Joseph Moxon–a man of many talents

As I explained in a previous post Emery Molyneux (d. 1598) was the first English, printed-globe maker. After Molyneux departed from England to the Netherlands in 1597, where he died a year later, it would be almost sixty years before another Englishman began to print globes in England; that man was Joseph Moxon (1627–1691). With Moxon, as you will see, we have another practical mathematics link between England and the Netherlands in the Early Modern Period. We have already had Thomas Gemini (c.1510–1562), a Netherlander who became London’s first commercial instrument maker. John Dee (1527–c. 1608) one of England’s most important mathematical practitioners learnt his mathematics in Louvain from Gemma Frisius (1508–1555) and his pupil Gerard Mercator (1512–1564) and introduced Mercator’s printed globes into England when he returned from the continent. Thomas Digges (c. 1546–1595), John Dee’s foster son, an early Copernican, and a leading mathematical practitioner had undertaken a tour…