VISUAL COMMUNICATION HISTORY BLOG

Flamsteed was born into a prosperous family and was largely self taught as he did not attend University due to poor health. His extensive studies in astronomy resulted in his being appointed the first Astronomer Royal by King Charles II, with the Royal Observatory at Greenwich being built for him to continue his observations of the heavens. Flamsteed was the first astronomer to sight Uranus in 1690, naming it 34 Tauri, as he believed it to be …

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Engraving by D. Loggan, 1663, after W. Hollar. Wellcome Collection https://marinni.livejournal.com/491199.html

Published over the course of more than twenty years (1751-1777), the 32 volumes of the Encyclopédie include 21 volumes of text with more than 70,000 articles on subjects ranging from asparagus to the zodiac. The remaining 11 volumes contain beautifully engraved plates illustrating many of the articles. The Encyclopédie was the major achievement of the French Enlightenment whose aim, in Diderot's words, was to "change the common way of t…