The Book of Eclipses

'Eclipses luminarium summa fide et accurata diligentia supputatae, ac figuris coloribusque suis artificiose depictae, quarum rationes ab anno domini 1554. usque in annum domini 1600. se extendunt et ad meridianum Viennae Austriae referuntur - BSB Cod.icon. 181' by Cyprian Leowitz is online at the The Digital Library Department of the Bavarian State Library. (ostensibly: 'Accurate coloured depictions of solar and lunar eclipses covering the years 1554 to 1600 with Vienna, Austria as the point of reference')

The only information I can glean from the web suggests that Leowitz was a Bohemian astrologer and a contemporary of Nostradamus. Most (very very brief) citations mention that his notoriety centres on his having predicted that the world would end in 1584. I think that assertion was made in 1568 and a comment at one site opined that he was hedging his bets by publishing luna/solar data for the time subsequent to the predicted apocalypse (my first thought here is that the author is conflating two publications of Leowitz from different times.) None of these web snippets are worth linking.

I presume that the 1568 prediction was published in Leowitz's 'Prognosticon'.

Just as an irrelevant aside: that word, 'prognosticon', occurs as or in the title of a LOT of books from the Bavarian State Library (and other German libraries too). At first, I thought that these books would be worthwhile checking out; that the title was indicative of 'visual weirdness ahead'. I'm always looking for words or categories or shortcut indications that I can rely on in deciding whether or not to bother checking out a book, because naturally I can only skim a very modest amount from the firehose of digitised material that comes in through my feedreader. It turns out, after trial and error, that 'prognosticon' is, in fact, a useful indicator. When I see it, I don't bother looking unless I recognise the author because these books are invariably illustration-free.

Excerpts or adaptions of 'Eclipses luminarium..' appear in a collection of astrological manuscripts hosted by the University of Heidelberg that was the subject of a previous post: Geomancy Almanac.

The Book of Eclipses

'Eclipses luminarium summa fide et accurata diligentia supputatae, ac figuris coloribusque suis artificiose depictae, quarum rationes ab anno domini 1554. usque in annum domini 1600. se extendunt et ad meridianum Viennae Austriae referuntur - BSB Cod.icon. 181' by Cyprian Leowitz is online at the The Digital Library Department of the Bavarian State Library. (ostensibly: 'Accurate coloured depictions of solar and lunar eclipses covering the years 1554 to 1600 with Vienna, Austria as the point of reference')

The only information I can glean from the web suggests that Leowitz was a Bohemian astrologer and a contemporary of Nostradamus. Most (very very brief) citations mention that his notoriety centres on his having predicted that the world would end in 1584. I think that assertion was made in 1568 and a comment at one site opined that he was hedging his bets by publishing luna/solar data for the time subsequent to the predicted apocalypse (my first thought here is that the author is conflating two publications of Leowitz from different times.) None of these web snippets are worth linking.

I presume that the 1568 prediction was published in Leowitz's 'Prognosticon'.

Just as an irrelevant aside: that word, 'prognosticon', occurs as or in the title of a LOT of books from the Bavarian State Library (and other German libraries too). At first, I thought that these books would be worthwhile checking out; that the title was indicative of 'visual weirdness ahead'. I'm always looking for words or categories or shortcut indications that I can rely on in deciding whether or not to bother checking out a book, because naturally I can only skim a very modest amount from the firehose of digitised material that comes in through my feedreader. It turns out, after trial and error, that 'prognosticon' is, in fact, a useful indicator. When I see it, I don't bother looking unless I recognise the author because these books are invariably illustration-free.

Excerpts or adaptions of 'Eclipses luminarium..' appear in a collection of astrological manuscripts hosted by the University of Heidelberg that was the subject of a previous post: Geomancy Almanac.

Echinodermata

Clicking on most of these images will take you to a large version
so note that there are also very large versions available.

Echinoderms (Phylum Echinodermata) are an exclusively marine invertebrate animal species displaying radial symmetry as adults.

Member Classes include Asteroidea (starfish), Echinoidea (sea urchins and sand dollars), Crinoidea (stone lillies and feather stars), Holothurians (sea cucumbers) and Ophiuroidea (brittle stars).

Their extinct ancestors constitute a much larger group and have left behind an extensive fossil record. [fossil pictures]

The images above come from a multi-volume series of monographs from the 1840s entitled: 'Monographies d'Échinodermes Vivans et Fossiles' (Monographs of living and fossilised echinoderms).

Four of the five volumes are available from the Universities of Strasbourg Libraries (SICD) website (from memory the above images were harvested from all of the books). The author is Louis Agassiz who was mentioned in passing the other day in relation to a previous post - The Embryology of Turtles - which provides a little background and links about him.

Wikipedia // Echinoid Directory // Tree of Life // The Echinoblog

Echinodermata

Clicking on most of these images will take you to a large version
so note that there are also very large versions available.

Echinoderms (Phylum Echinodermata) are an exclusively marine invertebrate animal species displaying radial symmetry as adults.

Member Classes include Asteroidea (starfish), Echinoidea (sea urchins and sand dollars), Crinoidea (stone lillies and feather stars), Holothurians (sea cucumbers) and Ophiuroidea (brittle stars).

Their extinct ancestors constitute a much larger group and have left behind an extensive fossil record. [fossil pictures]

The images above come from a multi-volume series of monographs from the 1840s entitled: 'Monographies d'Échinodermes Vivans et Fossiles' (Monographs of living and fossilised echinoderms).

Four of the five volumes are available from the Universities of Strasbourg Libraries (SICD) website (from memory the above images were harvested from all of the books). The author is Louis Agassiz who was mentioned in passing the other day in relation to a previous post - The Embryology of Turtles - which provides a little background and links about him.

Wikipedia // Echinoid Directory // Tree of Life // The Echinoblog