Karl Galle

@karlgalle

Historian of science, mostly medieval to early modern astronomy & mathematical arts. Things German, Polish, Egyptian, or hey that looks interesting. Ex public policy + occasional tuba. Copernicus book in progress. Don't get long covid, it sucks.

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Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 22

New open-access book for #MedievalSky on Jewish craftspeople in the European Middle Ages, with chapters on weavers, book binders, metal workers, and more: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi... #HistSTM @dgb-mem.bsky.social

Book cover image for "Jewish Craftspeople in the Middle Ages: Objects, Sources and Materials," edited by Andreas Lehnertz, Maria Stürzebecher, Simha Goldin, and Joseph Isaac Lifshitz.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 21

New Albrecht Dürer volume arrived in the mail, courtesy of the @manchesterup.bsky.social 50% off sale: 🧐 🎨 manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526167606/

My freshly arrived paperback copy of "Albrecht Dürer's Material World," edited by Edward Wouk and Jennifer Spinks, featuring an image on the cover of his engraving commonly referred to as Nemesis.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 18

And of course farther into the city center, there's an astronomical clock that I'm sure really needs @celinecamps.bsky.social to make a research trip there in order to inspect its metal work! 🤔 😆

Overall view of both dials and other rotating figures of the Bern astronomical clock.

Gilded guy with a hammer to swing into the bell of the clock. The metal rod looks like it's supporting him in a rather, um, uncomfortable position.

Main astronomical dial of the clock, with painted figures above (possibly representing the planets?)

Dancing figures to the side of the astronomical dial.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 18

Can confirm -- even on a fairly hazy day when visiting 20 years ago, the water looked amazing.

River view with houses & church tower, the water color looks almost like holiday brochures for the Caribbean.

Another view of the river, tourists (including some of my family) gawping at the river from a bridge over it.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 15

I have Turkmenbashi currency that looks less ridiculous than this. 🧐

Currency bill I got years ago in Turkmenistan, featuring the visage of the country's 1990s to early 2000s dictator, who styled himself Turkmenbashi ("father of all Turkmen"), obsessively renamed things after himself and his family members, and installed numerous giant gold statues of himself in public places.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 13

Includes an extra fancy calligraphic copy of Girolamo Cardano's autobiography, except that the iron gall ink seems to have really done a number eating through the paper. 🧐 digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Bar... #EarlyModern

Screenshot from the first page of the Vatican's digitization of a copy of Girolamo Cardano's autobiography, showing numerous holes in the paper where I'm guessing the acidity of what was probably iron gall ink has eaten through.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 9

"Dr. Yaghi was born in Amman, Jordan, to Palestinian refugees whose one-room home lacked electricity and running water. When he was 15, his father, a butcher, sent him to the United States." "In this century, the émigré fraction for U.S. Nobels in physics, chemistry and medicine now stands at 40%."

Screenshot from the linked article, reading "Dr. Yaghi was born in Amman, Jordan, to Palestinian refugees whose one-room home lacked electricity and running water. Early on, he became fascinated with a schoolbook’s depiction of atomic building blocks. When he was 15, his father, a butcher, sent him to the United States.

Last year, before flying to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize, Dr. Yaghi in an interview with The New York Times voiced concern about Mr. Trump’s immigration policies, saying that they endanger the nation’s system of universities, companies and governments that promote scientific excellence."

$Screenshot of text from the linked article, reading "Last year, three of America’s six winners of science Nobels were born outside the country. In this century, overall, the émigré fraction for U.S. Nobels in physics, chemistry and medicine now stands at 40 percent."$

Screenshot of text from the linked article, reading "He received his Nobel Prize for helping discover a world of chemistry in which molecular building blocks are assembled into structures that possess vast internal surface areas — the largest of any known substance. His porous structures can act like sponges that readily absorb, store and release gases and vapors.

He named them metal-organic frameworks. The metal atoms form an adjustable framework that can hold chemicals associated with life — carbon atoms in particular. While deeply theoretical, the frameworks are so radical, innovative and flexible in nature that materials experts and companies foresee many commercial uses for them.

The frameworks can, for instance, harvest water from desert air. In 2018, Dr. Yaghi’s students at Berkeley tested the idea in the Mojave Desert in California, finding that a small passive harvester could each day produce nearly three cups of pure, drinkable water. The device is now nearing commercialization."

Screenshot of text from the linked article, reading "In the interview with The Times, Dr. Yaghi credited the invention to his boyhood efforts to secure water for his family. The municipal pipes worked for only a few hours every week or two. That hardship, he added, shows how the diverse experiences of émigrés can lead to unexpected breakthroughs."

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 9

van Eyck also features on today's Linda Hall Library "scientist of the day" post, on account of having produced perhaps the earliest known painting that gives a detailed representation of geological strata: www.lindahall.org/about/news/s... #HistSTM #MedievalSky

Screenshot from the linked post, showing a detail from van Eyck's 1430 painting "Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata," showing geologic layers in the background.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 8

This is my favorite of Ortelius's world maps, where he graphically shows how little of the total globe was represented by Ptolemy's geography. (From an old photo I took of the Linda Hall Library's 1592 edition, but I see they've now digitized their copy: catalog.lindahall.org/permalink/01...)

Abraham Ortelius, representation of the entire globe on a flat projection, but with only the sections known by Ptolemy and ancient geographers filled in with a modern color map of the estimated latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates for those lands.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 6

Clip a laptop stand onto this, and you've got yourself a modern academic and/or writers workstation: 🤔 📚

Sample image from the quoted post, showing a woman in a comfy chair with two open books on stands, multiple other closed books on holders, and gas (?) lighting over the books.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 6

This-is-fine.gif 🤷‍♂️

Line graph from the article linked to in the previous skeet, showing that 2026 measles cases as of the beginning of July are already close to end-of-year levels for 2025, which were themselves the highest levels of measles in over three decades.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 3

And let's not forget earlier radio shows as well, e.g. Stan Freberg's history of the U.S., which is even in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry: 🤪 www.loc.gov/programs/nat...

Screenshot of text from the Library of Congress site inducting "Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America" into the National Recording Registry.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 1

In related news, the Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus project in Munich has just released its latest call for visiting fellowships: ptolemaeus.badw.de/jobs Applications due by September 4th, for 1-3 month projects to be undertaken between January and November 2027. #HistSTM #HistAstro #MedievalSky

Opening text from the call for applications, noting that it is hosted by the Bayerishe Akademie der Wissenschaften in Munich, with the overall project running for 25 years from 2013 to 2037.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 1

The complete set of open-access volumes currently available in this series can be downloaded here: www.brepols.net/products?q=$... And additional digital resources from the Alfonsine astronomy research project are here: alfa.hypotheses.org/ressources/d... #HistSTM #HistAstro #MedievalSky

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jul 1

Calling all history of astronomy nerds, the latest open-access book from the Alfonsine Tables project is now available, featuring late medieval tables from Central Europe - Jan of Głogów, Albert of Brudzewo, Johannes Schöner, & many more: 🌞🌒🪐 www.brepols.net/products/IS-... #HistSTM @brepols.net

Book cover image for Alena Hadravová and Petr Hadrava's book, "Tabule resolute: The Central European Type of Alfonsine Tables" (2026)

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jun 28

Whenever you have a moment, I would love a reference to where that quote came from! There's an 1828 Vienna newspaper reference to a Copernicus manuscript that was supposedly saved from a Stockholm grocer (but since lost 😢), and I've been collecting parallel examples from that period. 🙏

Reproduction of a short article from an 1828 issue of the Vienna newspaper "Der Wanderer," stating that someone found a manuscript that Copernicus wrote about a comet and saved it from being turned into paper food wraps by a grocer in Stockholm.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jun 28

We ended up deciding to skip the fresh mango lines and instead had some rather surprisingly good mango & coconut infused beer at the @heurichhouse.bsky.social biergarten. www.crookedrunfermentation.com/beer-wine 🍻

Photo of a can of Crooked Run Fermentation's "Sticky Rice" beer, which is a Berliner Weisse style drink with mango and coconut flavor.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jun 21

Maybe he just wanted to be able to have more fun hamming it up while playing gruff but well-cultured characters? 🤔 🤪

Christopher Plummer as a Klingon in the movie "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Jun 6

The Harvard Bookstore warehouse sale through tomorrow (June 7th) has big discounts on a number of volumes from NYU's Library of Arabic Literature, for folks interested in that series: hbswarehousesale.com/collections/... 📚

Screenshot of book title and description, "The Sword of Ambition: Bureaucratic Rivalry in Medieval Egypt."

Screenshot of book title and description, "Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded"

Screenshot of book title and description, "Arabian Satire: Poetry from the 18th-Century Najd"

Screenshot of book title and description, "The Discourses: Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology and Literature"

Karl Galle@karlgalle· May 7

Wait, so if I dust off my grad school Samuel Edgerton books, I can now get a high-paying job in tech, right? 🧐 🎨 archive.org/details/heri...

Photo of my not too badly beaten up copy of Samuel Edgerton's book "The Heritage of Giotto's Geometry: Art and Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution."

Karl Galle@karlgalle· May 4

The Huntington Library is hosting an online talk on Vesalius by Maarten Van Dyck this Thursday, May 7th at 3:00 p.m. EDT -- "Anatomy in a Courtly Setting: New Light on the Frontispiece of Vesalius' Fabrica" www.chstm.org/events/anato... #HistSTM #EarlyModern

Screenshot from the talk announcement: "The Huntington and Southern California Society for the History of Medicine are delighted to announce our final online talk of the year, which will take place 7 May, noon-1:30pm PT.

We will be hosting Prof. Dr. Maarten Van Dyck, whose talk is entitled “Anatomy in a Courtly Setting. New Light on the Frontispiece of Vesalius’ Fabrica.”

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 30

Medieval history conference on "Schools, Teachers, and Education in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age," this Friday and Saturday, May 1-2, at the University of Arizona and free to attend online via Zoom: sites.arizona.edu/aclassen/202... #MedievalSky

Poster for the conference, with images from medieval education scenes and a conference synopsis.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 29

Is that last illustration a Remedios Varo painting? It reminds me of one of my favorite of her works, currently in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in DC:

Remedios Varo painting "Phenomenon of Weightlessness" -- some abstract globes and armillary-like figures in the background, while in the foreground a lean figure is contemplating a floating terrestrial globe that has tilted the wall of his room to conform with its angle of inclination.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 27

In happier Washington DC news, the new bison statues that were just installed in front of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History are excellent: wapo.st/41WXS1y 🦬 🦬

Front of the Smithsonian natural history museum, two new large bison statues newly installed last month on either side of the stairway approaching the main entrance.

Male bison statue on the left side, turning toward the middle.

Female bison and calf on the right side, looking toward you as you walk up the stairs. Also a bonus glimpse of my shoulder & elbow, with the rest of me thankfully cropped out so you can focus on the bison.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 22

Almost forgot an additional article by Alexander Marr that discusses the Stabius & Dürer print above -- and includes a photo of the original woodblock for the print, which still survives in Vienna's Albertina gallery! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #HistSTM

Reference for Alexander Marr's article, "Ingenuity in Nuremberg: Dürer and Stabius's Instrument Prints," in The Art Bulletin, volume 100, number 3, pages 48-79.

Photo of the woodblock, from page 50 of Marr's article.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 22

And more, more, MORE interactive paper instruments, including discussion of Stabius and Dürer in @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social's magnificent volume, "Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance": brill.com/display/titl... @dgb-mem.bsky.social #HistSTM #EarlyModern

Cover image for Suzanne Karr Schmidt's book, "Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance."

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 22

There is also some additional historical context for this and other paper astronomical instruments by Dürer and Stabius in Darin Hayton's excellent book, "The Crown and the Cosmos": upittpress.org/books/978082... #HistSTM @upittpress.bsky.social

My copy of Darin Hayton's book, "The Crown and the Cosmos: Astrology and the Politics of Maximilian I," with an image of another funky astronomical paper instrument by Johannes Stabius and Albrecht Dürer on the cover. Now available in paperback from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 22

Great thread on this paper astronomical instrument by Johannes Stabius & Albrecht Dürer -- and for anyone interested in how one would actually use this instrument, Rich Kremer had a journal article in Centaurus a few years ago: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #HistSTM

First page of Richard Kremer's article, "Playing with Geometrical Tools: Johannes Stabius's Astrolabium imperatorium (1515) and Its Successors," in the journal Centaurus, volume 58, pages 104-134.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 20

Today's Linda Hall Library "scientist of the day" post is about Pope Leo (no, not that one) XIII and his indirect role in provoking the Freemasons of Rome to construct a memorial to Giordano Bruno in 1889: www.lindahall.org/about/news/s...

Photo of the Giordano Bruno memorial statue in Rome, viewed from the front, with a plaque to Bruno at the bottom and additional plaques around the other sides, as described in the post.

Karl Galle@karlgalle· Apr 18

Really interesting open-access article on a heavily annotated copy of the 1515 edition of Ptolemy's Almagest from Vienna's national library, and its implications for post-Copernican uses & interpretations of ancient astronomical texts: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsnr/article... #HistAstro #HistSTM