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An accident of lighting uncovers origins of the astrolabe
An accident of lighting uncovers Jewish, European, and Islamic origins.
Gigante had traveled all the way to the northern Italian city of Verona from Cambridge to take a closer look at the astrolabe—which, like today’s smartphones, were portable devices used in the Middle Ages for timekeeping, date keeping, and wayfinding. Together, the many layers of markings she found suggest the ornate brass instrument, held at the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzoa, was probably crafted in the city of Toledo, Spain in the 11th century, and likely changed hands at least six times between Islamic, Christian, and Jewish owners. The Hebrew inscriptions and numerals scratched in Latin characters suggest the instrument was being recalibrated for a different place at a different time—possibly because the “procession of the equinoxes,” whereby the stars slowly change their annual positions over centuries, had rendered it out-of-date.
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