effort to pay for this part of his education. At Cambridge Newton was set a course of reading in classical philosophy, but soon took his own course exploring Descartes, Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus. Solitary and difficult, Newton was also attracted by occult and began a lifelong interest in Alchemy, and not in a theoretical way. His religious views were anti-Trinitarian and if such a thing can be said, heretical in the eyes of the established Anglican Church.

Precociously bright Newton’s reading and thinking led to extraordinary discoveries and by the time he graduated in 1665 he had laid the groundwork for the binomial theorem, infinitesimal calculus and begun the first steps towards an understanding of gravity. The University closed for two years during the return of the plague and in the famous legend, Newton at home on his estate, felt the famous apple fall from the famous tree. He returned to Cambridge as a Fellow of Trinity in 1667 and was elected Lucasian Professor in Mathematics, a post which helpfully did not require him to be an ordained Anglican cleric, and which gave him the impetus through public (but frequently unattended) lectures to continue to formulate his theories. His reputation spread and he was drawn into the circle around the Royal Society, at that time a rather impecunious collection of fractious egos, albeit with brilliant minds. Newton’s early encounters with Robert Hooke and through the Royal Society with European scholars such as Huygens and the Jesuit Father Linus were acrimonious and set a pattern of ill-tempered and cantankerous encounters with fellow philosophers and scientists. From this unpromising beginning Hooke and later Edmund Halley persisted in engagement with Newton, and his observations of a famous comet drew the new Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed into the discussion. By early 1686 he had completed the manuscript of Principia, a book that would truly revolutionise the basis for mathematics, physics and astronomy. Improbably Newton’s achievement was almost overshadowed by another revolution. At precisely the same time the new and Catholic King James II tried to impose Catholicism in the Universities, and Newton, a somewhat irregular protestant though one inflamed with an implacable hatred for the Papacy, became an unlikely leader of the resistance. Called to answer to the notorious Judge Jeffreys, Newton escaped punishment and in the tumultuous year of 1688 he was elected as member for Cambridge to the Parliament that resolved that King James had forfeited the throne, paving the way for his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William to assume the throne as joint monarchs.

The title of the book is an elegant summary of its significance. In English it is Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Using calculus and geometry Newton established laws of motion and gravitation that can be applied to the real solar system with a very close degree of approximation. Through this approach Newton derived Kepler’s three laws for planetary motion, which Kepler had posited on the empirical observations of Brahe. Thus the Newtonian derivation settled once and for all the truth of Heliocentrism, and consigned Ptolemy to history.
Newton continued his career in science and philosophy, finding love or at least a passionate relationship with a young Swiss mathematician Nicholas Fatio de Duiller. Intellectual and emotional passion led to a breakdown in 1693 and he left Academe to become Master of the Mint, a sinecure which he turned into a real job, diverting almost by accident the currency from its silver base, which we still know as sterling, to a gold standard. In London he assumed the presidency of the Royal Society after the death of his rival Hooke, and secured its future through better finances and its own premises. He published Opticks in 1704 and revised and republished Principia, in 1712 quarrelling along the way with Flamsteed and with Leibniz. Knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 not for his scientific achievements, but in a cynical effort to secure a Whig majority, he served inconspicuously another term in Parliament. At the time of his death in 1727 his fame afforded him a laying in state and internment in Westminster Abbey despite his refusal on his deathbed to take the sacrament of communion. He is often remembered for what appears to be his self-effacing phrase ‘if I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants’, but read in the context of the letter in which it appears to his hunchbacked and short rival Robert Hooke the famous words have another and less generous meaning. Newton in history as in life is a solitary and intimidating intellectual giant.

For this reason the Library was very keen to obtain a copy of the first edition of Principia, and in 1941 during the worst of the Second World War a copy was spotted in a catalogue of the London Bookseller Robinsons. The book was ordered along with ten other items including first editions of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Dickens’s Sketches by Boz, as well as autograph letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and David Garrick and a fine third folio of Shakespeare. Unfortunately by the time the cable reached London, the Newton and the Shakespeare had been sold, but Lionel Robinson soon wrote to assure the Library that another copy of Newton had been reserved – we never did get a Third Folio.

6. John Flamsteed Atlas Coelestis (London:1729)

John Flamsteed, Newton’s sometime student, informant and adversary is our last figure and his book the Atlas Coelestis published posthumously in 1729 is the last book we will consider. Flamsteed can however, claim a first. He was the first Astronomer Royal, and established the Observatory at Greenwich.

John Flamsteed was born in 1646 at Denby in Derbyshire to a prosperous family and received a good education. Sickly and frail he did not proceed immediately to University and was inspired to explore Astronomy by the gift of a copy of Johannes de Sacro Busto’s De Sphaera Mundi the standard medieval introduction, and followed this with close observations of an eclipse in 1662. Encouraged by local enthusiasts to pursue his interest, he rejected their interest in Astrology concluding that it gave ‘generally strong conjectural hints not perfect declarations’. In 1670 he was admitted to Jesus College Cambridge, having already established a correspondence with the Royal Society on astronomy. He attended some of Newton’s Lucasian lectures but did not remain at the University due to his frail health. Armed with better telescopes he began detailed examination of the night sky, and at the instigation of the Royal Society commenced a correspondence with the French astronomer J-D Cassini. In 1674 he was proceeded M.A. by royal mandate from Cambridge with a view to ordination as a priest in the Anglican church, but his competence as an Astronomer won him the appointment with the assistance of Jonas Moore, Surveyor General of the Ordinance, as the Astronomical Observator, a position later known as Astronomer Royal. The observatory was established at Greenwich largely designed by Robert Hooke in association with Sir Christopher Wren and Moore. Flamsteed struggled to make his own voice heard. He was harassed by increasing demands for a new Star Catalogue and a solution to the problem of longitude aided by instruments that didn’t work and only two assistants.

In the very argumentative world of Enlightenment Astronomy Flamsteed seemed to come off second best. Newton relied on his insights and his observations, not always giving credit, Halley was seen to be more productive, and a quarrel over Flamsteed being placed second after Halley for his assistance with Principia saw Flamsteed refuse to deal with the Royal Society and permanently poisoned his relationship with his fellow scientists. This came to a head in the publication of the new star charts a primary purpose of the observatory. Flamsteed needed funds to proceed and tried through a friend at Court to get Prince George, consort of Queen Anne, to provide them. Newton aware of this offered to be the intermediary, but Flamsteed suspicious (with some justification) of his motives refused and produced a written estimate which he circulated to his friends. Without authorisation this was read as a paper at the Royal Society and used to manoeuvre the Society by Royal Warrant into position as the Visitor or Referee for the project and the Observatory. Flamsteed lost control of the work and through more devious developments a catalogue appeared amended by Halley at odds with Flamsteed’s work and greatly offensive to him. The death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I with a new Whig Government changed the world for Flamsteed. He regained control and retrieved 300 unsold copies of what he considered the erroneous Star Catalogues preserving only a few, and consigning the rest to a bonfire at the observatory which he termed ‘a sacrifice to heavenly truth’.

He resumed his work and publishing but his always frail health caught up with him and he died in 1719. His executors were James Hodgson and his wife Margaret Flamsteed and they ensured the publication of the Star Catalogue as Flamsteed wanted it in 1725 and the accompanying Atlas in 1729. At the beginning of the preface to the work they make their purpose clear:

To render the indefatigable labours of Mr Flamsteed as useful and beneficial to mankind as may be, as well as to complete the work already published, it has been judged very necessary by his executors to carry on, and perfect the following sheets, which contain all the constellations visible in our hemisphere, wherein the ancient figures are themselves restored and the stars laid down in their proper places, with the greatest exactness from his last corrected catalogue.

As a book the Atlas is a very useful aid in navigation and was considered to still be of current value when Redmond Barry placed the first order for books for this Library. A copy of Flamsteed’s Celestial Atlas is in the first order and the first catalogue of the Library, a second edition as published in 1781, following Barry’s dictum to acquire ‘the most recent editions of the most authoritative texts.’ The copy you see before you is not this second edition, but a copy of the first edition that came to the Library as part of an extraordinary gift in 1882, and it is not the edition that makes it so important so much as the person who once owned it and turned its pages.

The Argus for Wednesday 25 November 1882 reported the gift on the previous day by the Mayor of Melbourne Alderman Cornelius J. Ham of some significant items to the Library. The first was the Journal kept by John Batman during his exploration of Port Phillip in May and June 1835. Ham had purchased this for £60 from the son-in-law of Batman, William Wiere. The second was a group of items purchased for £20 from a Mrs Ann Elizabeth Smith of 1 Balmoral Terrace, Albert Park. They came with an affidavit attesting to their authenticity, which I shall now read:

I am the widow of the late James Smith, commonly called James Cook Smith, who was born in London in 1813. That James Cook Smith was the son of the late Captain John Smith RN whose services are detailed in volume 12 page 407 of Marshall’s Naval Biography. That Captain Smith was first cousin to Mrs James Cook, the widow of the circumnavigator. That Mrs Cook bequeathed to Captain Smith aforesaid certain pictures, prints, charts and instruments which belonged to the Circumnavigator. That this fact is noted on page 419 of the aforementioned volume of Marshall’s Biography. That on the death of Captain Smith, his relict, Mrs Annie Smith kept them in her possession till her death when by will dated 12th July 1859 she bequeathed these relics to her son James Smith, the husband of the declarant. That Mr James Smith received these relics at the time he was resident in Launceston Tasmania, about June 1865. That they have remained ever since in his possession until his death on the 19th of September 1881, and since that date in the possession of his widow the declarant, from whom they are now purchased for the purpose of being presented to the Public Library and Museum of the Colony of Victoria by C. J. Ham Esquire, the Right Worshipful the Mayor of Melbourne. The above named relics of Captain Cook consist of the following items viz:
(1) Large engraving of the Death of Captain Cook;
(2) Water colour drawing by Webber, artist of the Expedition showing view in Dusky Bay New Zealand;
(3) Water colour drawing of New Zealand War Canoe;
(4) Red chalk drawing of a native of Otaheite;
(5) Red chalk drawing of a native of Malicolo (both by Webber)
(6) A small celestial globe;
(7) The celestial atlas of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal;
(8) A sketch chart of Captain Furneaux’s exploration of the South and East coasts of Tasmania (Van Dieman’s Land) on board HMS Adventure when he was with Cook on the Second Voyage.

Subsequent research by Rudiger Joppien has shown that the water-colours are by William Hodges from the second Voyage, and comparisons with charts in the hand of James Burney who was on the Adventure show that the chart is in his hand.

The Atlas and Globe, here for you to view this evening, are plausibly items that were with Cook on the Endeavour, a voyage whose primary purpose was to observe the Transit of Venus as predicted by Kepler. The detailed observations were to form part of a global effort to use Kepler’s third law as independently derived by Newton to measure accurately the distance of Venus from the Sun so as to accurately establish the distances of other planets, including Earth, on the basis of their orbit, and thus provide greater accuracy in mapping and navigation. Cook was to make his observation from Tahiti where he arrived on April 13 1769.

Cook’s Log for June 3 1769 records the following:

Saturday 3rd. This day proved as favourable to our purpose as we could wish, not a Cloud was to be seen the whole day and the air was perfectly clear, so that we had every advantage we could desire in observing the whole passage of the Planet Venus over the Sun’s disc: We very distinctly saw an atmosphere or dusky shade around the body of the planet which very much disturbed the times of the contacts particularly the two internal ones. Dr Solander observed as well as Mr Green and myself, and we differed from one another in observing the contacts much more than could be expected.

These differences made the measurements useless and were due to the Black Drop Effect, an optical illusion that can only be overcome with instruments far more accurate than those available at the time. Cook’s scientific observation completed, he broke the seals on his second set of orders, and having read them set a course south and west to find the fabled Southern Continent.

We have added a waistcoat that belonged to Cook, purchased from the family in 1945. The Library has other Cook items including 3 sketches by William Webb Ellis from the third voyage donated in 1913 and a leaf from Cook’s Resolution Log presented in 1973 – all testaments to the enduring fascination with the great explorer and the almost religious nature of the dissemination and collecting of his relics.

Reflecting on all of this I was struck by how for all of this story we are tracing the history of placing the Sun at the centre of our piece of the Universe, and how this and the development of Astronomy is so intimately linked with navigation and mapping. Now with artificial satellites around our planet we are once again at the centre and the Global Positioning System can pinpoint accurately our location and lead us by a digital voice to our destination. It seems to me that in one sense we have come full circle, although if we rely solely on GPS we may only know how to get there with no idea of where we are going. Returning the earth to the centre of our understanding of the universe risks perhaps ignoring the Sun, and if that has a consequence maybe Shakespeare is right: "The fault dear Brutus lies not in the Stars but in ourselves…"