Abstract
The seventh chapter looks at some of the cultural and historical factors that influenced the production (or lack of production) of Aratea manuscripts. It also examines in more detail six representative Aratea manuscripts placed within their historical context. The six selected Latin Aratea manuscripts from three different centuries will be examined more closely in this section; the overview will look at the history, style, iconography, and probable places of production of the manuscripts. Because the survival numbers are low from the twelfth century, the manuscripts have been chosen for availability and access in viewing the illustrations. The two fifteenth-century examples were chosen principally because they are part of a group of four deluxe manuscripts created at the same time for the same royal court, which allows for effective and informative comparisons. As shown, these three time periods are the most fruitful and rewarding centuries when tracing the production of Aratean manuscripts and the transmission of astronomical knowledge in the Middle Ages. The illustrations of these particular manuscripts are discussed more extensively in order to compare the artistry and changes through different centuries and even into the period of early printing.
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Notes
- 1.
See Kronk (1999) Cometography, Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, p. 14.
- 2.
The other two luxury manuscripts are the Vatican Terence (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Vat lat. 3838 and the Agrimensores (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Pal lat. 1564). See Mütherich, Book Illumination at the Court of Louis the Pious.
- 3.
Dodwell adds, “… and they give surprisingly authentic representations of the heroic gods and nubile goddesses of Antiquity”. As an example, the author selected a miniature of Andromeda, who was not depicted as a celestial heroine, but an unfortunate princess.
- 4.
The Leiden and Harley are also listed in Appendix B.
- 5.
A colophon is an inscription that often but not always appears at the end of a manuscript to record information about its production: names, occasions, patrons or dates.
- 6.
In her study of Carolingian manuscript illumination in Reims (2004), Mütherich defines the various periods of production in that famous center of spectacular Gospel Books and illusionistic painting. “It was considered the home of copies of classical cycles of illustrations, whose faithful reproduction of Late Antique miniatures is a splendid page in the history of Carolingian manuscript illumination, particular, those of the two most famous of these, the Leiden Aratea and the Bern Physiologus.”.
- 7.
Louis and Judith were married in February, 819, after the death of his first wife. Louis was greatly enamored of Judith as she was quite beautiful and gracious, admired for her knowledge and intelligence. “Walahfrid Strabo, tutor to Charles the Bald, pays respect to Judith in his poem, De imagine Tetrici, comparing her to famous women from the Old Testament, as a person of extraordinary learning and wisdom.” When Louis lost favor, Judith was sent to a convent, but later they were both restored to the monarchy.
- 8.
Anon., Vita Hludovice Imperatoris, 63 (Ausgewähle Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters. Freiherr vom Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe, 5: Darmstadt, 1968), 378. Einhard is another candidate, he left the court in 830; other possible compilers are Gerward, his successor, Grimald, or Walahfrid Strabo.
- 9.
Although Hugo Grotius was only seventeen when he published the printed Aratea, he had already edited and published a scholarly version of Martianus Capella’s treatise On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury at sixteen. He was precocious, an intellectual prodigy and entered University of Leiden when only eleven, known mostly for his writings on political philosophy and international law.
- 10.
The rustic capital had been developed in ancient Rome, based on lettering used for inscriptions that were carved in stone; the distinctive shape of each letter derives from the process of carving in stone with a chisel. Another famous example where rustic capitals were purposely used to give a manuscript an antique appearance is the Utrecht Psalter, copied from an Early Christian exemplar. The numerous later versions of the Utrecht Psalter did not copy its labor-intensive rustic capital script.
- 11.
For a thorough explanation of the Aratea text of Germanicus see Lott (1983) (The textual tradition of the Aratea of Germanicus Caesar: missing links in the « µ » branch), Revue d’histoire des textes, Vol. 11, Numéro 1981, pp. 147–158 and see also Appendix B.
- 12.
The additional text continues on all pages until f. 81, except for f. 74v.
- 13.
In 1898 Georg Thiele argued that the Leiden’s exemplar originated in the fourth century on stylistic and iconographic evidence.
- 14.
Verkerk argues that because the text includes sections of Avienus’ poem, its model must date to the fourth or fifth century. He adds, “Thiele thought that the finishing touches were only added to the revision of the text in the ninth century by the Carolingian scribe.”.
- 15.
See K. Lippincott, British Museum website for reproductions of the miniatures from Madrid BN MS 3307.
- 16.
The iconography of Gemini and the other constellations is discussed in more detail in Appendix B.
- 17.
The quotes in italics are from the Phaenomena of Aratus, Kidd’.
- 18.
The royal family has been recognized by Aratus with a full description on verses 179–264 (Kidd); for a discussion of the iconography, myth and the variations of their illuminations see Appendix C.
- 19.
Martianus Capella and Macrobius both quoted the theories of the ancient Greek astronomer, Heraclitus, that because Mercury and Venus are never far from the Sun, that indicated they orbit the Sun, not the Earth. The theory was little noted and this arrangement does not appear in any other medieval diagrams that I have seen, except for the close of copy of MS Leiden, Boulogne-sur-Mer MS 188; the other copy of MS Leiden, Bern 88, does not include the diagram; possibly it was lost.
- 20.
Eastwood (1989) Aratea, Kommentar zum Aratus des Germanicus, MS Voss. Lat. Q.79 IV 1-40, (1983) “Leiden Planetary Configuration”, reprinted in 2002. Eastwood was not the first to publish the heliocentric features of this configuration, he credits Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, (1975) “Survivances du ’système d’Heraclide’ au Moyen Age” Avant, avec, après Copernic, Paris: pp. 39–50, for noting the ‘peculiarities of its heliocentrism’. She attempts to place it in a tradition of heliocentric ideology. Thiele was the first scholar to publish information on the diagram in 1898, in Antike Himmelsbilder, p.77 and 90, but he does not mention the heliocentrism. Eastwood corrects the date to March 18, 816 in “The Astronomies of Pliny” (1993) p.173.
- 21.
They determined that the probability that all the planets were chosen at random, and that they happen to align at this particular date, is the staggering one day in seven million million years.
- 22.
This relationship is discussed by Stern, Le Calendrier de 354; M. Salzman, On Roman Times, and von Euw in “Die Bilder des Leidener Aratus”.
- 23.
- 24.
The complete list and content of miniatures contained in the Harley can be found in Appendix B.
- 25.
As proof that the Harley was in England at that time, Saxl reports that the first page of the Harley was apparently lost, and was replaced by an English hand in the second half of the tenth century.
- 26.
The excerpts from Natural History, Chap. 18 appear on ff.16r and 16v; and more excerpts from Pliny’s Chap. 2 Natural History, Chap. 18 on 18v-20r.
- 27.
See British Library website prepared by Kristen Lippincott for more details, a black and white image of each page, including the text on each folio and listing the missing constellations—kristenlippincott.com. The BL Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts displays each folio in color.
- 28.
The work pictures were invented by Porfyrius for the benefit of Constantine the Great. The poems were composed so that the verses outlined a shape appropriate to the content.
- 29.
This connection was discussed in Chap. 2. Lupus of Ferrières wrote to Prüm in 847 asking to borrow a copy of their ‘Tullius in Arato’ to complete his own exemplar. The closeness of Prüm to Aachen suggests a relation between the manuscript to which Lupus refers and the Harley Cicero. Cicero’s Aratea was mentioned in letters of Carolingian humanists as “Tullius in Arato” (Mütherich and Gaehde 1976:12). But that does not eliminate Lupus, as he lived in northern France at that time.
- 30.
Mütherich, “Book Illumination in the Court of Louis the Pious”.
- 31.
He wrote the following: “Ista proprio sudore nomina uno quoque propria. Ego indignus sacerdos er monachus nomine Geruvigus repperi ac acripsi. Pax legentibus” (f .21v).
- 32.
The five copies of the Harley are: Cotton Tib. BV; Cotton C 1; Harley 2506; Bodley 614 and Digby 83.
- 33.
Saxl in “Illuminated Science Manuscripts” goes on to say “this fruit of late antique civilization is a little too fanciful; for if someone was interested in the text he can hardly have enjoyed reading it in this form. The English scribes and draughtsman were therefore sensible enough to drop this mannerism fairly soon; they copied the figures and wrote the commentary in the blank spaces”. This is also discussed in Saxl “Belief in Stars”, Lectures, p.88.
- 34.
The Canterbury School of Illumination, 1066-1200, (1954).
- 35.
Mentioned by J. Crick from ‘Script and the Sense of the Past in Anglo-Saxon Traces, ed. J. Roberts and L. Webster, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 405 (Tempe, AZ, 2011) pp. 1–29. Odbert himself was a scribe and artist who decorated six major manuscripts and eight lesser texts; the most important was the hefty St. Bertin Psalter (Boulogne, Bib. Mun., MS. 23) dated 999. Its inscription named Odbert as the illuminator. The Psalter contains three full-page illustrations and 180 decorated initials, 33 of them with colored pen outline drawings of the Life of Christ. (Oxford Index).
- 36.
Saxl (“Illuminated Science Manuscripts”) 110 “The illuminated astronomical manuscripts of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, do not record any scientific discoveries by English monks. Their work was based entirely on the classical heritage. English manuscripts differ from the Continental ones of the same period in one essential point. The English manuscripts except for two exceptions are based on one classical original”.
- 37.
Cotton Tiberius C. I. and its illuminations are fully listed in Appendix B.
- 38.
More information on the entire manuscript can be found online at https://www.le.ac.uk/english/em1060to1220/mss/EM.BL.Tibe.C.i.htm.
- 39.
The constellations included in Tiberius C.I. are listed in Appendix B.
- 40.
This Platonic influence can be demonstrated by the Questiones of Adelard of Bath and in De essentiis of Hermann of Carinthia.
- 41.
Bodl 614 and its complete miniatures are listed in Appendix B.
- 42.
Marvels of the East was a popular medieval codex which was more a book of monsters and monstrous races, describing odd creatures that they thought lived in unknown regions of the world, such as cyclops, blemyai, and sciopods, which reach back to Pliny the Elder. The tale only appears in a few medieval manuscripts. The Marvels of the East can be found in Cotton Tiberius B V and in its copy Bodl 614. These wonders are fully illustrated in both manuscripts and were produced for entertainment.
- 43.
Saxl, “Illuminated Science Manuscripts” in Lectures 108.
- 44.
The constellations illuminated in Bodl. 614 are listed in Appendix B.
- 45.
Saxl, “Illuminated Science Manuscripts” in Lectures.
- 46.
The most beautifully decorated manuscript devoted to the presentation of the ‘children of the planets’ is now knows as the De Sphaera D’Este created about 1470. It had no original title; the author and scribe are unknown but the illuminator was Christoforo de Predis, who mainly worked at the court of the Sforza family. All scenes illustrating the ‘children’ and their appropriate activities provide helpful insight into everyday life in fifteenth- century Italy. The illustrations from the De Sphaera are readily available online.
- 47.
Blume et al., explain the odd introduction of horns to Eridanus in Sternbilder des Mittelalters (2016) page 118. This addition of horns may have occurred already in the eleventh century in a manuscript produced in Montecassino which transferred that motif to Germanicus copies in Northern Europe.
- 48.
The complete list of illustrations can be found in Appendix B.
- 49.
The complete listing of constellation illustrations can be found in Appendix B.
- 50.
See Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity; Gombrich, Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance. But many of their conclusions have been challenged by more recent interpretations of Renaissance art.
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Dolan, M. (2017). Specific Aratea Manuscripts. In: Astronomical Knowledge Transmission Through Illustrated Aratea Manuscripts. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56784-6_7
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