Alessandro Piccolomini’s Early Astronomical Works: I. An Exploration of Their Cultural Significance

Dr Kristen Lippincott is a London-based historian, specialising in art history, cultural history, the history of science and scientific instruments. She has spent most of her career working in and with museums, most notably as the Director of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum in London and as a Founding Director of The Exhibitions Team. She is currently Director of the Saxl Project.Her academic affiliations include the Warburg Institute and University of Chicago. Her research has been supported by a series of prestigious academic awards and fellowships, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the J Paul Getty Trust and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. During the academic year 1987-88, she was a Fellow at the Harvard University’s Center for Renaissance Studies at the Vila I Tatti in Florence and in 2003-04, she was Visiting Professor there. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles, and her books include:  Astronomy, Dorling Kindersley/ Eyewitness Science series, London (etc.): Dorling Kindersley, 1994; The Story of Time [exhibition catalogue, London, the National Maritime Museum, 1 December 1999 - 28 September 2000], London: Merrell Holberton, 1999 (translated into French (Flammarion), Spanish (Grijablo), Dutch (Sluyters), Korean (Pun-run-soop Publishing) and Hungarian (Perfekt); A Guide to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London: National Maritime Museum, 2007; The Aratea ascribed to Germanicus. MS 735C Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales. Commentary to the Facsimile Edition and Latin Edition with English translation, Lucerne: Quaternio Verlag, 2019; and The Curious History of the Text and Illustrations of Hyginus’s De Astronomia, Cologne: Albireo Verlag, 2021. Most recently, she contributed to an edition, translation and iconographic examination of  the British Library manuscript attributed to Georgius Zothorus Zaparus  Fendulus, Sloane Ms 3983 , in Liber Astrologiae. Abū Ma'shar Treatise, Barcelona: M. Moleiro, 2023.