New York Historical Society

About: New York Historical Society is a archive organization based out in New York, New York, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Astronomer & World War II. The organization has 10 authors who have published 14 publications receiving 63 citations.

“A Great Injustice”: Urban Capitalism and the Limits of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century New York City:

Abstract: Seneca Village was the largest African American landowning community in New York City until it was destroyed to build Central Park. Although it has largely been overlooked, Seneca Village reframes ...

Comets, meteors, and eclipses: Art and science in early Renaissance Italy

Abstract: We discuss eight trecento (fourteenth century) paintings containing depictions of astronomical events to reveal the revolutionary advances made in both astronomy and naturalistic painting in early Renaissance Italy, noting that an artistic interest in naturalism predisposed these pioneering painters to make their scientific observations In turn, the convincing representations of their observations of astronomical phenomena in works of art rendered their paintings more believable, convincing Padua was already a renowned center for mathematics and nascent astronomy (which was separating from astrology) when Enrico Scrovegni commissioned the famous Florentine artist Giotto di Bondone to decorate his lavish family chapel (circa 1301-1303) Giotto painted a flaming comet in lieu of the traditional Star of Bethlehem in the Adoration of the Magi scene Moreover, he painted a historical apparition that he recently had observed with a great accuracy even by modern standards Halley's Comet of 1301 (Olson, 1979) While we do not know the identity of the artist's theological advisor, we discuss the possibility that Pietro d'Abano, the Paduan medical doctor and "astronomer" who wrote on comets, might have been influential We also compare Giotto's blazing comet with two others painted by the artist's shop in San Francesco at Assisi (before 1316) and account for the differences In addition, we discuss Giotto's pupil, Taddeo Gaddi, reputed to have been partially blinded by a solar eclipse, whose calamity may find expression in his frescoes in Santa Croce, Florence (1328-30; 1338?) Giotto also influenced the Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti, two of whose Passion cycle frescoes at Assisi (1316-20) contain dazzling meteor showers that reveal the artist's observed astronomical phenomena, such as the "radiant" effect of meteor showers, first recorded by Alexander von Humboldt in 1799 and only accepted in the nineteenth century Lorenzetti also painted sporadic, independent meteors, which do not emanate from the radiant It is also significant that these artists observed differences between comets and meteors, facts that were not absolutely established until the eighteenth century In addition we demonstrate that artistic and scientific visual acuity were part of the burgeoning empiricism of the fourteenth century, which eventually yielded modern observational astronomy

Art for a new audience in the Risorgimento: a meditation

Abstract: Competing foreign powers had divided the Italic peninsula into regions, so that it resembled the chessboard of Europe. With Napoleon's occupation, an Italian consciousness began to arise. As Neoclassicism and Romanticism ceded to Realism, artists participated in liberal politics and military struggles, many fighting under Garibaldi. Patriotic sentiments appeared in encoded genre scenes – for example, Hayez's two La meditazione paintings, the second subtitled L'Italia nel 1848 – or contemporary themes, like those by the Macchiaioli and the Induno brothers. Risorgimento content, including battles, multiplied, and they were joined by photography. Shifts in taste and patronage, from the Church and the ruling classes to liberal aristocrats, industrial entrepreneurs and middle-class professionals, encouraged new venues for the exhibition of art: the Exposition Universelle, civic Promotrici, Ricasoli's competition and the Esposizione Italiana. After unification, the search for political and artistic reform conti...

Comets, Charisma, and Celebrity: Reflections on Their Deep Impact

Abstract: In celebration of the Deep Impact Mission, this essay explores the influence of comets on the arts and sciences since the beginning of recorded time. Through images, ranging from the sublime to the humorous, it probes the reasons why comets are among the most charismatic visual spectacles in the universe and why, even as scientific missions unmask their mysteries, they remain iconic symbols and harbingers of change.

Making an Antislavery Nation: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Battle over Freedom

Abstract: In his penetrating new book, Making an Antislavery Nation, Graham Peck argues that the origins of the U.S. Civil War lay in the conflicting meanings of “freedom” in the North and the South. Accordi...