Specula Melitensis Encyclica

Specula Melitensis Encyclica (“The Maltese Observatory” or “The Circular Maltese Mirror”)[1] was a 1638 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was printed in Naples by Secundino Roncagliolo[2] and dedicated to Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta.[3]

Title page of “Specula Melitensis Encyclica”

The work described an instrument that Kircher had built while on a trip to Malta as the confessor of Friedrich of Hesse-Darmstadt. This instrument, which he called the Specula Melitensis, was a mechanical calculator that included a planisphere and a means of counting both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It also charted horoscopes, and condensed all important medical, botanical, alchemical, hermetic knowledge into a single cube known as the “cabalistic mirror.”[4][5] Altogether this instrument had 125 distinct uses.[1]

Unusually for works by Kircher, this book acknowledged a collaborator, the Maltese historian and prior of St John's, Salvatore Imbroll, who seems to have completed the project with material begun by Kircher.[6]

The calculator described in the work was later than machines devised by John Napier and Wilhelm Schickard, but earlier than that of Blaise Pascal.

References
  1. Buttigieg, Emanuel (September 2012). "Knights, Jesuits, Carnival, and the Inquisition in Seventeenth-Century Malta". The Historical Journal. 55 (3): 572. doi:10.1017/S0018246X12000180. JSTOR 23263265.
  2. Harold B. Lee Library (2003). Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), Jesuit Scholar: An Exhibition of His Works in the Harold B. Lee Library Collections at Brigham Young University. Martino Publishing. p. xxxiii. ISBN 978-1-57898-432-9.
  3. Kircher, Athanasius. "Specula Melitensis encyclica". archive.org. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  4. Findlen, Paula. "Kircher, Athanasius". encyclopaedia.com. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  5. Barthélemy Mercier de Saint-Léger (1785). Notice raisonnée des ouvrages de Gaspar Schott: contenant des Observations curieuses sur la Physique Expérimentale, l'Histoire Naturelle & les Arts. Lagrange. p. 55. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  6. Freller, Thomas. "Olaf Hein Die Drucker und Verleger der Werke des Polyhistors Athanasius Kircher S.J" (PDF). melitensiawth.com. Melita Historica : A Scientific Review of Maltese History. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
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