Wolfgang Lefevre, Jiirgen Renn, and Vrs Schoepflin General The origin of this volume is a workshop held has a deeper, more complex structure which in 1997 in Berlin as part of a series of work- must be assumed if its analysis is only based shops organized in the framework of the on text. In fact, the analysis of the function of Network on Science and the Visual Images images in the early modern period shows that 1500 – 1800 funded by the European Science they mediated not only between science and Foundation and initiated by William Shea. its cultural context, but also between practi- Meanwhile a selection of contributions was cal knowledge and its theoretical reflection thoroughly revised and prepared for publica- in scientific theories. tion together with additionally invited papers The analysis of images thus constitutes an for this book. The result is a volume which important branch of the history of science we hope corresponds to the original inten- that on the one hand is conceived of as part tion of the Network to contribute to a histori- of a more general history of culture and on cal reconstruction of the role of images in the the other hand as a historical epistemology of history of science, still neglected because of knowledge. This book is not a systematic and the traditional focus of the history of science comprehensive account of scientific images on texts corresponding to a concentration on and the early modern period.