Last week, I wrote a piece on Forbes.com about UNESCO’s International Year of Astronomy (link), which kicked off in January. In it, I mentioned the “Galileo: Images of the Universe From Antiquity to the Telescope” exhibition opening this month at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
I particularly like shows like this, exhibitions that link two disciplines, because they attract both audiences, in this case, people who are interested in either science or art.
Americans, I’ve been told by experts in arts participation, often favor one discipline — always attending the symphony for example but rarely going to an art museum, and vice versa.
At times like this, when cultural institutions are seeking to broaden their bases, cross-disciplinary shows are a good model.
My Forbes article was by no means a comprehensive roundup of all activities during the International Year of Astronomy. But afterwards I learned of a show like the one at the Palazzo Strozzi much closer to home. On April 4, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia will open “Galileo, Medici and the Age of Astronomy,” which — judging from its website — also looks great. Alongside Galileo’s gear, there’ll be art and artifacts from the Medici family.
Here are two samples, both borrowed from the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence: at right is a polyhedral sundial, with nine faces all telling the same time no matter which face is used, from 1587; below is a cylindrical sundial, whose horizontal brass arm marks time on the cylinder, from 1574-1587. From afar, they look like works of art.
I thought there was going to be another example of this in last Sunday’s New York Times, when I saw the City section’s article about “birding in a museum.” It put me in mind of a little tour at the Metropolitan Museum I had a few years ago: New York Audubon, with the Met, escorted bird-lovers around the collection, picking out and explaining images of birds from antiquity through the present. It was charming.
Some of the hard-core birders present had probably not set foot in the Met before. But I bet they’ve been back.
The City section’s story, by the way, was about an Audubon water color show at the New-York Historical Society — not quite the same thing, but no doubt a good exhibition anyway.
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