Journal for the History of Astronomy

The Magliabechiana collection of the National Central Library in Florence preserves a copy of the Almagest, printed in Basel in 1551, that is densely annotated (BNCF, Magl. 5.1.133). The purpose of this article is to set out the full range of evidence—paleographical as well as textual and contextual—demonstrating that Galileo Galilei was the annotator. It is likely that the majority of the annotations were written by Galileo before he moved to Padua in 1592. An Appendix to the article includes a transcription and an English translation of an extensive annotation on Chapter 7 of Book V of the Almagest, illustrating the technical nature of the marginalia.

This article uses a combination of biographical and situational factors, close textual analysis, and comparison with contemporaneous publications to illuminate the understudied formative phase of Soviet SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). I examine Iosif Shklovsky’s professional biography and the first Soviet SETI publication, his 1960 article, “Is Communication with Intelligent Beings of Other Planets Possible?” My research situates Shklovsky’s exploration of extraterrestrial intelligence within his broader scientific background and intellectual interests before offering a critical reconstruction of the article’s central arguments. It demonstrates how, through an examination of the evolution of matter in the Universe, Shklovsky framed intelligence and communication within a radio-astronomy-informed cosmology. Communication with other beings via electromagnetic radiation became integral to what SETI and astronomy historian Steven J. Dick later termed the “biological Universe.” I argue that the scientific characteristics Shklovsky articulated effectively naturalized the possibility of extraterrestrial radio communication. Last, I analyze this process of naturalization in the early 1960s Soviet SETI.

This article examines a 3.5-foot transit instrument crafted by John Bird and used at the Stockholm Observatory in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It argues that the instrument functioned not as an isolated precision device but as part of an interconnected operating chain comprising regulator clocks, calibration tools, architectural infrastructure and established observational routines. By tracing its acquisition, installation and daily use, the study shows how precision in meridian astronomy – particularly in time determination – was achieved through the continual stabilisation of a fragile and labour-intensive system.

This article discusses a hitherto unknown unsigned early European astrolabe kept at the Liceo Classico Alighieri in Ravenna. The astrolabe was made in Toulouse in 1216 and later seems to have been moved to Ravenna. Our investigations of the lettering, the design features, and the stars on the rete of the astrolabe show that the instrument was modelled on an Andalusian model dating to the last quarter of the 11th century.