Nasmyth, James Hall, James Carpenter. The Moon : Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite. 2nd ed. London: John Murray, 1874.

The Face of the Moon: Galileo to Apollo

An Exhibition of Rare Books and Maps

1610-1700

Galilei, Galileo (1564-1642).

Sidereus nuncius. – Venice: apud Thomam Baglionum, 1610

Several lunar features are quite recognizable in this engraving, the second in the series, based on a sketch made on December 3, 1609. The mountains east of Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) form the ring at the top, and the sizable crater at the bottom is probably Albategnius, here quite a bit larger than life, and undoubtedly conveying by its grandeur the impression it made on Galileo's mind. Image source: Galilei, Galileo. Sidereus Nuncius. Venice: apud Thomam Baglionum, 1610, leaf 9 verso.

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The modern face of the moon first emerged in the early evening of November 30, 1609, when Galileo Galilei in Padua turned his telescope toward the moon, noted the irregularities of the crescent face, and made a drawing to record his discoveries. He made at least five more drawings of the moon over the next eighteen days, prepared careful watercolor sketches from these drawings, and then selected four of these to be engraved for his revolutionary Starry Messenger, which appeared the following March. Galileo's treatise announced to an astonished public that the moon was a cratered chunk of elements --a world -- and not some globe of quintessential perfection. It was a new land, to be explored, charted, and named. The science of selenography was born.

Sidereus nuncius. – Frankfurt: in Paltheniano, 1610.

Galileo's sensational pamphlet quickly reached Germany, where it was reissued in a pirated edition in Frankfurt. In the haste of this surreptitious enterprise, little time or expense was devoted to copying Galileo's careful lunar engravings. Consequently, the Frankfurt edition contains woodcuts, not engravings, much less skillfully executed than the original illustrations. Even worse, the woodcuts are improperly oriented and identified.

None of this would be worth mentioning, except that the Frankfurt woodcuts were the source for the illustrations in most of the later editions of the Sidereus Nuncius, and in many moon handbooks right up to the present day. This has led unwary scholars, who fail to consult the first edition, unfairly to deprecate the Galileo images as crude and unrealistic.

In the original edition, this page had two lunar engravings: the upper one showed the moon just before third quarter, and the lower one recorded the moon a day later. Here we have two woodcut copies of those engravings, but the order has been reversed, and both woodcuts have been printed upside down, so that the large crater is now at the top and Mare Imbrium is at the bottom. Image source: Galilei, Galileo. Sidereus, nuncius. Frankfurt: in Paltheniano, 1610, p. [18].

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