New acquisitions: astronomy around the world

Special Collections has a small but significant collection of rare Japanese books and manuscripts, and we periodically add to it. One of our most recent acquisitions is a 1796 treatise on Western science, “Oranda tensetsu,” or Dutch Astronomy Explained.  It is one of several books published by Japanese printmaker Shiba Kōkan which discuss European science and navigation. The image below explains the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system.