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The Limits of Pictures

Cognitive Functions of Images in Practical Mechanics — 1400 to 1600

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The Power of Images in Early Modern Science

Abstract

The images that are subject of this essay pertain to the realm of engineering in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. That is the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, the time of technical treatises like Georg Agricola’s De re metallica with its telling illustrations, and the time of the famous Theatri machinarum. These last works in particular, with their rich collections of splendid and suggestive images, tempt one to focus on their rhetorical resourcefulness and power. This essay, however, will neither inquire into this aspect of these images nor examine them as documents of the technology and techniques of that age. Rather it is concerned with the cognitive functions which these graphical representations may have had for engineers and technicians in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

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Authors
  1. Wolfgang Lefèvre
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Wilhelmstr. 44, D-10117, Berlin, Germany

    Wolfgang Lefèvre , Jürgen Renn  & Urs Schoepflin ,  & 

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Lefèvre, W. (2003). The Limits of Pictures. In: Lefèvre, W., Renn, J., Schoepflin, U. (eds) The Power of Images in Early Modern Science. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8099-2_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8099-2_4

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7643-2434-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-0348-8099-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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