Visualizing Science at Home

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 3, “Visualizing Science at Home,” focuses on a wondrous object, often described as a planetarium, which Ibn Firnās is said to have made and displayed in his home. It analyzes what the Arabic texts can tell us about the nature of this creation, using the Córdoban chronicle and the earliest Arabic automata treatise from the Islamic West, al-Muradī’s Kitāb Al-Asrār Fī Natāʼij Al-Afkār. The chapter argues that Ibn Firnās’s creation was likely an early automaton, intended to create a visual representation of scientific phenomena for an audience of court intellectuals. The chapter also considers Ibn Firnās’s creation as it relates to the spatialization of science. It presents the Nilometer of Cairo as the earliest extant work that reveals similar connections between early Islamic science, architecture, and visual culture.