ALFA internal seminar: readings and research on the alfonsine corpus

Org. Laure Miolo, Nick Jacobson, Samuel Gessner, Matthieu Husson

Observatoire de Paris

77 avenue Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris

These seminars are open to the public

For security reasons please register at least 24 hours in advance

Contact: pascale.baudoin@obspm.fr
And be prepared to present your ID at the gate

Argument

Each morning seminar will be dedicated to the reading session, we will study the university notes found in Conrad Heingarter’s fifteenth-century workbook, which contains materials drawn from the Parisian Alfonsine tradition. We will focus on the way computations in this manuscript are organised, prescribed and grounded, and we will also compare it with other Alfonsine sources treating the same material. Typically in the afternoon, there is the workshop session. It provides a platform for guest scholars and ALFA project postdocs to present their research in an open and constructive way. Postdocs will give presentations on their research related to the overall mission of the AFLA project. Invited guests will have an opportunity to present their own research with plenty of time to discuss their recent work with those in attendance.

The different parts of a seminar day can be attended independently; they are open to the public, but registration is compulsory for security reasons and to obtain entry at the Observatoire gate. If you want to participate, please send an email to Pascale Baudoin at Pascale.baudoin@obspm.fr 

mentioning your name and the seminar session to which you want to attend (24h before the seminar day at the latest).

Reading program

  • Place: Paris; Date: 1452, Sept 17 & include a discussion of time in relation to astrolabe.
  • Basic spherical astronomy (declination, right ascension, oblique ascension, shadows, equation of time)
  • Compute the true place of the Sun (suggestion SG: compute the entry of the Sun into Aries)
  • Compute the true Moon
  • Syzygies
  • then option A: eclipses
  • Or option B: planetary position longitude and latitude

Program

  • Friday, October 11th, Location:Salle du levant

9h30-12h30, Reading session

  • Thursday, October 31st, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

  • Thursday, November 28th, Location: Salle du levant

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Seb Falk

Instruments of memory: mnemonic verses and tables in medieval astronomy

Medieval scholars used memory creatively, to organise their knowledge and make it useful.  Mnemonic methods are, by their nature, hard to trace in the manuscript record; but focusing on specific examples may allow us to understand how the practical reading techniques of astronomy fit within the wider interests of medieval scholars.  This working paper will present a piece of ongoing research into some fourteenth-century manuscripts which illustrate the astronomical interests of friars and monks in England.  It will show how scholars channelled their knowledge of the stars and calendars through verses, creatively linking mathematical tables, instruments and their own observations of the heavens.  By paying close attention to such creative, sometimes playful practices of manuscript and memory, we attempt to gain an improved understanding of the astronomical and astrological interests of medieval scholars.

  • Thursday, December 12th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

  • Thursday, January 23rd, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-10h50, Reading session

  •  Thursday, February 6th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: José Chabas

Astronomical Table Sets in the Alfonsine Tradition 

  • Thursday, February 20th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Razieh Mousavi

The Significance and Functionality of Numerical Data in al-Farghani’s Elements of Astronomy

  •  Thursday, March 5th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Christián C. Carman

Overspecification and Indifference to Visual Accuracy in Mathematical and Astronomical Manuscript Diagrams

  •  Thursday, March 19th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Rich Kremer

Thinking about Tools and Toolboxes when Approaching Manuscripts in the Late Alfonsine Tradition

  • Thursday, April 16th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

  • Thursday, April 30th, Location: Salle du levant

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Alberto Bardi

Astronomical Canons and Tables in the Late Medieval Byzantine Tradition

  • Thursday, May 14th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Laura Fernandez-Fernandez

The Alfonsine Scriptorium and a Close Study of MS 8322 from the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal

  • Thursday, May 28th, Location: Salle du conseil

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Scott Trigg

Mathematical Diagrams in Astronomical Commentaries at the Samarqand Observatory

  • Thursday, June 11th, Location: Salle du levant

9h30-12h30, Reading session

Workshop Guest: Robert Morrison

Astronomical Tables and the Jewish Reception of Chrysococcès’ Persian Syntaxis

  • Thursday, June 25th, Location: Salle du levant

9h30-12h30, Reading session

  • Thursday, July 9th, Location: Salle du levant

9h30-12h30, Reading session

  • Thursday, July 23rd, Location: Salle du levant

9h30-12h30, Reading session