A 16th-Century Astrolabe Positioned Under a Lucky Star
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This astrolabe weaves its golden thread on the roads of Renaissance Europe and expands the very limited corpus of Michael Piquer's instruments. The winds should be favorable. European gilt brass astrolabe attributed to Michael Piquer, dated 1543, diam. 19.1 cm/7.5 in, h. 21.3 cm/ 8.3 in (without ring), thickness: 0.9 cm/0.35 in.Estimate: €80,000/100,000 A rete, mater, plate, limb, womb, alidade, throne... but what are these things exactly? In fact, it is the vocabulary used by scientists to define the elements of an astrolabe, a calculating instrument invented by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2nd century BCE, to establish the
