Pierre Gassendi, 'Institutio Astronomica' (1683)

Full Title: Pierre Gassendi, Institutio Astronomica (London, 1683)

The first telescopic observations of the night sky were made in 1608, a few years after Browne’s birth. Galileo (1564–1642) used his telescope to study the Moon, and images of what he saw were published in his Sidereus Nuncius (‘Starry Messenger’) in 1610. Browne owned a copy of this text, shown here reprinted as part of a late 17^th-century astronomical textbook.