Wind Diagrams and Medieval Cosmology

Obrist, Barbara

doi:10.2307/2865863

Cited by 28 publications

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“…60 Indeed, the association of winds with directions in maps and diagrams can be traced to ancient texts such as Aristotle's Meteorology, Vitruvius's De architectura, and indeed Ptolemy's Geography. 61 But this particular diagram is remarkably close to that contained in one of the earliest printed cosmographical texts, Martin Waldseemüller's Cosmographiae introductio of 1507, 62 which can itself be considered a composite of two earlier kinds of figure: the medieval wind diagrams found in a variety of texts, including monastic computuses, 63 and the projections described in Ptolemy's Geography. (In chapter 6 of Book 7 of the Geography, Ptolemy describes the construction of a map grid on an image of a ringed globe of the kind shown here.…”

Section: Coronelli's Idea Dell'universomentioning

confidence: 77%

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli's Atlante Veneto and the Diagrammatic Tradition of Cosmography

Mosley

2011

Journal for the History of Astronomy

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The Atlante veneto of Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718) might seem a distinctly odd choice of subject for an article in a collection focused on astronomical diagrams of the period 1450-1650. Coronelli himself, though familiar to historians of cartography, is not an especially well-known figure in the history of astronomy. He is probably best known to readers of this journal as the producer of enormous globes, terrestrial as well as celestial, an accomplishment celebrated in the title of the Internationale Coronelli-Gesellschaft für Globenkunde, or International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes, based in Vienna. But globes are not naturally classed as diagrams, even if many of the same techniques were employed in producing them as were required for the printing of flat illustrations. An atlas, moreover, unless explicitly labelled a celestial atlas, is obviously more a geographical than an astronomical work, and the date of Coronelli's -1691 -places it some decades after the nominal terminus ante quem of this special issue. In the course of this essay, however, I hope to show that Coronelli's work is indeed of relevance to the topic at hand. The Atlante veneto should be considered, I argue, a work of cosmography, the Renaissance subject that encompassed both geography and astronomy. It is notable for containing a number of astronomical images, including figures representing worldsystems, celestial planispheres, and a composite image, the Idea dell'universo, which incorporates multiple distinct tables and diagrams. The work as a whole, but the latter image especially, can be used as a lens through which to consider the preceding two centuries and more of the diagrammatic traditions of astronomy and cosmography. Atlantic Cosmography: A GenealogyEven though we are used to thinking of atlases primarily as vehicles of cartographic material, it is still the case today that they may contain a substantial section that is cosmological and astronomical: illustrated text on the origins of the universe, the formation of galaxies, stars and planets, and particularly the origins of the Earth and its place and companions in the solar system. Such a section may even go on to discuss the geological and atmospheric development of our planet, the shaping of continents, tides, and weather systems, phenomena such as the seasons, and indeed the origins and evolution of life on Earth. 1 Material of this kind may be considered geographical in the broadest sense, yet its presence can also be explained by the emergence of the earliest printed atlases as works of cosmography rather than geography. The first part of Mercator's atlas was posthumously published in 1595 under the title Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura; this title was retained for the subsequent editions supervised by Jodocus Hondius, and JHA, xlii (2011)

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Section: Coronelli's Idea Dell'universomentioning

confidence: 77%

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli's Atlante Veneto and the Diagrammatic Tradition of Cosmography

Mosley

2011

Journal for the History of Astronomy

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“…Symbolically, Jerusalem represented the history of the world, its past, present and future, and its cardinal‐orientated circular form signified the cosmic order (Kühnel 1998, xxiii). This same symbolic form (and divine history and hierarchy) is repeated in mappaemundi such as the Ebstorf map of the thirteenth century, where the world is superimposed upon the body of Christ, with Jerusalem at his navel – the axis mundi – and orientated to the four cardinal points, cross‐shaped (Woodward 1987; Obrist 1997). Of course, a circular‐shaped heavenly Jerusalem did not tally with Scripture.…”

Section: The Microcosmic City: Text and Imagementioning

confidence: 86%

Cities of God? Medieval urban forms and their Christian symbolism

Lilley

2004

Trans Inst British Geog

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Situated in the context of recent geographical engagements with 'landscape', this paper combines 'morphological' and 'iconographic' landscape interpretations to examine how urban forms were perceived in late medieval Europe. To date, morphological studies have mapped the medieval city either by classifying urban layouts according to particular types, or by analysing plan forms of particular towns and cities to reveal their spatial evolution. This paper outlines a third way, an 'iconographic' approach, which shows how urban forms in the Middle Ages conveyed Christian symbolism. Three such 'mappings' explore this thesis: the first uses textual and visual representations which show that the city was understood as a scaled-down world -a microcosm -linking city and cosmos in the medieval mind; the second 'mapping' develops this theme further and suggests that urban landscapes were inscribed with symbolic form through their layout on the ground; while the third looks at how Christian symbolism of urban forms was performed through the urban landscape in perennial religious processions. Each of these 'mappings' points to the symbolic, mystical significance urban form had in the Middle Ages, based on religious faith, and they thus offer a deepened appreciation of how urban landscapes were represented, constructed and experienced at the time.key words urban morphology medieval Europe landscape iconography

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“…In the Carolingian realm, where the works of Pseudo-Dionysius were translated into Latin by John Scottus Eriugena, 54 early medieval diagrams were further elaborated to schematize cosmological ideas; 55 and Bruce S. Eastwood argues that such Carolingian diagrams-no matter how incoherent they may look to a modern viewer-allow us to "discover much more deeply what and how ninth-century teachers and students were able to understand ." 56 Let me illustrate this point with a diagram that was drawn in a manuscript produced in a Carolingian scriptorium ca.…”

Section: The Bruce Codex and The Early Medieval Cosmographic Diagramsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of Graphicacy in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Garipzanov¹

2015

Viator

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Diagrams, maps, and other forms of graphic visualization are nowadays discussed as a specific mode of communication, graphicacy, typical of the modern age with its ever-increasing role of visual media in social life. This essay questions this tendency to see graphicacy as a by-product of modernity by surveying various forms of representational graphic signs and systems that were placed on various media in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and it suggests that this graphic material should be seen as expressions of the very same mode of communication rising at the time of the sociocultural-and more specifically, religious-transformation of the late Roman and post-Roman worlds. With reference to this graphic evidence, early graphicacy is defined as a mode of visual communication of conceptual information and abstract ideas by means of non-figural graphic devices, which may comprise inscribed letters, words, and isolated decorative symbols.

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Wind Diagrams and Medieval Cosmology

Cited by 28 publications

References 0 publications

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli's Atlante Veneto and the Diagrammatic Tradition of Cosmography

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli's Atlante Veneto and the Diagrammatic Tradition of Cosmography

Cities of God? Medieval urban forms and their Christian symbolism

The Rise of Graphicacy in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

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