Bidspirit auction | [TRATADO DE COSMOLOGIA E METEOROLOGIA

[TRATADO DE COSMOLOGIA E METEOROLOGIA EM FRANCÊS ANTIGO]. [França, c. 1300]. - [TREATISE OF COSMOLOGY AND METEOROLOGY IN OLD FRENCH]. [France, c. 1300]. Manuscript on parchment; 46 numbered ff. containing 12 hand-coloured illustrations; 130 mm. Small parchment manuscript, its folios later numbered in ink, written in a single column in Gothic script, c. 25–30 lines per page; rubrics and initials in red, some larger initials with geometric decoration and foliate motifs in red, brown and white; circular astronomical diagrams (phases of eclipses, relation Sun–Moon–Earth) and a T–O world map painted in green, red and brown; a few small losses to some folios, not affecting legibility. Several marginal notes and end-papers in later French cursive hands of the 15th–16th centuries, one of them referring to an “an de jubilé”. Fragment of an anonymous treatise in Old French on cosmology, astronomy and meteorology, belonging to the vernacular tradition of the Sphaera and the Image du Monde . It describes the position of the Earth at the centre of the universe, the celestial spheres, the climatic zones, the nature of the elements, the origin of winds, rain, thunder and storms, and explains in detail the eclipses of the Sun and Moon, accompanied by coloured diagrams. The T–O world map belongs to the same iconographic tradition as the cosmographical manuals of the 13th century. Despite its affinities with the Image du Monde , the text of this codex appears to represent an independent or abridged version, not yet identified, of a medieval scientific treatise in the vernacular. A codex of great interest for the study of the popularisation of science in Old French, the iconography of medieval maps and the transmission of astronomical treatises (Messahala, Sacrobosco, Bede, etc.) in a lay environment.