The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History [Paperback]

David Freedberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0226261484 | ISBN-13: 978-0226261485 | Edition: First Edition, Second Impression

Years ago, David Freedberg stumbled across a group of drawings by the little-known Academy of Linceans, a seventeenth-century Italian group that took as its task nothing less than the pictorial documentation of all of nature. Moving across Europe, he encountered thousands of such drawings—of fossils, the species of the New World, or the heavenly bodies studied by the group's most famous member, Galileo Galilei. Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, this book reveals this crucial moment in the development of natural history.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Years ago, David Freedberg stumbled across a group of drawings by the little-known Academy of Linceans, a seventeenth-century Italian group that took as its task nothing less than the pictorial documentation of all of nature. Moving across Europe, he encountered thousands of such drawings—of fossils, the species of the New World, or the heavenly bodies studied by the group's most famous member, Galileo Galilei. Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, this book reveals this crucial moment in the development of natural history.

About the Author

David Freedberg is a professor of art history and director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. His books include The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, also published by the University of Chicago Press; The Prints of Bruegel the Elder; Art in History, History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture (with Jan de Vries); Rubens: The Life of Christ after the Passion; and Dutch Landscape Prints of the Seventeenth Century.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; First Edition, Second Impression edition (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226261484
• ISBN-13: 978-0226261485
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous book, December 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (Hardcover)

This book, by David Freedberg, tells the fascinating story of Freedberg's discovery, on a tip from the notorious spy and brilliant art historian Anthony Blunt, of a group of amazing antique drawings stashed away in an obscure cupboard in Windsor Castle. The images, gracefully drawn and beautifully colored, depicted a bizarre range of flora and fauna: deformed lemons with claw-like legs, flamingoes, dramatic portraits of badger faces, strange plants...

The discovery marked the beginning of a great adventure told in the book--of Freedberg's search for and discovery of the source of the drawings: a 17th-century gang of noblemen and eccentrics based largely in Rome who took as their mission nothing less than the discovery, analysis, and visual record of all natural knowledge. They called themselves the Accademia Lincea, or Academy of Lynxes. This was the age of Galileo, who was in fact a member, and whose work the Lincea edited and published. With the aid of microscopes, telescopes, and other instruments, the Lincea and their peers began to develop a picture of the natural world in all its details that profoundly challenged traditional views of Heaven and Earth, supported by the Roman Catholic Church.

Freedberg's manner is at once learned and accessible. He tells a gripping story of a group of fascinating characters, some brilliant, some insane, and their grand projects, including a decidedly obsessive interest in bees. Lavishly illustrated in color and black-and-white, this is surely one of the most attractive, novel, and important works of history this year.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST-HAVE FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN SCIENCE AND ITS HISTORY, December 18, 2002

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (Hardcover)

Rich in breathtakingly beautiful illustrations (83 color plates, 89 halftones) "The Eye of the Lynx" is a must-have for those with a penchant for science and its history.

We are told that author Freedberg, an art history professor and director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, once happened upon a neglected cupboard in Windsor Castle holding hundreds of intricately precise drawings of plants and animals dating from the Old and New Worlds. He was acting on the word of Anthony Blount, an art historian and British spy. These drawings had been hidden and forgotten since the days of King George III.

Later, after coming across countless more throughout Europe, Freedberg discovered their provenance - a small 17th century scientific group. Based in Italy it was called the Academy of Linceans for Lynx-eyed.

This optimistic organization set as their goal the representation of all nature in pictures. The mighty task of the Linceans is recounted for the first time in English in this wondrous book. They, unlike their predecessors, focused on internal structures rather than external appearances.

For its time, one of the most outre ideas proposed by the Linceans was the microscope. They simply turned Galileo's telescope around and exposed a once invisible world.

Freedberg has rendered an enormous service in bringing to light this integral portion of the development of visuals as related to natural history.

- Gail Cooke