For millennia, scientists and scholars have sought to understand their place in the universe, so they looked up — to the stars.
A new exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City tells the story of how our astronomical knowledge developed in pursuit of greater meaning. Much of it was only possible due to cross-cultural exchange.
Take one of the books on display, for example: a first edition of Nicolas Copernicus's "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium," printed in 1543. It's the work that first proposed that the Earth orbits the sun, not the other way around. That theory was only possible because of centuries of science by Muslim scientists, whose works were collected and translated in Spain in the 13th century.
"The knowledge of Rome and Greece was preserved and added to in the Islamic world, and then that knowledge was brought back at the beginning of what became the renaissance in Europe, and helped fuel this re examination of what we knew about the natural world in the skies at night," Jason Dean, vice president for collections and public services at the Linda Hall Library, told KCUR's Up To Date.
"Mapping the Heavens" will be on display at the Nelson-Atkins until January 2026. The exhibit is free.
- Kim Masteller, Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
- Jason Dean, Vice President for Collections and Public Services, Linda Hall Library
- Finch Collins, Assistant Curator of Rare Books, Linda Hall Library
