The Schemata of the Stars: Byzantine Astronomy from 1300 A.D.

World Scientific Publishing Co.
E. A. Paschos
ISBN: 9810234899
price: $44.00  

Most of the knowledge of ancient Greek science survived through Byzantine codices. A short Byzantine article, extant in three manuscripts, contains advanced astronomical ideas and pre-Copernican diagrams; it presents improvements on ancient and medieval astronomy. This important book includes the edited version and translation of the text and analyzes its content. It surveys the development of astronomical models from Ptolemy to Byzantium and compares them mathematically with several works of Arab astronomers, as well as with the heliocentric system of Copernicus and Newton.
Contents:
(1) The Byzantine article contains the following sections: About Motion
About the Spheres and the Stars Lying on Them
About the Sun
About the Spheres of the Moon
About the Spheres of the Four Stars: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus
Computation of the Sphere of Mercury
Stations and Retrogression of the Five Stars and their Ascending Motion
About the Latitude of the Stars
About the Change in Appearance (Parallax)
Parallax of the Sun
About the Waxing and Waning of the Moon
About the Eclipse of the Moon
About the Eclipse of the Sun
(2) The Diagrams: Diagrams in the Schemata of the Stars
Excerpts from the Texts
Geocentric Clocks
Astronomical Diagram from Mount Athos
(3) Analysis of the Schemata of the Stars: Kinematic Principles
Chioniades' Classification of the Stars and their Motions
The Model for the Spheres
The Motion of the Sun
The Lunar Model
The Planets
Mercury
Description of the Stations and Retrogression of the Five Stars
The Nodes and Latitudes of the Stars
The Parallax
The Phases of the Moon
The Eclipse of the Moon
The Eclipse of the Sun
Readership: General, from undergraduates to research scientists interested in medieval astronomy.