2023/03/01 by Victor Gysembergh, Alexander Jones, Emanuel Zingg +3
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #Art #Classics #Epistemology #Historical Astronomy and Related Studies #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies #History of Science and Medicine #History of science #Literature #Palimpsest #Philosophy #Philosophy of science #Ptolemy's table of chords
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s00407-022-00302-w
openalex publication_date 2023/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract The eighth-century Latin manuscript Milan, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, L 99 Sup. contains fifteen palimpsest leaves previously used for three Greek scientific texts: a text of unknown authorship on mathematical mechanics and catoptrics, known as the Fragmentum Mathematicum Bobiense (three leaves), Ptolemy's Analemma (six leaves), and an astronomical text that has hitherto remained unidentified and almost entirely unread (six leaves). We report here on the current state of our research on this last text, based on multispectral images. The text, incompletely preserved, is a treatise on the construction and uses of a nine-ringed armillary instrument, identifiable as the “meteoroscope” invented by Ptolemy and known to us from passages in Ptolemy's Geography and in writings of Pappus and Proclus. We further argue that the author of our text was Ptolemy himself.