Star Lore Art Leiden Arathea 816

The Leiden Aratea is one of the oldest illuminated copies of an astronomical treatise by Roman general and poet Germanicus. In AD 4, Germanicus wrote a Latin version of the Phenomena, an introduction to the constellations written by Greek poet Aratus in the third century BC. The Leiden Aratea, officially Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, VLQ 79 was created in the region of Lorraine around 816. It was acquired by the Leiden University Library around 1690. The work contains some of the first artistic depictions on paper of the Greek constellations. However, as Ian Ridpath points out, these early drawings "... interpreted the figures quite freely, with little concern for the framework of the underlying stars. As a result, the images bore only a loose resemblance to the constellation figures as described by Ptolemy. ... Their intent was simply to provide a decorative accompaniment to literary texts, with no pretensions to scientific accuracy." There is a total of 39 miniatures. Scattered across the internet, we found color copies of 28 of them, mostly at Wikimedia and facsimilefinder. A comprehensive collection of images of the Leiden Aratea can be found at The Saxl Project.

Andromeda Wikimedia

Aquilla and Sagitta Wikimedia

Ara Wikimedia

Argo Navis Wikimedia

Aries Wikimedia

Auriga Wikimedia

Boötes Wikimedia

Cancer Wikimedia

Capricornus Wikimedia

Cassiopeia wordpress.com

Centaurus i.pinimg.com

Cepheus Wikimedia

Cygnus Wikimedia

Delphinus Wikimedia

Eridanus Ian Ridpath

Gemini Wikimedia

Hercules Wikimedia

Leo i.pinimg

Ophiuchus, Serpens, Scorpius Wikimedia

Orion and Lepus Wikimedia

Pegasus Wikimedia

Perseus Wikimedia

Pisces Wikimedia

Pleiades Wikimedia

Sagittarius Wikimedia

Taurus i.pinimg.com

Ursa Maior, Ursa Minor, Draco Wikimedia

Virgo i.pinimg.com

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