Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.16410

    Ancient lyre and a tortoise

    Date
    1701
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p82
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (paper): 300mm
    width (paper): 192mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    An ancient lyre copied from Marin Mersenne's Harmonie Universelle (1636), and a tortoise copied from Jan Jonston's Historiae Naturalis de Quadrupedibus Libri [1652?], in order to explain an obscure passage in Horace's Odes.
    Transcription
    at the top: '(16)'. Above the drawing of the Lyra: Fig. 1a Lyra sive Testudo Antiqua; above the drawing of the tortoise: Fig. 2a Testudo Aquatica Johnstoni
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    T. Molyneux, 'Some Thoughts concerning the Ancient Greek and Roman Lyre, and an Explanation of an Obscure Passage in One of Horace's Odes', Phil. Trans., no. 282 (1702), p. 1275 explains that the first figure was copied from Marin Mersenne's De instrumentis [i.e. Harmonie Universelle], book 1, p. 7 (which in turn was copied from a gem) and the second figure from Jan Jonston, De animalibus, tab. 18, de quadripedibus [i.e. Historia Naturalis de Quadrupedibus Libri].
    Related fellows
    Thomas Molyneux (1661 - 1733, Irish) , Physician
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline