''De Astronomica'', or the ''Astronomy'', also known as ''Poeticon Astronomicon'',
/ref> is a book of stories whose text is attributed to "

Hyginus Gaius Julius Hyginus (; 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus according to Suetonius' ''De Grammati ...

", though the true authorship is disputed. During the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

, the work was attributed to the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

historian

Gaius Julius Hyginus Gaius Julius Hyginus (; 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus according to Suetonius' ''De Gramma ...

who lived during the 1st century BC. However, the fact that the book lists most of the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the earliest constellation ...

s north of the

ecliptic The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic agains ...

in the same order as

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

's ''

Almagest The ''Almagest'' is a 2nd-century Greek-language mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Claudius Ptolemy ( ). One of the most influential scientific texts in history, it can ...

'' (written in the 2nd century) has led many to believe that a more recent Hyginus or Pseudo-Hyginus created the text. The text describes 47 of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, centering primarily on the Greek and

Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representa ...

surrounding the constellations, though there is some discussion of the relative positions of stars. The first known printing was in 1475, attributed to "Ferrara." The ''De Astronomica'' was not formally published until 1482, by

Erhard Ratdolt Erhard Ratdolt (1442–1528) was an early German printer from Augsburg. He was active as a printer in Venice from 1476 to 1486, and afterwards in Augsburg. From 1475 to 1478 he was in partnership with two other German printers. The first book ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

. This edition carried the full title ''Clarissimi Viri Hyginii Poeticon Astronomicon Opus Vtilissimum.'' Ratdolt commissioned a series of woodcuts depicting the constellations to accompany Hyginus's text. As with many other star atlases that would follow it, the positions of various stars are indicated overlaid on the image of each constellation. However, the relative positions of the stars in the woodcuts bear little resemblance to the descriptions given by Hyginus in the text or the actual positions of the stars in the sky. As a result of the inaccuracy of the depicted star positions and the fact that the constellations are not shown with any context, the ''De Astronomica'' is not particularly useful as a guide to the night sky. However, the illustrations commissioned by Ratdolt served as a template for future sky atlas renderings of the constellation figures. The text, by contrast, is an important source, and occasionally the only source, for some of the more obscure Greek myths.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Condos, Theony, ''Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans: A Sourcebook, Containing The Constellations of Pseudo-Eratosthenes and the Poetic Astronomy of Hyginus'' (Grand Rapids I Phanes Press, 1997) . * Hard, Robin (transl.), ''Eratosthenes and Hyginus: Constellation Myths, with Aratus's Phaenomena'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) .

External links

High-resolution images of some pages from the Ratdolt edition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Poeticon Astronomicon Greek mythology