Astronomical Images : Constellation: Virgo

Alessandro Piccolomini

Astronomical Images

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-78) was an important Italian humanist with strong interests in the mathematical disciplines. He published extensively on literary, philosophical and mathematical subjects, including a famous edition of the <i>Mechanics</i> attributed to Aristotle. The dedication of the volume to 'the most noble and most beautiful Madonna Laudomia Forteguerri' suggests that this work could be called <i>Sacrobosco per le dame</i>. According to Piccolomini's dedication, he heard that Laudomia regretted that as a woman she could not devote herself to knowledge, especially because she had an inclination towards the study of astrology. This occasioned the author to compose this work, first published at Venice in 1540 and often reprinted. The second part of the volume, with separate title-page and pagination, contains didactic tables of the fixed stars, showing the positions of the constellations at different times of the night and year. Although Sacrobosco is not mentioned in this work, Piccolomini followed <i>Sphaera mundi</i> in structure and content to a large extent. It seems to be not so much a university textbook, but rather a popularization of astronomy for the aristocracy. The text is in Italian and all the mathematical parts are explained in very simple terms. Note how, in this illustration, the stellar magnitudes are clearly indicated by self-explanatory typographical conventions.</p>