A Mayer odyssey (part 1)

19 Sep 2011

A few months ago I did a blog on Tobias Mayer, and since I'm in Germany this week for the Scientific Instrument Symposium in Kassel, I'm trying to fit in as much Mayernalia (if that's the word) as I can.

Yesterday, I took the train down to Marbach. This lovely town is where Mayer was born, in what is now the Tobias Mayer Museum. At the time of his birth in 1723, it was quite a new building, since the centre of Marbach had been destroyed in a fire thirty years earlier. As a result, the town now has lots of beautiful 18th-century architecture, of which the Mayer house is one of the more modest examples. It looks very picturesque today, but must have been rather cosy for a family, with his father's working area (he was a wheelwright) taking up the ground floor. The museum itself is small, but I had an incredibly warm welcome and was allowed to look around the whole building (since they're between tenants in the part they rent out) - so thanks and best wishes to all the staff and volunteers there.
 

With Marbach also being the birthplace of Friedrich Schiller, who dominates the town, it was a bit odd going there in search of someone much less well commemorated, but we history of science tourists must stick to our guns! So if you're in Marbach (or Stuttgart, which is close by), do try to drop in - particularly next year when they'll be commemorating the 250th anniversary of his premature death (a few days just after his 39th birthday). We'll try to keep an eye on that and let you know what's happening.