| 0.1 | Byrhtferth’s Diagram. Oxford, St. John’s College Library, MS 17, fol. 7v. By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford 9 |
| 1.1 | Platonic Elemental System, Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum. Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 422, fol. 8v. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8492138z. Accessed 20 April, 2024. Reproduced with permission 28 |
| 2.1 | Diagram of the Aristotelian elements and their quality-pairs ordered in terms of the abstract axes of temperature and humidity. The large arrow represents the transmutation of water to air by the addition of heat 59 |
| 2.2 (a) and (b) | The abstract combinatorial cube of qualities possessed by the elements, according to Isidore’s De natura rerum XI; (a) the diagram referred to in the text from Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, MS 83(II), fols. 126r–143r, Reproduced with permission; (b) Redrawing and translation of another version of the diagram from St. Gallen Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 232, p. 337 inspired by the drawing in Kendall and Wallis’s edition 63 |
| 2.3 | Isidore’s abstract combinatorial cube divided by diagonals in three ways, corresponding to the three binary qualities of T-C (tenuis–crassus), A-O (acutus–obtunsa) and M-I (mobilis–inmobilis) 65 |
| 2.4 | The combination of diagonal planes, constructing 8 separate truncated-prism shaped regions of the cube, four of which correspond to the combinations of T-C (tenuis–crassus), A-O (acutus–obtunsa) and M-I (mobilis–inmobilis) attributed to the elements 66 |
| 2.5 (a), (b) and (c) | The experiment recommended by Grosseteste in De impressionibus elementorum. A pan of water is heated from below at increasing intensity from (a) to (c). (a) Bubbles form at the bottom of the pan only; (b) bubbles leave the bottom but recondense before reaching the surface; (c) bubbles break the surface, while some (example is arrowed) remain at the surface and move horizontally not vertically 69 |
| The experiment illustrating the focusing of light on the bottom surface of a body of water generated by standing surface wave on the top surface. (a) Experimental set-up; (b) stacked images (to enhance contrast and average fluctuations) at water depths of (i) 12cm and (ii) 14cm. The latter case demonstrates conditions delivering a high degree of focusing 73 | |
| 2.7 | The abstract combinatorial cube of qualities possessed by colour, according to Grossteste’s De colore. Light can be great or little (multa-pauca), bright or dim (clara-obscura) and exist within a material that can be pure or impure (purum-impurum). Within this scheme whiteness is at the corner (multa, clara, purum) and blackness at the opposite corner of (pauca, obscura, impurum). Diagram courtesy of H. Smithson 75 |
| 4.1 | Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 210, fol. 132v: The orbis terrarum and the four elements. Reproduced with permission 142 |
| 4.2 | Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 210, fol. 123r: Tonal and interplanetary intervals. Reproduced with permission 143 |
| 5.1 | Cecco d’Ascoli, L’Acerba. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. ital. MS 38, fol. 13v (1456). https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/508d6f80-718b-4fcd-9de5-d1ae61379d83/. Accessed 20 April 2024. Reproduced with permission 160 |
| 5.2 | Quaestio aurea ac perutilis aedita per Dantem Alagherium poetam florentinum clarissimum de natura duorum elementorum: aquae & terrae disserentem, Naples: apud Horatium Salvianum, 1576. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Rari Landau Finaly 66, p. 37. This image is reproduced with permission of the Ministero della Cultura/Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. Further reproduction or duplication in any medium is forbidden 164 |
| 5.3 | Lo illustro poeta Cecho Dascholi: con commento nouamente trouato, et nobilmente historiato: reuisto et emendato, Milan, per Iohanne Angelo Scinzenzeler, 1521, fol. 7v. Wellcome Collection. Reproduced with permission 166 |
| 6.1 | Giovanni Bellini. St. Francis in the Desert, c. 1476–1478, oil on panel. The Frick Collection, https://collections.frick.org/objects/39/st-francis-in-the-desert. Accessed 20 April, 2024. Reproduced with permission 171 |
| 6.2 | William of Auvergne, De universo. Rochester, NY, University of Rochester, Rare Books and Special Collections, MS cod. e 1. Reproduced with permission 173 |
| Platonic Elemental System, Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum. Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 422, fol. 8v. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8492138z. Accessed 20 April, 2024. Reproduced with permission 178 | |
| 6.4 | Ambrosian/Aristotelian Elemental System, Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum. Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 422, fol. 9r. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8492138z. Accessed 20 April, 2024. Reproduced with permission 180 |
| 6.5 | Planetary Diagram, Platonic Elemental System, Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum. Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 422, fol. 15v. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8492138z. Accessed 20 April, 2024. Reproduced with permission 182 |
| 6.6 | Calendar Rota, Göttingen, Niedersächsischen Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, 2o Cod. Ms. theol. 231 Cim, fol. 250r. Reproduced with permission 186 |
| 6.7 | Terra/Tellus, Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb MS. lat. 592. https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb.lat.592. Accessed 20 April, 2024. Reproduced with permission 188 |
| 6.8 | Terra/Tellus, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Vindobonensis, MS 93, fol. 9r. Reproduced with permission 190 |
| 6.9 | Genesis Initial ‘I’, Pontigny Bible, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS lat. 8823, fol. 1r. Reproduced with permission 200 |
| 7.1 | Elemental diagrams, Baltimore, MD, Walters MS W.73 fol.7v. Reproduced with permission 220 |
| 7.2 | Map from the Liber Floridus by Lambert of St. Omer, Ghent, University Library, MS 92, fols. 92v-93r. Reproduced with permission 227 |
| 7.3 | Psalter Map, London, British Library, MS Add. 28681, fol.9r. Reproduced with permission 236 |
| 7.4 | Ripoll Map, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 123, fols. 143v-144. Reproduced with permission 270 |
| 9.1 | Satellite map showing the site of the Monastery of John the Little 270 |
| 9.2 | Archaeological plan of Residence B at the Monastery of John the Little 271 |
| 9.3 | The south face of the north wall of Residence B, Room 4a, showing its mudbrick composition, with surviving red and white plaster and two airshafts incorporating ceramic elements 273 |
| 9.4 | One of the two large ovens in Residence B, Room 9, with two ceramic storage units embedded in the mudbrick wall south wall 274 |
| The top of the surviving eastern wall and southeast corner of Residence B, showing extra courses of mudbrick and an external buttress added as structural reinforcement 275 | |
| 9.6 | The southeast corner of Room 3 in Residence B, showing a painted Coptic inscription on surviving plaster and a bricked-up doorway that blocked off direct access between Rooms 3 and 4 276 |
| 9.7 | A typical mudbrick used in the construction of Egyptian monastic dwellings at the Monastery of John the Little 290 |
| 10.1 | A Calendar of Agricultural Tasks, including February: Spreading of Animal Manure, Traité d’agronomie du bolonais Pietro de Crescenzi, 1459; Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 340. Photo permission: The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo 310 |
| 11.1 | ‘Taxus’, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 764, fol. 50v; 1226–1250, 11.25x14.5cm, inks on parchment. With kind permission of the Bodleian Library 341 |
| 14.1 | An image of the earth from a sixteenth-century Turkish translation of al-Qazwīnī’s Wonders of Creation, Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Turkish MS 185, fol. 6a. Reproduced with permission from the Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division 413 |
In: The Elements in the Medieval World
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Marilina Cesario
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