Die Visio Pauli

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The Astrolabe

An ancient instrument for solving problems of location and distance, as well as time

Astrolábon órganon is the word used in Ptolemaeus Syntaxis 5.1 to describe a form of armillary sphere consisting of both fixed and rotating rings for determining the ecliptic co-ordinates of stars. Also called astrolabe were two-dimensional representations of the celestial sphere: over fixed disks with a representation of the horizon of the earth (in each case for a specific geographic latitude) and its parallels up to the zenith lies a rotating representation of the heavens (called ‘spider’ or ‘net’) with zodiac and indicators for some of the brightest stars. On the back is an indicator (‘alidade’) with visor plates for calculating the height of the stars. The astrolabe allows its user to determine the hours of day and night, the positions of stars, and the height and depth of objects on earth (mountains, buildings, wells). The oldest extant descriptions of the flat, planispheric astrolabe come from Iohannes Philoponus, 6th century AD, and (in Syrian) from Severus Sebokht, c. 660 AD. Indirect references may date back as early as Theon (4th cent.). Between the 8th and the 9th centuries the Arabs appropriated the knowledge of the astrolabe. At the end of the 10th century and again in the 12th century, they passed it on to Western Europe, where astrolabes were constructed up until the 17th cent. Today, one Byzantine astrolabe (from 1062) is extant, as are some 750 Arabic-Islamic astrolabes and approximately the same number of European astrolabes.

This information is abstracted from Brill's New Pauly, the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world. For more information see www.brillsnewpauly.com or visit our website catalog: www.brill.nl/bnp
Brill’s New Pauly and the complete original Der Neue Pauly, the recognized standard reference works for students and scholars of the ancient world are also available online. This dual-language edition offers basic and advanced search facilities and is fully browsable. New English translations are added as they become available. See www.paulyonline.brill.nl for more information and a demo version.

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Publications & Services> Books> Book Series> Die Visio Pauli

Die Visio Pauli

Wege und Wandlungen einer orientalischen Apokryphe im lateinischen Mittelalter. Unter Einschluß der alttsechischen und deutschsprachigen Textzeugen.

Lenka Jiroušková

PrimarySources

Available
Publication year: 2006


Series:	Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 34
ISBN-13 (i)The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been changed from 10 to 13 digits on 1 January 2007:	978 90 04 15055 3
ISBN-10:	90 04 15055 2

Cover:	Hardback
Number of pages:	xvi, 1040 pp.

List price:	€ 216.00 / US$ 320.00

Table of contents

Vorwort
Abkürzungen
ERSTER TEIL: UNTERSUCHUNGEN
Einleitung
I. Die Paulus-Apokalypse und die Visio Pauli in der Forschung
I.1 Stand der Forschung
I.2 Ziel der Untersuchung
II. Textbestand und Überlieferung
III. Die Höllen-Fassungen: Szenenstruktur und Gruppengliederung
IV. Das Fortleben der Himmel-Hölle-Fassungen in den Höllen-Fassungen und in den Übergangsfassungen:
V. Von der Paulus-Apokalypse zur Visio Pauli: Motivanalyse der Konstanten und Veränderungen
VII. Gebrauchsbedingte Profile der Visio Pauli
VIII. Text und Kontext
IX. Latein und Volkssprache: Die alttschechische und mittelhochdeutsche Visio Pauli
X. Wege und Wandlungen

ZWEITER TEIL: SYNOPTISCHE TEXTGESCHICHTLICHE EDITION
Die lateinische Visio Pauli
Zur textgeschichtlichen Edition der lateinischen Texte
a) Gemischte Fassungen aus Szenen mehrerer Gruppen
b) Fassungen mit mehreren neuen Szenen
c) Neugestaltete Fassungen
d) Formal singuläre Fassungen (Exzerpte)
Fragmente ohne eindeutige Gruppenzugehörigkeit
Übergangsfassungen
Die alttschechische Visio Pauli und ihre lateinische Vorlage (Gruppe B/bes.)
Die deutschsprachige Visio Pauli

Literaturverzeichnis
Register zum Untersuchungsteil
Namensregister
Ortsregister
Werkregister

Readership

For all those interested in medieval vision literature, apocryphal texts, apocalypse and eschatology; medieval Latin literature, the textual structuring and generic definition of medieval texts; manuscript studies; and, in general, for literary historians, medieval Latinists, classicists, theologians and philologists of Old German and Czech.

About the author(s)

Lenka Jiroušková, Dr. (1971), is a Scientific Assistant in the Seminar für Lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters (University of Freiburg im Breisgau). Her research focuses on the Latin and Old Czech literature of medieval Bohemia, vision literature and hagiography (she is co-editor of Mirakelberichte des frühen und hohen Mittelalters, Darmstadt 2005).

The book offers a complete edition of 115 Latin, Old Czech and German texts, for the most part transcribed for the first time. This forms the basis for an investigation of the dissemination of the Visio Pauli in medieval Europe; on its incorporation into new, changing contexts of transmission and combinations of text as well as on its vernacular translation. In so doing the author shows that the Apocrypha (the apocalypse of Paul) which arose in the East in late antiquity and their European transformation (Visio Pauli) – one as a closed text, the other as an open text – represent in their complex history of transmission two completely different versions of one and the same material. The structure of a text is here seen in the context of its dispersion and in the concrete uses to which it is put. Establishing variable and open factors, the circumstances, consequences and description of establishing these, is the actual subject of this investigation.

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