Ordering the Heavens

Roman Astronomy and Cosmology in the Carolingian Renaissance
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-90-04-16186-3
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 8, 456 Seiten, Format (B × H): 169 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 1012 g

Reihe: Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science

The astronomy of the Carolingian era has commonly been represented as concerned exclusively with computus, the science of calendar construction as well as arithmetical calculation in general. This volume shows the error of that portrayal by exploring the study and teaching of four Roman texts on astronomy and cosmology in the Carolingian world and the diagrams connected to those texts.
As each of these works came into use over the Carolingian era, its contributions merged into a progressively more ordered picture of the heavens. Both eccentrics and epicycles appeared by the 840s. These techniques were subsequently introduced clearly and qualitatively to complete the Carolingian enterprise. The primary tool for understanding this effort is the analysis of their diagrams.

Medieval and Early Modern Science, vol. 8

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eastwood, Bruce

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Human- und Sozialwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

1. Introduction
2. Macrobius’s Commentary on Scipio’s Dream: Its Carolingian Uses for Astronomy and Cosmology
3. Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: Encyclopedia for Carolingian Astronomy and Cosmology
4. Martianus Capella’s Synopsis of Astronomy in The Marriage of Philology and Mercury and its Major Carolingian Commentaries
5. Using Calcidius’s Commentarius in Carolingian Astronomy
6. Carolingian Diagrams for Astronomy and Cosmology

Appendix. Content of the Paragraphs on Astronomy and Cosmology in Calcidius’s Commentarius

Bibliography
Index of Manuscripts Cited
Index of Persons, Places, and Subjects

Über Autor(innen)

Bruce S. Eastwood, Ph.D. (1964) in History, University of Wisconsin, is Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. He has published, with Gerd Grasshoff, Planetary Diagrams for Roman Astronomy in Medieval Europe (American Philosophical Society, 2004).