Mattheus Greuter's Sunspot Etchings for Galileo Galilei's Macchie Solari (1613)

Abstract

For the series of etchings that he produced in Rome for Galileo Galilei's 1613 astronomical publication on sunspots, German-born Catholic convert Mattheus Greuter used an experimental copperplate etching technique that subsumed Galileo's observation-based conclusions about the sunspots' quiddity. It adapted an exceptionally subtle linear manner from devotional prints, their fine style inflecting Lucretian mechanics and metaphors of vision and complicating early modern perceptions regarding northern lines as inherently devout and accurate. Greuter's sunspots capture the poignancy of the all-too-brief historical moment in which Galileo, the German diaspora artist, Jesuit scientists, and Roman inquisitors might coexist.