ABSTRACT

Our discussion of Niccolò Tornioli's The Astronomers questions some of the traditional identifications of its characters, although we cannot claim to have solved these figures’ identities and several remain a mystery. We do present new iconographic interpretations of particular scientific instruments, diagrams, and natural phenomena in the canvas. These novel readings occasionally remain conjectural in part because Tornioli represents these entities in a way that makes it clear that he did not fully comprehend them. The errors and obscurities in Tornioli’s painting lead us to two conclusions. First, that his erudite patron Virgilio Spada was unlikely to have been involved in the definition of the painting’s iconographies, as he would have objected to Tornioli’s crass mistakes and obscure imagery. Second, that these errors and indistinct details should be taken at face value, insofar as they accentuate the difficulties of astronomical observation. Beyond highlighting these challenges, we argue that the painting also visualizes techniques for countering them. Specifically, the canvas would have focused early modern observers’ attention on the edifying powers of civil conversations and communal observations with scientific instruments as well as images—including diagrams, celestial maps, and paintings.

摘要

我们对 Niccolò Tornioli 的《天文学家》的讨论质疑其人物的一些传统识别，尽管我们不能声称已经解决了这些人物的身份，而且有几个仍然是个谜。我们确实在画布中呈现了对特定科学仪器、图表和自然现象的新图像解释。这些新奇的解读有时仍然是推测性的，部分原因是托尼奥利以一种明确表示他没有完全理解这些实体的方式来表现这些实体。Tornioli 绘画中的错误和晦涩使我们得出两个结论。首先，他博学的赞助人 Virgilio Spada 不太可能参与定义这幅画的肖像画，因为他会反对 Tornioli 的严重错误和晦涩的图像。其次，这些错误和模糊的细节应该从表面上看，因为它们加重了天文观测的困难。除了强调这些挑战之外，我们认为这幅画还形象化了应对挑战的技术。具体来说，画布会将早期现代观察者的注意力集中在使用科学仪器和图像（包括图表、天体图和绘画）进行的民间对话和公共观察的启发性力量上。