Gaius Julius Hyginus (fl. 1st century)
De astronomia
Illuminated manuscript, 1475–1480
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Spencer Collection
De astronomia
First defined by Babylonian stargazers, the zodiac consists of 12 sectors, or houses, of the night sky, traversed each month by different stars. The astronomer Hyginus believed in occult correspondences between earthly and heavenly affairs, governed in part by movements of the stars and planets, and based his poem, De astronomia, largely on the works of the Hellenistic poet Aratos. (Aratos, in turn, relied for his knowledge on the 4th-century BCE Greek mathematician Eudoxus of Cnidus.) De astronomia describes the myths connected with the celestial configurations, naming 42 constellations and discussing the various gods and heroes associated with each. In the 15th century, Giovanni Vendramin, a student of the Italian painter Andrea Mantegna, illustrated this Renaissance copy of Hyginus’s work. A Paduan scribe named Francesco Buzzacarini produced it, possibly for his own use.
: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Spencer …
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