The Dendera Zodiac
Petrus Apianus. Astronomicum Caesareum (The Emperor's Astronomy). 1540.
The 'Emperor's Astronomy' (dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) elegantly depicts the cosmos and heavens according to the 1400-year-old Ptolemaic system, which maintained that the sun revolved around the earth. By means of hand-colored maps and moveable paper parts (volvelles), Petrus Apianus (1495-1552) laid out the mechanics of a universe that was earth and human centered. Within three years of Apianus's book, this view was challenged by Copernicus's assertion that the earth revolved around the sun, making this elaborate publication outdated. -LOC
Matthias Seutter. Colossus Monarchic Statua Danielis. 1730.
The figure of Colussus, with sword and scepter, represents Daniel's interpretation of King Nebuchadenezzar's dream. He was a powerful Babylonian king who conquered Judea during the sixth century B.C. In the story, the king dreams of a mighty image with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay. Daniel, a Jew exiled in Babylon, interprets the image to represent once and future kingdoms, with Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold. The plate depicts the four kingdoms as Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman. -Via Libri
Ancient Masks of Rome, Aztec, Papua New Guinea, Greece and Indonesia.
Liber Divinorum Operum. Saint Hildegard of Bingen, O.S.B. (Hildegard von Bingen, Latin- Hildegardis Bingensis)1098-1179.
Also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, she was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play.
She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising brilliant miniature illuminations.