Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15484

    Saturn and Jupiter

    Date
    4 January 1665
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p1
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (page): 280mm
    width (page): 205mm
    Subject
    Content object
    space
       > Solar system
          > planet
             > Saturn
    space
       > Solar system
          > planet
             > Jupiter
    Description
    Title page of Eminentissimo Principi Flavio Chisio S. R. E. Cardinali. Quod in Saturno et Ioue Vitreis Lentibus Torno a se nuper inuento formatis deprehendit. Et Romae primus oculis spectandum exhibuit Joseph Campanus. Obsequii et observantiae argumentum DD. The engraving shows observations by Giuseppe Campani, astronomer and instrument-maker, of the ring of Saturn and the satellites of Jupiter.

    This pamphlet was donated to the Royal Society on 4 January 1665 by Francis Willughby, who had just returned from his Continental tour.

    In 1663, Giussepe Campani observed Saturn as a central globe surrounded by a ring, which he published as Ragguaglio di due nuove osservazioni (1664). Adrian Auzout agreed that there was a shadow on the lower part, but objected to the continuous dark band on the interior edge of the ring at the top of the of figure. Auzout expressed his objections in his Lettre à M. l’Abbé Charles (1665). Campani had in fact observed what is now known as the crêpe ring of Saturn (see Albert Van Helden, 'Annulo Cingitur: The Solution of the Problem of Saturn', Journal of the History of Astronomy, 5 (1974), 155-74 (pp. 167-68)).

    Related images can be found at LBO/1/186, LBO/1/325a, EL/H1/35/005 and EL/H1/36/004.
    Transcription
    On the reverse, in ink: For Francis Willughby. Romae Authoris domum 28 Sept. 1664. produced Jan: 4: 64. Casssinus of Bologna.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 4 January 1665, ‘Mr. Francis Willughby being come home from his travels, and present, was desired to communicate his philosophical observations made abroad. He produced a printed cut representing Saturn and Jupiter, and what Campani had lately observed in them by the means of his new glasses, wrought by a turn-tool without a mold, viz. that July 30 h. 2 ½ noctis, he had seen in one of the black belts of Jupiter two blacker spots, moving therein, which Signior Cassini had first given him notice of, conceiving them to be the shadows of the Satellites, which he had seen come out of the western disk of the planet. Mr. Willughby was desired to communicate to the society, at the next meeting, the other observations and collections, which he had made in his travels’ (Birch 2:3).
    Related fellows
    Francis Willughby (1635 - 1672, British) , Naturalist
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Italy
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