Opusculum spericum cum commento et figuris

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Author Sacrobosco, Johannes de, Fabri, Wenceslaus
Full title Opusculum Johannis de Sacro Busto spericum cum notabili commento atque figuris textum declarantibus utilissimis
Year [c. 1495]
Place [Leipzig]
Publisher/Printer [no publisher/printer indicated]
Era 15th century since invention of printing
Form/Genre Commentary
Discipline/Content Astronomy/Astrology/Cosmography, Geography/Cartography
Digital copies
Original Opusculum spericum cum commento et figuris (Google Books)
Digital sourcebook 897957
Description From the 13th to the 17th century, Johannes de Sacrobosco's concise treatise in four chapters De sphaera mundi was Europe's most popular textbook of astronomy and cosmology. During the late Middle Ages, a number of commentaries were already written (Thorndike 1949). From the end of the 15th to the 17th century, hundreds of editions appeared. In most of these, the text was adapted, translated, supplemented or, again, equipped with a commentary, as demonstrated in the project THE SPHERE conducted at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science by Matteo Valleriani.

The commentary by the Bohemian astronomer, physician and theologist Wenceslaus Fabri, titled The Small Work on the Sphere with Commentary and Diagrams, was one of the earliest to appear in print, and a quite successful one at that. Half a dozen editions appeared between 1495 and 1520. No place, date and printer are given for the present one, but it has a good chance to be the first one (for whose place and year, see Thorndike 1949, 41 n. 84), as Fabri is called medicine baccalarius in the colophon, while he is already medicine doctor in the colophon of the edition Cologne 1501. Also the spellings spera and spericum, for which later editions have the more correct sphera/-icum, point towards an early date.

The work opens with an introduction, in which astronomy is defined, subdivided and distinguished from astrology (which is less of a science, because it does not provide certain knowledge). Moreover, the four Aristotelian causes of De sphaera mundi are enumerated. What Fabri has to say about the efficient causes (he subdivides the efficient cause) amounts to an advertisement of the treatise based on its known virtues: one of these causes is the author Sacrobosco (who is called de Sacro Busto by Fabri) himself, qui ex diversis libris astronomiae prolixis et difficilibus hunc tractatum breviter collegit, qui ad astronomiam breviter et faciliter introducit ("who from various long and difficult books on astronomy put together this treatise, which provides a short and easy introduction to astronomy", fol. A iii v).

Fabri provides both the text of the Sphaera, including some 30 diagrams, and his commentary on it. Both are clearly distinguished from one another typographically, as they are double-spaced and single-spaced respectively. The commentary's parts, which are between a few lines and two pages in length, are inserted at irregular intervals after chunks of text running from one half to three pages. In terms of content, a good part of the commentary is paraphrastic: Sacrobosco's account is summarised, its structure analysed and sometimes justified. In additions to this paraphrastic skeleton, often announced by Nota ("Note!"), technical terms are explained (see e.g. fol. [C v r] on polus borealis, "North pole"), questions arising from the text are discussed (is the equatorial zone inhabited?, fol. [A vii v–viii r]) or additional information given. In the last case, Fabri may stray far from the text, as in his very last comment, where the name of Dionysius Areopagita, mentioned by Sacrobosco in the context of the eclipse during the crucifixion, gives rise to a discussion of the topography of ancient Athens. Sometimes Fabri corrects Sacrobosco – a common strategy in commentaries on the Sphaera in general, which was deployed more and more often over the following centuries and secured the text's usability in higher education despite fundamental changes in astronomy and cosmology. On fol. [H iii r], Fabri notes à propos Sacrobosco's discussion of the precession at the beginning of ch. 4: Et licet auctor dicat, quod in centum annis uno gradu moveatur, loquitur opinione Ptolemaei, quo tempore motus dictus nondum vere fuit inventus. ("And although the author says that the position of the sun changes by one degree every hundred years, he [should not be believed, since he] speaks according to the opinion of Ptolemy, at whose time the truth about the aforesaid change was not found out yet.")

The context from which Fabri's work originated as well as its intended readership remain conjectural. One could surmise that Fabri lectured on Sacrobosco in some arts faculty and that he addressed students who had to attend a Sacrobosco class themselves. Occasionally, he indeed sounds like a lecturer, for instance when he begins his introduction with a plural that seems to include himself and his audience: Antequam ad textum tractatus Spere accedamus … ("Before we approach the treatise On the Sphere …"). But there is no hard evidence concerning the work's sociological setting.

References Thorndike 1949
Cited in
How to cite this entry Sacrobosco, Johannes de; Fabri, Wenceslaus: Opusculum spericum cum commento et figuris, in: Noscemus Wiki, URL: http://wiki.uibk.ac.at/noscemus/Opusculum_spericum_cum_commento_et_figuris (last revision: 21.01.2022).
Internal notes
Internal notes
Of interest to MK
Transkribus text available Yes
Written by MK