[THEOLOGY]. [GEOMETRY]. ANONYMOUS]. Excerpt... - Lot 1 - Ader

[THEOLOGY]. [GEOMETRY]. ANONYMOUS]. Excerpt from a treatise on the Empyrean and Paradise (?) (Euclidean geometry applied to the theory of the disposition of angels, saints, the Virgin and Christ in the Empyrean and Paradise) Two binding defeats, brown ink on parchment, minuscule gothic textura script, drawings in brown ink Northern France or Flanders, ca. 1300 Dimensions: 290 mm high. Width undone 1: 115 mm; width undone 2: 116 mm. Rubbing and holes reaching the parchment, erasures in places due to the gluing of the leaves in the binding. Some ink discharges with transfer of the writings to the reverse. These two pieces are unbound, which explains the curious shape that suggests the form of "claies", which are reinforcing strips glued before the cover to the spine of the signatures of the body of the book and extended on the back covers where they are glued. Incipit: "Secundo ita quod [...] respectu eiusdem corporis christi [...] imaginando tamen quod...". The Empyrean is a medieval invention that is more concerned with the doctrinal issues of the time than with the science of the stars. The Empyrean is the highest part of the sky, which enriches Aristotelian cosmology with a higher sphere, and is conceived as the home of angels and the blessed: the drawings on the presents unbound show the angels ("locus angelorum") and the saints ("locus sanctorum") in their place, in circles drawn according to a precise geometric order explained in the texts. This first analysis makes it possible to identify that the author seeks to define the different ways in which the angels or saints are situated in relation to God. The readable texts reveal sharp geometrical considerations, especially on the circumferences of circles, precise points related to circles, centers of circles and diameters. For example, in paragraph 1, def. 2, verso: "circuli predicti sed in aliquo loco circumferencie predicti circuli..."; "[...] de quolibet puncto circumferencie..."; "[...] quicquid est in concavo eiusdem circumferencie..."; "[...] in extremitate diametri in concavo... The pen drawings represent the following scenes [recto]: (1) A scene of the presentation of the Virgin to a blessing figure, reproduced in reverse, almost in symmetry. It may be a scene of the "Coronation of the Virgin" but in this case, the Virgin is already crowned, assisted by an angel and a nimbed figure. - (2) Circular diagram showing in the centre a blessing Christ seated on a throne and in the outer circle alternating between an angel (caption: "locus angelorum"), a saint (caption: "locus sanctorum"), and the crowned Virgin seated on a throne.) - verso] : (3) Circular drawing showing Christ (?) seated on a throne but this time located closer to the circumference of the circle, a nimbed imploree in a circle immediately below, and again arranged in the circle the angels and saints (note: this drawing is more effaced than those on the front of the defeats). On drawing and the use of diagrams in medieval manuscripts, see Melanie Holcomb's excellent study, Pen to Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages (New York, 2009). For the time being anonymous, the author is clearly a mathematician or scientist who applies certain geometrical principles to theology, influenced by his reading of Euclid, which he clearly quotes in the (partly deleted) opening paragraph: "Sexto modo ita [...] intelligatur esse [....] Euclid[es]" (verso defaced 1, 1st paragraph, 5th line). It is interesting to see Euclid's name appear in a treatise of a theological nature: "For it is a fact that in the West, in the Middle Ages, mathematics was not only cultivated for its own sake, but in relation to theological or physical problems" (S. Rommevaux, "La réception des Eléments d'Euclide au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance", in Revue d'histoire des sciences, 2003, 56-2, pp. 267-273. The West had the whole of Euclid's Elements at its disposal from the 12th century onwards thanks to the various Latin translations made from Arabic versions, or even directly from a Greek text and Hebrew translations . Examples include the translations and commentaries of Robert of Chester (active in the middle of the 12th century): Robert of Chester's Redaction of Euclid's Elements (ed. Busard and Folkerts, 1992), but also Campanus' recension of Euclid around 1260, used by medieval scholars, and Nicolas Oresme's Questions on Euclid's Geometry (14th century). From the fourth to the twelfth century, European knowledge and study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music were mainly limited to translations by Boethius of some of the works of masters of the Greek language.