The geometry of power - the power of geometry

Scientific instruments served the thirst for knowledge and representational self-fashioning of many early modern rulers. Instruments and automata found varied use at the court of the Electors of Saxony in Dresden: for example, to explain the motion of the heavens or to survey the extent of a territory, to manage knowledge or to handle secrets, as well as to bolster the power and prestige of the prince possessing them. Superb examples from the collection of the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon in Dresden also illustrate how mathematics and mechanics found new fields of application in the Renaissance, from ballistics to cryptology. The Salon, founded around 1730 and thus one of the oldest museums of historic scientific instruments in the world, traces its roots to the mid-sixteenth-century Kunstkammer (“Chamber of the Arts”) of the rulers of Saxony. The booklet illustrates the broad spectrum of mathematical practice in the early modern era and the close link between mathematics and dynastic power at the Saxon court.