This book traces the careers of Athanasius Kircher and Galileo Galilei, reviewing Kircher’s work translating hieroglyphs, developing sundials and even preceding Darwin in suggesting that animal species evolve, and Galileo’s on scales, telescopes and sun spots.

In this fascinating book, the author traces the careers, ideas, discoveries, and inventions of two renowned scientists, Athanasius Kircher and Galileo Galilei, one a Jesuit, the other a sincere man of faith whose relations with the Jesuits deteriorated badly. The Author documents Kircher’s often intuitive work in many areas, including translating the hieroglyphs, developing sundials, and inventing the magic lantern, and explains how Kircher was a forerunner of Darwin in suggesting that animal species evolve. Galileo’s work on scales, telescopes, and sun spots is mapped and discussed, and care is taken to place his discoveries within their cultural environment. While Galileo is without doubt the “winner” in the comparison with Kircher, the latter achieved extraordinary insights by unconventional means. For all Galileo’s fine work, the author believes that scientists do need to regain the power of dreaming, vindicating Kirchner’s view.

The World Theatre.- Watches and sunflowers rotating upon a motionless Earth.- Jesuits, scales and telescopes.- Light and shadows.- Spots upon an unchangeable Sun.- The Deluge.- Hieroglyphs and the dream of Universal Wisdom.- Crystal Skies and the circles of Hell.- Conclusion.- Galileo Galilei and Athanasius Kircher: parallel lives