Introduction Hic Sunt Dracones—Astrolabe Research Revisited

Medieval Medieval Encounters 23 (2017) 3–7 Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture Encounters in Confluence and Dialogue

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Introduction ∵

Hic Sunt Dracones—Astrolabe Research Revisited

Silke Ackermann Museum of the History of Science, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3AZ, UK [email protected]

Hic sunt dracones (Here be dragons) is said to be the phrase commonly used on medieval maps to indicate blank areas that are awaiting further exploration and are thus somewhat dangerous. In fact it is not—there appears to be only one globe that bears this phrase on the eastern coast of Asia,1 but neverthe- less the expression has taken on a life of its own, understood in a variety of contexts. Hic sunt leones (Here be lions) is used with a similar connotation by brother Jorge, the evil monk in The Name of the Rose when he is referring to dangerous knowledge and again, now in the ambiguous sense, by the main character and hero of the book, Franciscan brother William of Baskerville when he finds Africa on a map in the library.2 It is this same William of Baskerville who, portrayed by Sean Connery in the Hollywood movie, brought an astrolabe to the attention of a wider public—a sort of outreach, if you like. Because it is he who in one of the key scenes of the movie furtively reaches for an astrolabe in his bag to take some readings (what those are we are never told),3 anxious not be seen to use this instrument introduced from the Islamic—and thus heretical, according to the church authorities—world.

1 Lenox globe, c. 1503–1507, New York Public Library, New York, NY, USA. 2 Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, trans. William Weaver (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 421. 3 “The Name of the Rose” (Columbia Pictures, 1986) by Jean-Jacques Annaud.

Astrolabes have lions and dragons aplenty, in fact a whole menagerie of them—the lion as part of the zodiac, amongst the star-pointers and in astrological contexts; the dragon equally appears amongst the constellations, often figuratively on the rete, in astrological contexts and to explain eclipses. But equally research on the astrolabe has lots of lions and dragons in the non-tangible sense. In spite of more than 150 years of scholarly work there re- main many unchartered territories or those where only the coasts have been explored. A commented and illustrated inventory of all surviving astrolabes that goes beyond a mere list4 is still outstanding, in spite of a number of long ongoing projects.5 In the second decade of the twenty-first century one would wish for an online astrolabe portal that enables the user to search an always increasing database by period and region, maker and date, current (or last known) location, with hyperlinks to photos, descriptions, relevant publica- tions and ongoing scholarly discussions and research projects. A database that facilitates interdisciplinary research in a wide variety of contexts in respect to one of the most fascinating instruments that has ever existed—be it art or phi- lology, craftsmanship or technology, ethnology or sociology, economy or law, politics or religion—or a mixture of any of the above. The more we know, the more we are aware how little we know. What were the legal implications of using an astrolabe in the second half of the thirteenth century? What prices were paid for astrolabes in Renaissance Italy and was it possible to make a living based on this? How are astrolabes deployed in films and literature in the second half of the twentieth century and how do the au- diences “read” these? What did a Nuremberg citizen know about astrolabes in the first half of the sixteenth century? Did women make, use, and teach the use of astrolabes in the Islamic World? This Special Issue of Medieval Encounters cannot answer all these questions, of course, but it intends to fill some of the blank areas—to tame at least a few dragons (or lions), so to speak. Petra Schmidl’s article is clear evidence once again (if it was needed) how useful it would be to have the aforementioned astrolabe portal to be able to (re)examine the instruments in detail and to (re)evaluate earlier research

4 Derek de Solla Price and Sharon Gibbs, Computerized Checklist of Astrolabes (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1973). 5 Alain Brieux and Francis R. Maddison, Repertoire des facteurs d’ astrolabes et de leurs oeuvres (forthcoming; at the time of writing and following the death of both authors there are indi- cations that the Repertoire may actually soon be published); David A. King, A Catalogue of Medieval Astronomical Instruments to c. 1500 (forthcoming, see http://www.davidaking.org/ instrument-catalogue.htm). An extract of the online list is given in this issue.

medieval encounters 23 (2017) 3–7