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Asked to imagine the character of everyday life in the Middle Ages, a young student in the twenty-twenties might well reply, before getting around to any other details, that it involved no smartphones. But even the flashiest new technologies have long evolutionary histories, and, in certain notable respects, even the smartphone has a medieval ancestor. That would be the astrolabe, an especially fascinating eleventh-century example of which was recently discovered at the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo in Verona. It was identified by University of Cambridge historian Federica Gigante, who’s been making the media rounds to explain the context and function of this striking and historic device.
www.openculture.com
An Introduction to the Astrolabe, the Medieval Smartphone
Image by Anders Sandberg, via Wikimedia Commons Asked to imagine the character of everyday life in the Middle Ages, a young student in the twenty-twenties might well reply, before getting around to any other details, that it involved no smartphones.
