Leon Battista Alberti made several references to miracoli della pittura (miracles of painting) in two of his early works, Vita (Life) and De Pictura (On Painting). After extensive research, author Jim Egan has concluded that these "miracles of painting" were the amazing full-detail and full-color images seen in a camera obscura. In Latin, camera obscura means "dark room." In a dark room with one small hole, the image of what's outside appears projected on the interior wall upside-down and reversed left-to-right. The room can be a people-sized room or a small box, like a pinhole camera....

Prospero's Island is Rhode Island. Prospero's Cell is the John Dee Tower of 1583. (Which still stands today in Touro Park, Newport, Rhode Island) The characters in The Tempest represent the main players in the Elizabethan colonization effort of the 1580s. (Plus two French humanists and two angels)

This is Book 11 of my series of books on the history of the Newport Tower, the 28-foot tall stone-and-mortar structure that still stands today in Touro Park, Newport, Rhode Island. Book 1 through Book 8 (over 2000 pages) are a detailed explanation of my discovery that the Tower was designed by the English polymath John Dee. It was intended to be the city-center of the first Elizabethan colony in the New World, the first building of the British Empire (a term coined by John Dee). The Elizabethan State Papers reveal that in 1583, Narragansett Bay was named (by John Dee) the "Dee River and...

20 build-it-yourself geometric models made from LINES (lollipop sticks) and SPHERES (marbles)

Carefully analyzing photos, maps, and newspapers from the 1800's, research historian Jim Egan has concluded that Calvert Vaux created the 1855 landscape design for Touro Park in Newport, Rhode Island. Egan feels Calvert Vaux also designed the 1871 Music Stand, which stood near the middle of the park until the 1930's. Who was Calvert Vaux? He was a noted building architect who designed mansions like Beaulieu and Beechwood along Bellevue Avenue. But Vaux was even more famous as a landscape architect. Along with Frederick Law Olmstead, he designed Central Park in Manhattan, Prospect Park in...

See and hear how number, shape and sound are all related

The intrepid historical researcher, Joy Hancox, came across a collection of 516 drawings once owned by John Byrom. Even though Byrom was a well-respected member of the Royal Society in the 1700s, his life was shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Joy has deduced that four of the drawings (shown above) were plans for the original 1599 Globe theater. And she suspects they were created by the Elizabethan polymath, John Dee (1527-1608). For 20 years James Egan has been studying the mathematician, astronomer, cartographer, and navigational expert, John Dee. To understand Dee's mathematical cosmology,...

In September of 1930, the year the City Flag was first flown, something very special was happening in Newport, Rhode Island. And the whole world was watching. This is a story involving the dream of an English Tea Merchant, the Old Stone Mill, a broken halyard, and the ancient adage: "LOVE SHALL CONQUER ALL."

John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica is a book of many riddles. You can try to solve them by reading by English Translation of the Monas Hieroglyphica by James. Alan Egan. However, some clues are "lost in translation," so it's useful to have both the original Latin version and the English translation. (In other words some clues are hidden in the Latin words.)

This English translation of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica is a companion piece to John Dee's original Latin, published by James Alan Egan. As some of John Dee's cryptic clues get "lost in translation," it's useful to study both versions. To simplify cross-referencing, this English translation mirrors the layout and design of the original Latin version. In other words, both this translation and the original have the "feel" of John Dee's original work except for a few minor differences. Dee's original, printed in Antwerp in 1564, had a "stapled binding" whereas this version has a "perfect...