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From Emblems to Diagrams: Kepler's New Pictorial Language of Scientific Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Raz Chen-Morris
Raz Chen-Morris*
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University and The University of Sydney
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Abstract

Kepler's treatise on optics of 1604 furnished, along with technical solutions to problems in medieval perspective, a new mathematically-based visual language for the observation of nature. This language, based on Kepler's theory of retinal pictures, ascribed a new role to geometrical diagrams. This paper examines Kepler's pictorial language against the backdrop of alchemical emblems that flourished in and around the court of Rudolf II in Prague. It highlights the cultural context in which Kepler's optics was immersed, and the way in which Kepler attempted to demarcate his new science from other modes of the investigation of nature.

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Research Article
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Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , Spring 2009 , pp. 134 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Renaissance Society of America

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