The Visual Apparatus of the Sphaera Corpus

The Sphaera Corpus comprises 359 editions of early modern textbooks on geocentric cosmology. In our presentation we will focus on the visual apparatus of these books, in particular the scientific illustrations (ca. 20.000) contained therein. We present and discuss the deep learning methods by means of which we have been able to extract the illustrations and to analyze them for similarity. This computational analysis is instrumental in our historical research concerned with the evolution of a specific scientific visual language in the early modern period. We in particular aim to achieve a better understanding of the past uses of scientific illustrations as well as of the different ways in which cosmological content was understood, applied, taught, and socially conceived in the early modern period.

Date et l’heure : mardi 7 decembre, de 12:15h à 14h (heure de Paris)

Lieu : la salle de conférences du Centre Sciences des Données à l’ENS (45 rue d’Ulm, escalier B, 3e étage)

Zoom : https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/96966157448?pwd=TzRmNHJCTWplZCtyTFVjREFtUExzdz09

Meeting ID: 969 6615 7448
Passcode: qHxQ9n