A gilded compass with spiral engravings from the 16th century or a gilded planetary clock, consisting of two floors, which traces the course of seven planets and is crowned with a silver celestial globe that is so elaborately decorated that every detail carries another detail in itself. There are also glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. No, mathematics is not plain and dry – at least not in this place: these treasures were commissioned by the not at all modest Elector of Saxony, whose fascination with gold and splendour in no way fits the cliché of a simple scientist. You can marvel at all this in the Zwinger, one of the most famous baroque buildings in the centre of Dresden. In its current (2025) three galleries, the Mathematical Physics Salon shows how scientists began to measure the world hundreds of years ago.
Two centuries later, in the 18th century, things were already less ostentatious. Some of the gold can still be seen in the second exhibition ‘Instruments of the Enlightenment’. However, the extravagant decorations have disappeared. Instead, the exhibition features a voluminous vacuum pump and a series of impressive and powerful burning mirrors that take up most of the room. The large telescopes refer to the observatory that was active here and from which the local time for Dresden was determined for a long time. Other phenomena that can be observed with a telescope are shown in the third exhibition ‘The Universe of Globes’. Earth and celestial globes illustrate the different levels of knowledge of the respective centuries. For example, the moon globe by Ernst Fischer from 1875 only shows the 59 per cent of the moon’s surface that is actually visible, as the first complete orbit of the moon did not take place until 1959. The other 41 per cent of the sphere is black.
The exhibition is open daily from 11 am to 5 pm. Monday is a day off. A regular ticket costs 6 euros and a reduced ticket costs 4.50 euros. Admission is free for visitors under the age of 17.
Photo: Gilded planetary clock; Credits: Johanna Pesch
