A Book, a Pen, and the Sphere

Oosterhoff, Richard J.

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198743651.003.0001

History of Universities 2015

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198743651.003.0001

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A Book, a Pen, and the Sphere

Richard J. Oosterhoff¹

Abstract: am grateful for the help of several modern readers of Sacrobosco: to Kate Isard, for stimulating questions; to Owen Gingerich, for sharing his collection; to Roger Gaskell, for sharing his vast knowledge and some images; to Alexander Marr, for responding to an early draft; to Kathleen Crowther and Peter Barker, for the type-script of a paper just published in Isis; and as always to Robert Goulding, for encouragement and close reading. The reviewers' comments were of great help in revising the article, particul… Show more

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Cited by 6 publications

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A Lathe and the Material Sphaera: Astronomical Technique at the Origins of the Cosmographical Handbook

Oosterhoff

2020

De Sphaera of Johannes De Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period

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Even though cosmographers loved to drape their discipline in the ancient dignity of Ptolemy, actual manuals of cosmography often depended on Johannes de Sacrobosco's medieval introduction to spherical astronomy. In fact, certain strains of cosmography shared organization, principles, and even visual apparatus with Sacrobosco's Sphaera and its growing commentary tradition, to the extent that these cosmographies can be seen as themselves commenting on the Sphaera. This paper traces the origins of certain Renaissance cosmographical handbooks to the commentary on the Sphaera by Lefèvre d'Étaples and his colleagues at Paris around 1495. By focusing on the visual elements of this commentary, its instructions for calculating techniques, and the emergence of the "lathe" model of the "material sphere," this chapter argues that one of the mixed mathematical genres now seen as most characteristic of the Renaissance-cosmography-in fact was based on a medieval textbook. 1 I wish to thank Matteo Valleriani for helpful comments, the other contributors to this volume for stimulating conversation, and an anonymous reviewer for a useful suggestion.

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A Lathe and the Material Sphaera: Astronomical Technique at the Origins of the Cosmographical Handbook

Oosterhoff

2020

De Sphaera of Johannes De Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period

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Oronce Fine and Sacrobosco: From the Edition of the Tractatus de sphaera (1516) to the Cosmographia (1532)

Axworthy

2020

De Sphaera of Johannes De Sacrobosco in the Early Modern Period

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This paper considers the contribution of the French mathematician Oronce Fine to the diffusion and transformation of Johannes de Sacrobosco's Tractatus de sphaera by considering his 1516 edition of the Sphaera and his Cosmographia, sive sphaera mundi (in Protomathesis, 1532). The article first describes Fine's life and career, as well as his work as editor of the Sphaera. In a second part, it considers what Fine, in the Cosmographia, has drawn and left aside from the Sphaera, revealing the consequent transformations to the teaching of Sacrobosco's theory of the sphere and its adaptation to the cultural and intellectual environment in which Fine evolved. A last part considers the treatment, in the Cosmographia, of the cosmological representations transmitted by Sacrobosco and by subsequent interpreters of Ptolemaic astronomy concerning the number of celestial spheres and its relation to judicial astrology.

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Rehearsing in the Margins: Mathematical Print and Mathematical Learning in the Early Modern Period

Wardhaugh

2020

The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics

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A Book, a Pen, and the Sphere

Cited by 6 publications

References 1 publication

A Lathe and the Material Sphaera: Astronomical Technique at the Origins of the Cosmographical Handbook

A Lathe and the Material Sphaera: Astronomical Technique at the Origins of the Cosmographical Handbook

Oronce Fine and Sacrobosco: From the Edition of the Tractatus de sphaera (1516) to the Cosmographia (1532)

Rehearsing in the Margins: Mathematical Print and Mathematical Learning in the Early Modern Period

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