Review by Choice Review
Freedberg (art history, Columbia Univ.) tells the story of Federico Cesi (1585-1630), a Roman aristocrat who served as a major patron and supporter of Galileo and who founded in 1603 an early scientific academy, the Lincei. This group was named for the proverbially keen-eyed wildcat the lynx, and Freedberg splendidly demonstrates how new discoveries in natural history through the inverted telescope, or microscope, paralleled new visual discoveries in the heavens associated with Galileo. In the early 17th century, Freedberg writes, "botany and astronomy went intensely hand in hand." Cesi and his team of international researchers made important advances in the study of plants and fossils, advances recorded in printed illustrations and especially in watercolor images (many at Windsor Castle) that Freedberg studied for the first time. The book offers wonderful (mostly color) reproductions of these drawings. This book is that rare thing, a major work of intellectual history that is as lovely to leaf through as a coffee-table book. Classified as natural history and including very full notes and bibliography, this book will instruct and delight those interested in early-17th-century science, literature, philology, and art. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. E. D. Hill Mount Holyoke College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
