Certain Astrological and Astronomical Figures
Dated 1861, this compilation of three earlier manuscripts testifies to both the diverse practical applications of medieval astronomy and the nineteenth-century interest in collecting medieval illustrations. The first three leaves are drawn from an early fifteenth-century English manuscript, and include a blank horoscope template, a zodiac calendar, and these two Kabbalistic diagrams. This text also contains a Latin inscription that sheds light on its own production, including the price for a manuscript of 25 gatherings (“bought from Master Richard Chamberlain for 16 shillings and 8 pence”). The next leaf comes from a different manuscript, and includes diagrams of the celestial spheres and elemental spheres. The last leaf, from a Spanish manuscript, demonstrates how to write astronomically large numbers in Arabic numerals. A drawing of a labyrinth, with an English real estate transaction on the reverse, is inserted at the back.
Circa 1410
Astronomical Anthology (Astrolabe, etc.)
<p>This manuscript begins with a treatise by the renowned mathematician al-Biruni addressing variants of the astrolabe that include updates to its standard discs (which represent projections of the northern sky). He discusses the “crab” and “drum” astrolabes invented by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh Nasṭūlus, maker of the oldest surviving astrolabe (dated A.H. 315 or 927/928 AD). He also describes Nasṭūlus’s “huqq al-qamar” (“box for the moon”), a mechanism that could be added to an astrolabe to represent phases of the moon. <span>Two treatises on “crab” and “drum” astrolabes follow al-Biruni’s texts; these works were unknown before this manuscript was described and are now attributed to </span>Nasṭūlus. <span>Other texts in this compilation address an instrument for finding the qibla (direction of Mecca) and the compass. </span></p>
Jumadi II 625 AH (May 1228)
De Geometria and other texts
<p>This collection of mathematical texts was copied by two twelfth-century scribes and annotated by readers in the twelfth century and the fifteenth (or early sixteenth). It includes sections from Pope Sylvester’s <em>Isagoge geometriae</em>, his letter to Adelbold of Utrecht (c. 970-1026) on the area of equilateral triangles with Adelbold’s response, and a short text of less certain authorship on the construction of the planispheric astrolabe (composed of overlaid full discs, as opposed to the <a href="http://aylinmalcolm.com/astro/items/show/5">quadrant</a>), on display here.</p>
The work on the astrolabe exemplifies both the early history of this device in Western Europe and the complementary nature of the seven liberal arts, being placed among texts on geometry. Sylvester was a prominent mathematician before becoming the first French Pope in 999, having studied the trivium at the monastery of St. Gerald in Aurillac and the quadrivium in Spain. Regardless of whether he wrote this particular treatise, he is known to have lectured on the use of the astrolabe, and is likely the first person to have brought this knowledge into Christian Europe. In these regards he resembles the literary figure Geoffrey Chaucer, who also traveled extensively and cultivated an interest in astronomical methods.
Circa 1125-1175
Medical and Astrological Miscellany
<p>This codex contains a Latin calendar for the diocese of Constance in southern Germany; a text on the zodiac; a treatise on the planets and their “children” (the zodiac signs that they rule); medical texts on the four temperaments, bloodletting, bathing, and powder recipes; and finally, notes in a different hand on the genealogy of the Gundelfingen family. Most of the manuscript is illustrated with vivid pen and ink drawings, including the appropriate zodiac sign and labor for each month of the calendar, a depiction of bloodletting (<a href="http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/medren/pageturn.html?id=MEDREN_9948425633503681&rotation=0&currentpage=107">fol. 52r</a>), and a zodiac man (fol. 54v). The pages on display are part of a short treatise on the skies, with an image showing two astronomers comparing their astrolabe readings to the information in a sturdy tome; the treatise on the humors begins on the next page. The diversity of texts in this volume speaks to the holistic medieval view of the universe, in which one’s work, body, and soul are all affected by the movement of celestial bodies.</p>
1443
Taqwīm
<p>Included in this fragmentary t<span>aqwīm, or almanac, are</span>half of a world map; a diagram of the Earth’s climatic zones; and half of a horoscope diagram for a location in present-day Afghanistan (26°21’ N,92°30’ E),dated Friday, 27 Shawwāl 912 (12 March 1507). The illustrations on display represent ikhtiyārāt (elections) for the moon in one of the zodiacal signs. Electional astrology was used to determine auspicious times for performing certain actions, and was a more common pursuit among Islamic and Indian astronomers than among their Christian counterparts. Yet while this manuscript exemplifies the differing emphases of astronomical science across the medieval world, it also reveals the theoretical principles that were shared among cultures, including the belief that celestial bodies exerted influences on the world below.</p>
Circa 912 AH (1507 AD)
Illustrations to the Theoricae novae planetarum
<p><span>Created to accompany the <em>T</em><em>heoricae novae planetarum</em> (1454) by Georg von Peuerbach, this codex attests to the enduring relevance of Ptolemaic astronomy in the early Renaissance. The volvelles, or rotating discs, on these pages represent the deferent orb of the sun (the smallest disc) and the two deferent orbs of the sun’s apogee (the point in its orbit at which it is furthest from the Earth). These delicate constructions of paper and thread are highly susceptible to damage, and are rarely as well preserved as in this manuscript. </span></p>
<p><span>Peurbach’s text is essentially an updated version of the anonymous thirteenth-century <em>Theorica planetarum</em>, a popular university text often bound with Sacrobosco’s<em> Tractatus de sphaera</em>. The <em>Theoricae novae planetarum</em>, which incorporates information from Alfonsine Tables produced in the fourteenth century, was first printed in 1472 under the supervision of Peurbach’s student Regiomontanus; nearly sixty editions, including the 1542 one on display here, followed before the emergence of heliocentric astronomy in the seventeenth century. Supplementary volvelle manuscripts such as this one may have been inspired by Peurbach’s <em>Speculum planetarum, </em>a short text on astronomical volvelles.</span></p>
1525-1575
Calendarium and Ephemerides
<p>A major figure in fifteenth-century German astronomy, Regiomontanus achieved such wide renown that he appears in Schedel’s 1493 <em>Nuremberg Chronicle </em>holding an astrolabe. He was a friend and collaborator of Georg von Peuerbach, completing Peuerbach’s abridgment of the <em>Almagest </em>in addition to publishing his own works on arithmetic, trigonometry, and astronomy. This lavish manuscript was produced after the first edition of the <em>Calendarium </em><em>and Ephemerides </em>in 1476, and may reflect a patron’s desire for a more deluxe object. The <em>Calendarium </em>includes information on lunar and solar eclipses, variations in day length, and the zodiac and planets for 1475-1530. The <em>Ephemerides </em>provides positions for the sun, moon, and planets for each day of the year from 1480 to 1506, with a pink finding tab at the beginning of each year. A liturgical calendar at the beginning of the manuscript includes customized additions to the printed text that suggest a patron monastery in southern Germany or Austria, most likely the Benedictine abbey in Lambach due to the inclusion of its patron saint, Kilian (feast and translation, 7 and 14 July). On display are some of this manuscript’s eclipse diagrams, which appear at the beginning of the <em>Calendarium </em>(fols. 12r-16v) and on the first page of most years in the <em>Ephemerides</em>.</p>
1500
Sharḥ al-mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʼah
<p>This manuscript contains a commentary on a very popular Arabic astromical text, <em>Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʼah</em> (<em>Epitome of Astronomy</em>). Little is known of this text's author, Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad al-Jighmīnī (d. c. 1221), except that he was a Persian physician who also wrote an epitome on Avicenna’s <em>Canon of Medicine</em>. His astronomical text became very popular in the Arabic-speaking world during the late fourteenth century, and its methods of calculating longitude inspired numerous commentaries, many of which were widely distributed in their own right. <br /><br />One such commentary was that of Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī, a Turkish mathematician and astronomer at the Samarqand Observatory established by Ulugh Beg, the Timurid governor of Transoxiana to whom this text is dedicated. This manuscript, which contains twenty-three astronomical diagrams, was produced during al-Rūmī’s lifetime; indeed, the copyist claims in a marginal note to have heard one part directly from the author (fol. 59).</p>
End of Ramadan 830 AH (25 July 1427 AD)
Treatise on Astronomy and Astrology
<p>Written in English, this slim codex approaches astronomy from both theoretical and practical angles. The main text includes nine chapters on such varied topics as ephemerides (the positions of celestial bodies at given times), signs of the zodiac, planets and planetary aspects, the fixed stars, and meteorology. The pages on display, from the third chapter on the “dispositions of the 12 signs,” include a table of essential dignities, or the relative strengths of the planets’ positions (first row, beginning with Saturn) in relation to signs of the zodiac (first column). The manuscript ends with three short texts on auspicious times for bloodletting and other medical treatments as well as planting (fols. 15r-18v). The chapter on stars identifies the date of composition as 1496 (fol. 8v), and a later inscription on the end flyleaf describes weather conditions from the vernal equinox to the summer solstice.</p>
1496
Alfonsine Tables
<p>Created from 1262 to 1272 by the Toledo School of Translators, a scholarly organization established by King Alfonso X of León and Castile (1221-1284) to translate scientific texts from Arabic to Castilian, the Alfonsine Tables contained data required to calculate the position of the planets, sun, and moon in relation to the fixed stars. A team led by Jehuda ben Moses Cohen and Isaac ben Sid produced this updated version of the Toledan Tables (completed by Arabic scholars c. 1080), which circulated widely in Europe after being translated into Latin in Paris during the 1320’s.</p>
<p>This manuscript contains the complete Alfonsine Tables <span>(including average planetary motions, solar and lunar conjunctions, geographic coordinates of cities, and eclipses) and supplementary texts by the fourteenth-century astronomers John of Saxony, Jean de Lignières, and Henricus Selder. It also contains corrections made to the tables for use in Prague, and a short passage on weather prediction by the Baghdad-born Jewish astronomer Māshāʼallāh (משאללה</span>; c. 730-c. 815). Bound in contemporary limp vellum with string ties, this manuscript shows signs of frequent use, with four leaves that have been completely or partially removed (two after fol. 12; fol. 84; two at end), as well as <span>two pages of notes laid in after fol. 1.</span></p>
1401-4
Theorica planetarum, Tractatus de sphaera, and other texts
<p><strong>*NEW Aug. 2019:* </strong><a href="http://aylinmalcolm.com/sacrobosco/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The World of the Sphere: Diagrams from De Sphaera Mundi</a><br /><br />This extensively glossed astronomical miscellany was acquired by the Kislak Center in 2017. It contains a selection of Latin astronomical texts, including the widely disseminated <em>Theorica planetarum </em>(the basis for Peuerbach’s <em>Theoricae novae planetarum</em>), Sacrobosco’s <em>Tractatus de sphaera</em>, and a copy of the Alfonsine Tables. The Tables have calculations added in the bottom margins for specific cities, mostly in Germany, and the <em>Tractatus de sphaera </em>concludes with a colophon dated 30 December 1481 (fol. 36v). On the final leaf are a Hebrew alphabet in a cautious hand and a reference to Magdeburg (fol. 95v).</p>
<p>Many of this manuscript’s diagrams are painstakingly annotated, reflecting an accretion of knowledge that continued after the first copyist; for instance, a climate zone diagram includes a number of town names written into the appropriate zones (fol. 33v). This codex also contains six volvelles, including larger ones depicting planetary movements as well as small, marginal volvelles illustrating geometric principles. Yet this manuscript’s pedagogical value would have been short-lived given the date of its creation, during the lifetime of Copernicus.</p>
1481
Tractatus de sphaera, Ruaḥ Ḥen
<p>This is one of approximately forty copies of the only known Hebrew version of the <em>Tractatus de sphaera</em>, which was translated as <em>Mareh ha-Ofanim </em>(The Indicator of the Spheres) by the Provençal physician and mystic Solomon ben Abraham Abigdor (b. 1384; translation completed 1399). Although less ornate than the thirteenth-century copies in the Schoenberg collection, this manuscript includes three diagrams, the largest of which (shown here) depicts the celestial and elemental spheres. This codex also includes <em>Ruaḥ Ḥen </em>(fols. 12r-22r), a popular thirteenth-century introduction to Aristotelian science, which it attributes to Yehudah ibn Tibon.</p>
Circa 1425-1450
Tractatus de sphaera, Algorismus, Computus lunaris
This striking manuscript includes three historiated initials that have been linked to the style of the Bari workshop in Paris (1250-70), all showing Sacrobosco teaching astronomy to tonsured students (fols. 1r, 29r, 43v). In addition to the diagrams of eclipses and solar and lunar motion that it shares with LJS 26, as well as a richly colored diagram of the Earth’s climates (fol. 16v), it also contains a table of solar conjunctions (fol. 40r) and an ouroboros (fol. 36r). The third text in this volume, which is absent from LJS 26, describes the computation of civil and ecclesiastical calendars. <br /><br />Little is known about Sacrobosco’s life apart from his tenure as a professor of mathematics at the University of Paris, beginning in the 1220’s. He may have been born in Holywood, Yorkshire, and he was known during his lifetime for criticizing the imprecise Julian calendar, which had developed a total error of about 10 days by the late thirteenth century.
Circa 1256-1270
Parchment, 58 ff, 165 x 110 mm
Latin
Algorismus, Tractatus de sphaera
<p>The <em>Tractatus de sphaera </em>(or <em>De sphaera mundii) </em>was the most important Latin medieval text on Ptolemaic astronomy, and the Kislak Center is fortunate to have four copies, two of which (LJS 26 and <a href="http://aylinmalcolm.com/astro/items/show/10">LJS 216</a>) were produced during or soon after Sacrobosco’s lifetime.Likely a composite of information from the <em>Almagest</em>, Arabic commentaries by al-Battānī and al-Farghānī, and earlier Latin sources such as Macrobius, this widely disseminated university text described the division of the “sphere of the world” above the Earth into nine parts: the <em>primum mobile </em>(“first moved”), fixed stars, planets, sun, and moon. </p>
<p>Like LJS 216, this manuscript also contains Sacrobosco’s <em>Algorismus</em>, a practical arithmetic manual that was the first text to use Hindu-Arabic numerals in a European scholastic context. The <em>Tractatus </em>contains 11 diagrams and illustrations, which include the celestial spheres, the Earth’s climatic zones, the motion of the sun and moon, and eclipses (shown here). There are marginal notes in the same ink as the main text, as well as notes and an added bifolium in a later cursive hand (fols. 23-24). An annotation dated 1399 indicates that this manuscript was used by Pietro di Santo Giovanni, a physics student in Florence (fol. 9v).</p>
Circa 1225-1275
De philosophia mundi, Expositio Hugonis de Evangeliis
<p>William of Conches was a philosopher, teacher (tutor to Henry II of England), and member of the Cathedral School of Chartres, one of the leading educational institutions in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe. In this four-book <em>summa </em>of philosophical knowledge, he moves down through the celestial spheres, from God and Creation to astronomy, geography, meteorology, and finally human medicine. The Kislak Center’s copy includes 16 diagrams, including the sketchy drawings of eclipses and lunar phases on display, while much of the section on human procreation has been cancelled by a later reader (fols. 15v-16r). This codex concludes with an otherwise unknown text on the Gospels attributed to the Saxon theologian Hugh of Saint-Victor, which may be the fourth volume of his <em>Liber sermonum</em>.</p>
Circa 1150
Almagest
<p>With its rare Arabic copy of the <em>Almagest</em>, this manuscript is a clear example of the intercultural transmission of Ptolemy’s text. A colophon (fol. 185r) identifies the copyist as the Muslim astronomer Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Salāmah Sanhaja, who produced this manuscript for his Jewish teacher, Qursunna al-Isrāʼīlī (Jacob ben Isaac Corsono), astronomer to Pedro IV of Aragon. It is dated according to Muslim, Jewish, and Christian calendars (783, 5141, and 1381).</p>
<p>Originally called <em>Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις </em>(Mathematical Syntax), the <em>Almagest </em>presents a summation of ancient astronomy in thirteen books, including planetary orbits, eclipses, and retrograde motion. The <em>Almagest </em>was translated into Arabic in the 9<sup>th </sup>century; indeed, its English name derives from the Arabic “al-majisṭī.” The most influential Latin translation was produced by Gerard of Cremona in 1175, while he was employed at the Toledo School of Translators.</p>
783 AH (1381 AD)
Astronomical Anthology (Almagest, etc.)
<p>Attesting to the central role of Jewish astronomers in medieval Spain, this volume begins with a treatise on the calendar compiled in 1361 by Jacob ben David ben Yom Tov for Pedro IV of Aragon. It also contains four astrological treatises by the 12<sup>th</sup>-century philosopher Abraham Ibn Ezra, including discussions of Indian, Persian, and Babylonian astronomy, and a Hebrew translation of Ptolemy’s <em>Almagest </em>with this remarkable constellation map in ink and gouache. Later folios bear illuminated polychrome constellation images and intricately ornamented tables.</p>
<p>Fewer than 35 astronomical maps are known to survive from the Middle Ages, and this example, which shows the northern and southern celestial hemispheres and may have been copied from a globe, offers an especially rare glimpse into medieval Jewish celestial cartography. As Elly Dekker has observed (<em>Illustrating the Phaenomena </em>458-61), the depictions of certain constellations (e.g. Aquila upside down and standing on Sagitta) and the presence of the Coma Berenices asterism above Leo resemble Islamic maps, while the human figures are drawn in Western European styles.</p>
Circa 1361
Canones vel operationes in operando quadrante
<p>This elegant codex on the functions of the astrolabe quadrant includes computational methods for determining altitude, latitude, the positions of stars, and the twelve houses of the horoscope. It is open to a diagram depicting the quadrant’s use in locating a star, including an appropriately positioned astronomer in the margin, and two tables indicating the ascensions of the zodiac signs and the attributes of the fixed stars.</p>
<p>Other illustrations and tables in this manuscript include the back of the quadrant (fol. 5v), two diagrams showing how to measure the height of a tower (fols. 21v, 23v), a square diagram showing the computation of the astrological houses for Nov. 14, 1501 (fol. 16v), and tables providing the hours of day and night (fol. 10r) as well as sunrise and sunset (fols. 15r-15v) at 45°N. Written in Southern Italy, it is bound in a reused leaf from a 12<sup>th</sup>-century copy of Augustine’s <em>In Iohannis evangelium tractatus</em>, written in the Bari form of Beneventan script.</p>
Circa 1502
Tahrir al-Majisti
Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī was a prolific philosopher, mathematician, and theologian who is often considered to have created the discipline of trigonometry. His 150 compositions and translations include a treatise on the astrolabe, an Arabic version of Euclid’s <em>Elements</em>, and the <em>Tadhkira fi ‘ilm al-ha’a</em> (<em>Memorandum of Astronomy</em>), in which he corrected inconsistencies in the Ptolemaic system. In this 13th-century recension of the <em>Almagest</em>, he updates several of Ptolemy’s methods, substituting more advanced trigonometric equations for Ptolemy’s chord calculations and condensing the calculation of each planet’s equant (the point around which its epicycle revolves) into a single equation with variable parameters. Also included in this codex is the 1304-5 commentary on this text by Iranian astronomer Niẓām al-Dīn al-Nīsābūrī. Many of the diagrams in this manuscript are illuminated, with gold leaf often extending beyond the precise outlines of the under-drawings (e.g. fols. 4v, 37r, 168r).
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Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies
13 Dhu’l Qa‘da 813 AH (9 March 1411 AD)