Glaire Anderson, University of North Carolina, “A Muslim Daedalus: Caliphal Science & Design”

Glaire Anderson, University of North Carolina, “A Muslim Daedalus: Caliphal Science & Design”

Texts and material evidence together shed light on scientists as designers and intellectuals in Islamic Spain. I explore the symbiotic relationship between art and science revealed by Ibn Firnas’ career and attested in early Arabic texts and scientific objects. Close visual readings of the following objects will be key to my arguments: in the National Museum, Edinburgh, an 11th c. astrolabe bearing the signature of Cordoban astronomer Muhammad ibn al-Saffâr (Mus. Nu. T.1959.62); in the Museum of History of Science, Oxford, a 9th c. astrolabe signed by the celebrated instrument maker Khafif (Billmeir Collection, 1957-84/155), which is a rare example of a fine precision instrument from Ibn Firnas’ era; also in Oxford, a second 11th c. astrolabe bearing the signature of the Cordoban mathematician and astronomer al-Sahli (Lewis Evans Collection, 1924-0/55331); in the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence the Anonymi Tractatus de Mechanicis (Orientali 152b) composed by the 11th c. engineer al-Muradi, which is the earliest illustrated engineering treatise from Islamic Spain. Its text and illustrations attest to an Iberian tradition of large, powerful mechanical devices that underpins Ibn Firnas’ water clock and the planetarium. 

Co-sponsored by the Departments of History of Art, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Spanish and Portuguese at Penn, and the Middle East Center