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A Renaissance Mechanical Marvel

10 July 2026 at 7:00 pm until 9:00 pm

• £15 per person
• Wheelchair accessible

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The Silver Celestial Globe in the Schroder Gallery

What three things do you always carry with you? Nearly 500 years ago that question was easy to answer – at least for the German prince Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel (1532–1592), the leading astronomer of his era in central Europe. By all accounts, Wilhelm never left home without a Bible, an instrument for reading the time in the stars, and a wondrous, clockwork-driven globe showing the appearance of the heavens in real time. The last of these is almost certainly the magnificent silver globe recently put on display in the new Schroder Gallery at the Holburne.

Join us for a richly illustrated talk exploring this globe, which is both a mechanical marvel and an artistic masterpiece. Learn how the globe works and what it shows of the sky. You’ll also find out how recent research has revealed that hidden within its mechanism are first signs of a then-new understanding of the stars.  

Curiosity, but no previous background in astronomy, is a prerequisite to attend.

The speaker, Dr Michael Korey, is senior curator at the world’s oldest museum of historical scientific instruments, the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon of the State Art Collections in Dresden, Germany. He was secretary of the international Scientific Instrument Commission and has received a national award for his interpretation and public communication of science.