Although probably not the direct intention of the curators, this exhibition provides a striking example of the way science and art were integrated before and during the Enlightenment but have subsequently drifted apart. Early modern scientific objects like the replica of Galileo’s spyglass (original 1610) were clearly designed as objects of beauty to be treasured and admired as well as to perform specific functions. The spyglass is covered with fine leather on which gold tooling replicates geometrical patterns that symbolically evoke the stars in the sky, making this functional object a pleasure to use. Sometimes, however, the decorative impulse appears to overwhelm the functionality, as is the case with the globe of the Celestial Sphere, which is filled with a positive menagerie of prowling animals and figures representing the celestial constellations, but organised in reverse as if viewed from outside the universe, not as they would have been seen from the Earth.

Commercial exploitation of science was clearly as present in the Enlightenment as now. An elegant French fan produced by the ‘Comet Fan Club’ commemorated the great comet of 1811, and included a seated Venus with a comet-like headdress. More recently a tea-towel of 1999 celebrated the total eclipse of the sun visible in Cornwall and northern France, being commendably informative as to the degree of eclipse across Great Britain, and as such, an excellent vehicle for the transfer of information whilst drying the dishes.

I also loved the sixteenth-century coloured print of Tycho Brahe’s Star Castle, a drawing of the underground observatory he had constructed so that he could measure the stars accurately with various instruments before the invention of the telescope. It reminded me of a partially buried Christian basilica – a sign that the worship of science would later draw on the same architectural sources as the worship of God had before it.

Until Dec 30

EILEEN RUBERY