The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his friends, and the beginnings of Modern Natural History

by David Freedberg

Some years ago, David Freedberg opened a dusty cupboard at Windsor Castle and discovered hundreds of vividly colored, masterfully precise drawings of all sorts of plants and animals from the Old and New Worlds. Coming upon thousands more drawings like them across Europe, Freedberg finally traced them all back to a little-known scientific organization from seventeenth-century Italy called the Academy of Linceans (or Lynxes).

Founded by Prince Federico Cesi in 1603, the Linceans took as their task nothing less than the documentation and classification of all of nature in pictorial form. In this first book-length study of the Linceans to appear in English, Freedberg focuses especially on their unprecedented use of drawings based on microscopic observation and other new techniques of visualization. Where previous thinkers had classified objects based mainly on similarities of external appearance, the Linceans instead turned increasingly to sectioning, dissection, and observation of internal structures. They applied their new research techniques to an incredible variety of subjects, from the objects in the heavens studied by their most famous (and infamous) member Galileo Galilei—whom they supported at the most critical moments of his career—to the flora and fauna of Mexico, bees, fossils, and the reproduction of plants and fungi. But by demonstrating the inadequacy of surface structures for ordering the world, the Linceans unwittingly planted the seeds for the demise of their own favorite method—visual description-as a mode of scientific classification.

Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, Eye of the Lynx uncovers a crucial episode in the development of visual representation and natural history. And perhaps as important, it offers readers a dazzling array of early modern drawings, from magnificently depicted birds and flowers to frogs in amber, monstrously misshapen citrus fruits, and more.

Genres: History, Science, Art, Nonfiction, History Of Science

528 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2002

About the author

David Freedberg is Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art and Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, USA. Since July 2015 he has also been Director of the Warburg Institute at the University of London.

Reviews

[Lette Hass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todavía queda mucho que investigar sobre la fascinante personalidad de Federico Cesi. Este libro es toda una puerta abrieta hacia la circulación de objetos y libros durante la primer modernidad. Cesi llega a Nápoles en 1604 y lo más probable es que sería durante dicha visita que escucha hablar de un manuscrito que cambiartía su vida --y la nuestra--, nada menos que la Historia Natural de Francisco Hernández realizada por encargo de Felipe II. La extraña historia de los manuscritos y las famosas ilustraciones todavía no es clara. El recuento de Freedberg es muy valioso, no solo por el destino de la obra de Hernández, sino por el papel que jugó Cesi y su "Academy of Linceans" en la publicación de la misma.

[Jawrsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, this book deals largely with the society of Linceans and Galileo's primary patron. Foucauldian, though a little less convinced of breaks in epistemes. Fascinating for the right person, incredibly dull if not.

[Alexis Kaelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice take on the Lynceans, from an artistic/scientific viewpoint. Way too many exclamation points in the beginning chapters, though. The illustrations were a lovely and necessary addition.

[Mira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sort of skipped around this big-ass book and didn't totally finish it. It is a beautiful and well-researched illustrated book for natural history/early science geeks like myself.

[Michael Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the telescope and the microscope, and a small window of freedom to explore, the story of Galileo and friends looking, describing, drawing, painting -- science and art together.

[Jared · Rating 2 out of 5]

Awesome illustrations and interesting topic... But with almost all of the life sucked out of it. A slog.