Astrolabes

The Museum of the History of Science has a paper astrolabe from Nuremberg, 1542.

With the rise of the printing press, astronomical instruments became an inexpensive alternative to brass instruments. One example is this paper astrolabe by by Philippe Danfrie, Paris, 1584.

Three-part article from the Journal of the British Astronomic al Associatio n, Vol. 86, p. 18-29, 125 - 132, 219 - 227.

Pa rt II: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1976JBAA...86..125E
Part III: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1976JBAA...86..219E

A database of drawings and graphics of mechanical devices from Renaissance and late medieval sources.

The history of astrolabes, and a simulation of how they worked.

The Museum, part of the University of Bologna's Department of Astronomy, houses a collection of astrolabes, gnomons & sundials, clocks, astronomical quadrants, telescopes, armillary spheres, globes, maps, and other mathematical, meteorologic, topographic and nautical instruments.

The Institute and Museum of the History of Science, in Florence, is one of the foremost internatio nal institutio ns in the history of science, combining a noted museum of scientific instrument s and an institute dedicated to the research, documentat ion and disseminat ion of the history of science in the broadest senses.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century.

New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone, The Magnet; The Astrolabe; America; Gunpowder; Printing Books; Iron Clocks; Guaiacum (a New World remedy for syphilis); Distillation; Silk, or the Silkworm; Stirrups, or Foot Rests; the Watermill; the Winged Mill (windmills); Olive Oil; Sugar; Oil Colors (oil-painting); Spectacles (eyeglasses); Longitudes of the Earth Found from the Deviation of the Magnet from the Pole; Polishing Armor; Engraving on Copper; and the travels & discoveries of Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Ferdinand Magellan.