Page 227 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

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the fact that the first astronomer was said to have side-column and costume types, and slightly more
been Endymion the shepherd. naturalistic figures and rendering of space. PORTRAIT OF PTOLEMY
Traditionally the arts and sciences were classi- Though it has sometimes been dated earlier than
fied— and personified — as the Liberal Arts. The these pieces, about 1510-1515, it is more likely from Claudius Ptolemy, Geography
categories were already established by the fifth from a slightly later copy series, of perhaps about c. 1453
century A.D., in Martianus Capella's allegorical 1520-1525. Music seems to come from still a Italian
novel, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, in third cartoon series, based on similar composi- manuscript on vellum, 104 fols.
foxi/Vsj
which he introduced the personifications of the tional models. It is uncertain where these tapes- 5^-5 *43-5 Wieser 1932, 211, 275-2^4; Ferrari
references:
trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic) and tries were designed and woven. They appear to be 1939; Venice 1968, 52, no. 48; Zorzi 1988,
the quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Astron- Flemish, but may not all be from the same center. 122-123, ^-
z
omy, and Music). Both Tournai and Bruges have been suggested;
This extremely well-preserved tapestry was but Astronomy might even come from some Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, Cod. Gr. Z.
probably part of a set of seven illustrating the smaller center, perhaps with greater influence 388 (coll. 333), fol. 6v
seven Liberal Arts. Other tapestries are known from Brussels. J.M.M. and C.A.
with related designs, showing Rhetoric (Musee Claudius Ptolemy (c. 90-168 A.D.) is best known
des Arts Decoratifs, Paris), Arithmetic (Musee de today for his Almagest, an astronomical work; the
Cluny, Paris), and Music (Museum of Fine Arts, Tetrabiblos, an astrological compendium; and his
Boston). Rhetoric and Arithmetic (which bears Geography in eight books, in which he mapped
the date 1520) were probably both woven from a the known world. While improving on an earlier,
common series of full-scale cartoons. Astronomy now lost, account of the world by Marinus of
has some similar design features, but different Tyre, Ptolemy proposed three systems of carto-

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