Astronomical Images : Dryander's astronomical rings

Johann Dryander

Astronomical Images

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Johann Dryander (1500-1560) was an anatomist and physician as well as a mathematician and astronomer. He taught for a time at Paris and performed several dissections there, before being appointed Professor of Medicine and Mathematics at the University of Marburg in 1535. His astronomical publications, which include a work on astrolabes, as well as this treatise on astronomical rings, suggest that he was interested in the practical aspects of astronomy. The astronomical rings consist of three rings fashioned into one instrument. The instrument was invented by Gemma Frisius, who published a work on the rings in 1534, and so is sometimes known as Gemma's rings. The instrument could be used to tell the time and had the advantage that no further instruments were used to orientate it, since the meridian could be identified as the line of orientation at which the shadows of the instrument's rings align. It also had applications in surveying. Around two thirds of Dryander's work was devoted to describing the parts of his new version of the instrument and its markings, and there was a lengthy section on measuring the heights of objects. Following this section came a series of short treatises on different forms of the rings, listed on the <i>verso</i> of the title page, so that the whole work acted as a comprehensive guide to astronomical rings of all sorts. This page shows the form of the instrument that Dryander proposed in the first part of the work. By listing the existing treatises that he had collected alongside the image of his own instrument, Dryander lent this new device an air of authority. The instrument depicted here looks superficially very similar to the surviving rings made by Gualterus Arsenius (Museum of History of Science, Oxford, inventory number 48126, dated 1567) and it would be interesting to compare the instrument described in this work with the instrument in Oxford.</p>