Manipulating the Sun:
Picturing Astronomical Miracles from the Bible in the Early Modern Era

The workshop is organized by the research project Iconography of the Imagery on Early Modern Scientific Instruments (funded by the German Research Foundation, DFG)

One of the aspects that will be analysed in the project is biblical imagery that could be related to astronomy. Of particular interest is imagery that was used to argue against the Copernican system from the mid-16th century such as the miracles of the Sun reversing its course in II Kings 20:8-11/Isaiah 38:8 (Horologium Ahas) and the Sun standing still in Joshua 10:12.

The workshop aims at discussing these two passages – e.g. the development of the imagery (for instance in Bible illustrations, religious art, etc.), their genesis as anti-Copernican arguments (in text and image), their reception, their various cultural layers, etc. – in a workshop from a broad perspective with a certain focus, however, on the history of art and the history of science in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Attendance is free of charge. Please send an e-mail for registration until 10 August 2019 to jellinghausuni-wuppertal.de or remmertuni-wuppertal.de


PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

14:00-14:15
Julia Ellinghaus/Volker Remmert, Wuppertal: Welcome

14:15-15:00
Volker Remmert: Introduction

15:00-17:15
THE HOROLOGIUM AHAZ IN EARLY MODERN SCIENCE

Henrique Leitão (Universidade de Lisboa): A Mathematical Explanation of Horologium Ahas? Science and Exegesis of the Retrogradation of Shadows

15:50-16:20
Coffee break

Brent Purkaple (University of Oklahoma): The Optics of Ahaz’s Sundial within the Optical Literature of the Jesuit Order

17:15-18:00
JOSUA STOPPING THE SUN

Evonne Levy (University of Toronto): Joshua Stopping the Sun in the Gesù of Rome

19:00
Dinner


Thursday, August 22, 2019

09:00-11:50
ICONOGRAPHIC CONTEXTS

Azucena Hernández (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): The Sun Reverses its Course in front of an Impossible Solar Eclipse: the Frescoes on the Library of the Royal Site of El Escorial

Walter S. Melion (Emory University): The Prayer of Joshua and the Dial of Achaz: Paratactic Scriptural Illustration in the De Keyser, Vorsterman, and Van Liesveldt Bibles

10:40-11:00
Coffee break

11:00-11:50
Open session: Images of the Sun Reversing its Course in II Kings 20:8-11/Isaiah 38:8 (Horologium Ahas) and the Sun Standing Still in Joshua 10:12

11:50-16:10
INSTRUMENTS

Andrew Morrall (Bard Graduate Center, New York): Christoph Schissler’s Horologium Ahaz Hydrographicum as Kunststück

12:40-14:00
Lunch

Susanne Thürigen (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden): Pointing it out: Miracles of the Sun in Hans Gruber’s Astronomical Table Clock of 1583

14:50-15:20
Coffee break

Denis Ribouillault (Université de Montreal): The Marvellous Staircases of Villa Pratolino “il celeste palazzo del sole”

16:10-16:30
CONCLUSIONS