L'esfera copernicana de l'abat Joan de Safont (1789-1847)

Abstract

Joan de Safont, benedictine monk and last abbot of Barcelona’s monastery of Sant Pau del Camp, founded a class of speculative and practical physics in the school of Sant Pau del Camp. He organized a mechanical and physical cabinet with abundant apparatus constructed by craftsmen from Barcelona. His inerest in astronomy led him to construct sun clocks and invent a copernican sphere at the beginning of the decade of 1830. It was a very ingenious device, articulated and equipped with mechanisms so that with a crank it was able to move the planets, satellites and comets of the Solar System in his orbits. Francesc Arau, a capable machinist, was the person in charge of the practical construction of the sphere.