August 25–28, 2021: Kassel & Dresden
Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett (Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel) & Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden) in Cooperation with ALFA—Shaping a European Scientific Scene: Alfonsine Astronomy (ERC/CRNS)
Org: Michael Korey, Samuel Gessner, Matthieu Husson
PROGRAM
Thursday, August 26:
19:30 SESSION 0: Setting the Stage – An Introduction to Renaissance Planetary Automata
- Speakers: Karsten Gaulke, Samuel Gessner, Michael Korey
Friday, August 27: Sessions 1-3
Hessisches Landesmuseum, Brüder-Grimm-Platz 5, 34117 Kassel
9:00 SESSION 1: Universities, printing houses, and artisanal workshops: characterizing astronomical milieus in early modern Europe (Moderator: Michael Shank)
- Matthieu Husson, The Parisian arts faculty as a milieu for Alfonsine astronomy: a research hypothesis on the genealogy of the ‘contratabula’ format
- Matteo Valleriani, The academic book market in the field of astronomy: Local and global rules
- Giorgio Strano, Learned and unlearned craftsmen: The challenge of reconstructing mechanisms from texts
10:30 Coffee Break
11:00 SESSION 2: The ‘Deus ex Machina’ research project: new findings on mechanisms, celestial observations, and manuscripts linked to the planetary clocks made in Kassel (Moderator: Stephen Johnston)
- Speakers: Karsten Gaulke, Samuel Gessner, Michael Korey
13:00 Lunch
14:00 SESSION 3: Horoscopes in view: multiple media to represent computational procedures, access astrological information, and publicly display heavenly movements (Moderator: Bruce Moran)
- Marisa Addomine, Monumental public display of astrological data
- Günther Oestmann, Corpus thematum genethliacorum: On horoscope collections of the early modern period
- Nick Jacobson, Conrad Heingarter’s manuscript notes for using planetary latitudes in astrological practice
Saturday, August 28: Sessions 4-6
10:45 SESSION 4: Ph.D. Pitch Session (Moderator: Petra Schmidl)
- Camille Bui, Planetary latitudes in Alfonsine astronomy: tables and canons
- Razieh-Sadat Mousavi, A ninth-century study aid for Ptolemaic astronomy: Al-Farghani’s ‘Elements of Astronomy’ in text and context
- Inês Costa, Lunar mansions in 15th-century navigation of the Indian Ocean
11:30 SESSION 5: The coherence of the heavens: alternative geometrical and calculational models (Moderator: James Evans)
- Rich Kremer, The temptation of bi-epicyclism: Was Poulle correct in dismissing the Stams astronomical table as a Ptolemaic failure?
- Stefan Zieme, Equations of time in Alfonsine astronomy
- Hamid Bohloul, Kāshānī’s two favorite equatoria: multipurpose or ideal instruments?