Peter Anich - Ein Bauer zwischen zwei Welten

Abstract

In the age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, most of the rural population had only restricted or poor school education. Some highly talented farmers, called farmer-astronomers, took a very unusual path. One of them was Peter Anich, a Tyrolean farmer and part-time turner. He became known and famous as designer of sundials, as land surveyor, cartographer and copperplate engraver, as maker of globes and mathematical instruments, and particularly by his Atlas Tyrolensis the most accurate map of that time.