13.2019820 Manseau reproduction of Galileo’s telescopes & their 17th-century display stand

On 01 Apr, 2020 By rosenfel@chass....

catalogue number: 13.2019820;
name of artifact: Manseau reproduction of Galileo’s telescopes & their 17th-century display stand, now at the Museo Galileo, Florence;
date of production: 2009;
materials of manufacture: Optical glass, wood, textile, “Carrara” marble, paint;
maker: Réal Manseau, Drummondville QC;
provenance: purchased from Réal Manseau;
condition: excellent condition;
notes:
1. the original telescopes and separate O.G. attributed to Galileo 1609-1610, were set into a monstrance-like display stand by Vittorio Crosten (fl. 1663-1704) in 1677 for the Medici;
2. the maker of this artifact stated that these reproductions were intentionally optically poor (i.e., they do not reproduce the performance of the originals, and therefore that this reproduction is solely for display, rather than field use);
comparanda: originals: inv. 2427 telescope attributed to Galileo, inv. 2428 telescope attributed to Galileo, inv. 2429 O.G. attributed to Galileo set in the Crosten plaque;
literature:
- Albert van Helden, Catalogue of Early Telescopes, Istituto e museo di storia della scienza [now the Museo Galileo], Cataloghi di raccolte scientifiche 4 (Florence: Istituto e museo di storia della scienza, 1999), pp. 13-14, 30-33.
- Inga Elmqvist Söderlund, Taking Possession of Astronomy: Frontispieces and Illustrated Title Pages in 17th-Century Books on Astronomy (Stockholm: The Center for History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2010), pp. 122-127.