Antiquity Studies

Hyginus, Michael Scot (?) and the Tyranny of Technology in the Early Renaissance

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Abstract

Whereas the earliest history of illustrations accompanying the text of Hyginus’s De Astronomia remains a mystery, the iconography found in fifteenth-century illuminated manuscripts is relatively straight-forward and fairly consistent. Intriguingly, however, the woodblock images in the first illustrated edition of the text (Venice: E. Ratdolt, 1482) do not appear to follow any known Hyginian model, but closely resemble the idiosyncratic drawings that accompany the texts of Michael Scot’s Liber introductorius. This paper explores current assumptions about Ratdolt’s pictorial model and traces the impact of his illustrations on subsequent generations of astro-mythological treatises.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Jan. 13, 2017 | Accepted: March 31, 2017 | Published Sept. 1, 2017 | Language: en

Keywords Manuscripts • Astronomy • Book illustration • Illumination • Italian humanism • Incunables Classical tradition

Copyright © 2017 Kristen Lippincott. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/6969-165-2/ANT-13-10


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